Ben Goertzel: Some people are gravely worried about the uncertainty and the negative potential associated with transhuman, superhuman AGI. And indeed we are stepping into a great unknown realm.
Its almost like a Rorschach type of thing really. I mean we fundamentally dont know what a superhuman AI is going to do and thats the truth of it, right. And then if you tend to be an optimist you will focus on the good possibilities. If you tend to be a worried person whos pessimistic youll focus on the bad possibilities. If you tend to be a Hollywood movie maker you focus on scary possibilities maybe with a happy ending because thats what sells movies. We dont know whats going to happen.
I do think however this is the situation humanity has been in for a very long time. When the cavemen stepped out of their caves and began agriculture we really had no idea that was going to lead to cities and space flight and so forth. And when the first early humans created language to carry out simple communication about the moose they had just killed over there they did not envision Facebook, differential calculus and MC Hammer and all the rest, right. I mean theres so much that has come about out of early inventions which humans couldnt have ever foreseen. And I think were just in the same situation. I mean the invention of language or civilization could have led to everyones death, right. And in a way it still could. And the creation of superhuman AI it could kill everyone and I dont want it to. Almost none of us do.
Of course the way we got to this point as a species and a culture has been to keep doing amazing new things that we didnt fully understand. And thats what were going to keep on doing. Nick Bostroms book was influential but I felt that in some ways it was a bit deceptive the way he phrased things. If you read his precise philosophical arguments which are very logically drawn what Bostrom says in his book, Superintelligence, is that we cannot rule out the possibility that a superintelligence will do some very bad things. And thats true. On the other hand some of the associated rhetoric makes it sound like its very likely a superintelligence will do these bad things. And if you follow his philosophical arguments closely he doesnt show that. What he just shows is that you cant rule it out and we dont know whats going on.
I dont think Nick Bostrom or anyone else is going to stop the human race from developing advanced AI because its a source of tremendous intellectual curiosity but also of tremendous economic advantage. So if lets say President Trump decided to ban artificial intelligence research I dont think hes going to but suppose he did. China will keep doing artificial intelligence research. If U.S. and China ban it, you know, Africa will do it. Everywhere around the world has AI textbooks and computers. And everyone now knows you can make peoples lives better and make money from developing more advanced AI. So theres no possibility in practice to halt AI development. What we can do is try to direct it in the most beneficial direction according to our best judgment. And thats part of what leads me to pursue AGI via an open source project such as OpenCog. I respect very much what Google, Baidu, Facebook, Microsoft and these other big companies are doing in AI. Theres many good people there doing good research and with good hearted motivations. But I guess Im enough of an old leftist raised by socialists and I sort of Im skeptical that a company whose main motive is to maximize shareholder value is really going to do the best thing for the human race if they create a human level AI.
I mean they might. On the other hand theres a lot of other motivations there and a public company in the end has a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. All in all I think the odds are better if AI is developed in a way that is owned by the whole human race and can be developed by all of humanity for its own good. And open source software is sort of the closest approximation that we have to that now. So our aspiration is to grow OpenCog into sort of the Linux of AGI and have people all around the world developing it to serve their own local needs and putting their own values and understanding into it as it becomes more and more intelligent.
Certainly this doesnt give us any guarantee. We can observe things like Linux has fewer bugs than Windows or OSX and its open source. So more eyeballs on something sometimes can make it more reliable. But theres no solid guarantee that making an AGI open source will make the singularity come out well. But my gut feel is that theres enough hard problems with creating a superhuman AI and having it respect human values and have a relationship of empathy with people as it grows. Theres enough problems there without the young AGI getting wrapped up in competition of country versus country and company versus company and internal politics within companies or militaries. I feel like we dont want to add these problems of sort of human slash primate social status competition dynamics. We dont want to add those problems into the challenges that are faced in AGI development.
