Sect.10
Will Artificial Intelligence surpass human intelligence, or has it already? Is this something we should worry about?
I don't think it has happened yet, but I think we're getting incredibly close, and if we truly wanted to, if everyone agreed that AI should become self-aware, it could likely be done very quickly. A 10 MB hard drive from the 1960's was around the diameter of a car wheel and cost thousands of dollars. Now you can get a flash drive that stores 32 GB for around twenty dollars. That is 32,000 MBs of space.
Technology seems to be advancing in computing exponentially, in a decade we have gone from flip-phones to phones that are as powerful as some laptops from that past decade. Computer storage, as stated before has also improved rapidly. In 2009 1 TB hard drives did exist, but were not common. Usually these disks had a capacity of 150GB-500GB, which isn't too shabby, but keep in mind also the most space we can get in a single hard drive today is 15 TB. Meaning the most uncommon drive a decade ago was 15x smaller than the ones of today. With all this in mind, why don't we have artificially intelligent free thinking robot servants yet? If we've made such incredible progress in the last 10 years alone, what's stopping us from making such advancements in AI?
The answer I believe is not solely rooted in our technological capabilities, rather our fear of AI that has been deeply rooted in us from Science Fiction. Ever since authors have been writing about evil Robots we have feared the possibility of their existence. Steven Hawking, one of the most famous scientists of our age even fears what AI could spell for the human race: The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race: "...It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded". Computer scientists and programmers do not fear storage space, therefore they have no reservations about advancing it. AI is a completely different story, and they have every right to be worried if reality does indeed turn out to be stranger than fiction.
On the other hand, the brain really is incredibly complex. Machines can certainly process information faster and more accurately than we, already; but can ever they replicate our spontaneity, our unpredictability, our quirky subjectivity... ? It's an empirical question, someday an answer will come. Sooner or later... Meanwhile, aren't they entirely enslaved to their coded programming? But here's the really uncomfortable question: are we programmed too?
ReplyDeleteI agree that the brain is an incredibly complex machine. Yes, it can be compared to a computer. However, the networks of the brain are so much more complex than a computer and information can run through multiple networks in the brain, while in a computer that is not usually the case. Also, the capacity of long-term storage in the brain is said to be nearly unlimited, while computers definitely have a limit to what they can hold. Also, it seems that the functioning of the brain outlasts the functioning of a computer.
ReplyDeleteI agree that our technology is upgrading very fast. I dont think it will ever past our brain. Our brains are often compared to a well oiled machine due to how well they operate. No machine will have the ability to fix itself when its down already.
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