Read more from the original source:
It's Already Too Late to Stop the Singularity - Big Think
- Seattle faith groups reckon with AI and what it means to be truly human - Seattle Times - November 12th, 2019
- Mexico in 2030: Discover the Top 12 Trends to Drive Decision-Making - PRNewswire - November 12th, 2019
- Terminator: Dark Fate Arnie's back, but he should have stayed away - The Irish Times - October 24th, 2019
- Do transhumanists need their own bill of rights? - Quartz - October 23rd, 2019
- The finale issue of House of X/Powers of X: We dig into every detail - Polygon - October 13th, 2019
- Are LED lights and other techno-implants slowly turning us into the Borg? - SYFY WIRE - October 13th, 2019
- Could a robot be prime minister? Machines will soon be smart enough to run the world, says futurist - CBC.ca - October 13th, 2019
- Scissor Sisters' Ana Matronic, Phill Jupitus and Johnny Ball to star in Festival of the Future in Dundee - The Courier - October 13th, 2019
- Sports Man of the Future - The Good Men Project - October 13th, 2019
- Ben Affleck Promises a Heroic Batman in 'Justice League' - TVOvermind - August 16th, 2017
- Transhumanism could lead to immortality for the elite - Gears Of Biz - August 6th, 2017
- The risk of a transhumanist future - BioEdge - August 6th, 2017
- William Gibson: what we talk about, when we talk about dystopia - Boing Boing - August 4th, 2017
- Transhumanism: Can technology help mankind transcend its natural limitations? - Scroll.in - August 3rd, 2017
- AI and Transhumanism: Could Quest for Super-intelligence and Eternal Life Lead to a Dystopian Nightmare? - Newsweek - August 1st, 2017
- Transhumanists May Lead Us Into a Dystopian Future - Inverse - August 1st, 2017
- Opinion: Super-intelligence and eternal lifetranshumanism's faithful follow it blindly into a future for the elite - Phys.Org - July 31st, 2017
- Liam Payne Joins Ranks of Trans-Supportive Celebrities - PopCrush - PopCrush - July 28th, 2017
- What the Gay Lobby Doesn't Want You to Know - Church Militant - Church Militant - July 26th, 2017
- SIMPLE CREATURE Review - Film Pulse - July 26th, 2017
- Southern Kaduna crises: Porous boarders responsible for free e - Daily Trust - July 15th, 2017
- Get bloody with Butcher's free Steam demo | PCGamesN - PCGamesN - July 15th, 2017
- The Soul of the Matter Now in Paperback; Read Bruce Buff's Thriller on Intelligent Design! - Discovery Institute - July 13th, 2017
- Government moves to save farmers - The Nation Newspaper - July 5th, 2017
- Synergy Between Torah and Science: How Far is TOO Far? - Breaking Israel News - July 5th, 2017
- Transhumanism just another 'religion' in which man seeks to become God - WND.com - July 2nd, 2017
- How to stay pro-tech when social media can eat young lives - New Scientist - July 1st, 2017
- An Interview with Rick Rosner on Women and the Future (Part 1) - The Good Men Project (blog) - June 29th, 2017
- Butcher review - ThisisXbox (press release) (blog) - June 26th, 2017
- Video and Photos: Trans Marchers Celebrate the Passing of Trans Human Rights Bill - Torontoist - June 24th, 2017
- Meet The Biohacking Pioneers Who Are Redesigning Their Own Bodies - Co.Design (blog) - June 23rd, 2017
- Our Outdated Debates - First Things - June 23rd, 2017
- New iOS Games and Apps of the Week: PS4 PlayLink and more - The iPad Guide - June 16th, 2017
- Colin McEnroe: It's 2027, Hartford's On The Cutting Edge - Hartford Courant - June 1st, 2017
- We'll support gov't end nomadic herdsmen conflict Group - Citifmonline - May 28th, 2017
- [ May 25, 2017 ] Transhumanism: Engineering Utopia Culture - Conatus News - May 26th, 2017
- Video Review | Butcher - Big Boss Battle - Big Boss Battle (blog) - May 17th, 2017
- The Surge launch trailer shows what happens when good robots go bad - PCGamesN - May 13th, 2017
- Armed conflicts: Nigeria to implement ECOWAS trans-human movement - The Nation Newspaper - May 11th, 2017
- New Rapid 2D Blood-Soaked Shooter Butcher Receives Launch ... - Gameranx (blog) - May 11th, 2017
- Butcher Review If Murder Is Your Thing, Butcher Is Your Thing - COGconnected (press release) - May 9th, 2017
- Book review: Author delves into transhumanist movement in 'To Be a Machine' - SCNow - May 7th, 2017
- 'Resident Evil: Code Veronica X', 'Butcher' Hit PS4 This Week! - Bloody Disgusting - May 7th, 2017
- Transhumanism and cheap laughs: podcasts of the week - The Guardian - May 6th, 2017
- From a 16th-Century Book to a Robot-Assisted Performance, Artists Explore the Legend of the Golem - Hyperallergic - May 6th, 2017
- The Techno-Libertarians Praying for Dystopia - Yahoo Tech - May 2nd, 2017
- BUTCHER, a 2D tribute to the Doom series from the makers of Soldat, hits PS4 and Xbox One in May 2017! - Develop - April 28th, 2017
- Belladonna Productions, ZDF Enterprises Team For 'Genesis' | Variety - Variety - April 23rd, 2017
- Immortal Cyborgs: Is This Humanity's Future? - theTrumpet.com - April 21st, 2017
- God in the machine: my strange journey into transhumanism - The Guardian - April 19th, 2017
- Book review: Author delves into transhumanist movement in 'To Be a Machine' - Fredericksburg.com - April 17th, 2017
- Crunchyroll - New "ID-0" Trailer Introduces the Transhuman I ... - Crunchyroll News - April 13th, 2017
- The Disrupted Generation - h+ Magazine - April 12th, 2017
- Home - Believer - April 7th, 2017
- Rubio Announces 5-EP Series With Two Bone-Chilling New Tracks - Remezcla (blog) - April 7th, 2017
- Afrofuturism Tries to Find its Footing in Virtual Reality - The Chicago Maroon - April 7th, 2017
- Anarki is a Transhuman Punk in the latest Quake Champions trailer - Warp Zoned - April 2nd, 2017
- BUTCHER, a rapid skill-based carnage from the makers of Soldat, is coming to PS4 and Xbox One - Develop - March 23rd, 2017
- Immigration launches new regulations to check terrorism, herders/farmers clashes - Daily Trust - March 21st, 2017
- Thinking Machines, book review: AI, past, present and future - ZDNet - March 21st, 2017
- South Dakota Law Protects Adoption Agencies From LGBT Parenting - Church Militant - March 17th, 2017
- Beaming in from SXSW - Cosmos - March 17th, 2017
- A Mutant Holocaust In 'Logan' - WAMC - March 17th, 2017
- Man merges with machine - SunLive (blog) - March 10th, 2017
- If you cry at work, pretend it's because you're very passionate about ... - Boing Boing - March 10th, 2017
- Could This Transhumanist Be the next Governor of California? - Big Think - March 8th, 2017
- Zoltan Istvan on transhumanism, politics and why the human body ... - Lifeboat Foundation (blog) - February 23rd, 2017
- In Conversation With: Priyanka Lama at London Fashion Week - VERVE - February 20th, 2017
- Technology for the body on the road to cyborgs? - WAtoday - February 19th, 2017
- Welcome to the era of transhumanism - New Atlas - February 17th, 2017
- Transhuman: A New Documentary on People Who Want to Live Forever - The Libertarian Republic - February 6th, 2017
- A Pulse on Fashion - NC State News - February 6th, 2017
- Westworld: A Gnostic Tale of Illuminati Luciferianism ... - January 19th, 2017
- Nick Knight - Home - December 7th, 2016
- Transhumanismus Wikipedia - December 7th, 2016
- FM-2030 - Wikipedia - November 30th, 2016
- Transhuman - Wikipedia - October 17th, 2016
- Library - Transhuman- Shoud 1 - October 17th, 2016
- TransHuman Consulting | About Us - September 18th, 2016
- Official Soldat Forums - July 3rd, 2016