Re: EJ and Technical Development

[Ulrich Oswald <uoswald@access.ch>]

Bertil Haggman wrote:
  ...........
  Artificial intelligence, an overview of robotics
  research and experimentation in academic
  institutions and technology's prominence as a
  theme within fictional writing are all part of
  Warwick's study of how rapidly and - he argues -
  uncontrollably machines are beginning to engineer
  the human race instead of the other way around.
  ........
  We humans are presently the dominant life form on
  Earth mainly because of our overall intelligence.

  It is possible for machines to become more
  intelligent than humans in the reasonably near
  future.

  Machines will then become the dominant life form
  on earth.

  Various robots have been designed and built in
  order to prove and demonstrate important aspects
  of machine intelligence, such as learning,
  communication and individual behaviour, which is
  presented in the book.
  .........
  Advancements in robotics, particularly in optical
  and biological systems are also speeding up
  intelligent machines' abilities to move, operate
  and be effective in the everyday world.
........

  These will be not only more intelligent than
  humans but also exhibit a significant number of
  advantages; they will be faster, more reliable,
  quicker to learn and more robust.
  ........
  As usual EJ may have been right all along. If in
  peace and war this is what we will experience his
  prognosis could have been correct since the 1920s.
  Can man really control the technical development
  in the 21st century ?

  Greetings

  Bertil Haggman
 _______________________________________________________________

Dear friends

A.) Do you remember the pun in that little story "Im Blindenviertel - In
the blind's quarter" (Das
abenteuerliche Herz - the adventurous heart) ? The seeing stranger is
having a nice discussion
with his blind host, and neither want to have a dull or onesided or
offending conversation but one with a common subject of experience, so
they talk about - Das Unvorhergesehene, the unforeseen.

B.) Last weekend I read "The Symbolic Species; The Co-Evolution of
Language and the Brain"
by    Terrence W. Deacon. The statements in a nutshell: 1. There is no
"simple" language. All
languages are very complex and in contrast easily learned by kids but
only in a small time
window from the age between around 1 to 4 years. 2. There is no
primitive  language used
by any other kind of living creature that may be taken as an
evolutionary intermediate. What
Kanzi, the famous Bonobo ape, can do in experimental environment and
after hard training (but not
from nature) is astonishing but in no way comparable what children
easily do by themselves.
The evolution of speech is therefore a huge anomality on earth. 3. In
humans only the gross
brain/body relationship differs from apes consisting mainly in an
enlargement of the prefrontal lobes.
Otherwise the gross brain structure is the same in humans and apes.  4.
There is no closely
defined center of speech. The motoric center of Broca and the sensoric
center of Wernicke (which,
when distroyed, lead to aphasia) seem to be only critically narrow
connections for information conduction ("buses" in computer terms).
Instead speech is produced all over the brain, perhaps in relation to
the semantics of the words that are generated. Also the unilaterality is
only seemingly, since in people who do simultanous translations both
sides of the brain are equally activated while translating, as seen in
positron emission tomography (PET). 5.) As a conclusion: human speech is
NOT in the first line a result of an alteration (enlargening) of brain
tissue (hardware) but the result of a functional reorganisation of
preexisting brain structures which is specific for humans.

C.) It is common kowledge that the human brain consists of 10 exp 10
nerve cells and that every
cell is connected with the others by myriads of synapses. What's more:
these synapses are selectively impaired or enhanced in their quality as
a result of learning, thus continuously altering the structure of the
whole organic hardware which is called plasticity of the brain. This
makes a number of possible connections which is far beyond our
understanding and imagination and which is certainly a lot greater than
is to be expected to be built in computers, not only in near future but
also in the long run. So, unless there is also such an unforeseen
reorganisation of all known algorithms going to happen in computers as
an alike huge anomality as in the evolution of mankind  (which I think
is not probable), the above mentioned speculations on artificial
intelligence are not based on evidence that can be taken from elsewhere
in human science.

D.) But the unforeseen may happen. In this case I would expect an
increase of logical intelligence in computers, halfway comparable to
speech,  halfway to behaviours of giant statebuilding ants or bees
(sic!), but not of emotional intelligence. Emotions are very common but
equally complex biological phenomenons in animals and humans as are
logical procedures, and they are very close to vegetative functions
present in all brains, at least of vertebrates, and are easily
communicated by non verbal expressions as we all know from our pets and
from ourselves.

E.) According to Schopenhauer, in whose argumentation I can find nothing
wrong, we would all kill ourselves in despair if we were exclusively
rational beings  relating only on our "Anschauung", because the world is
indeed a bad place (and for several reasons hardly a better one for
robots), and the idea of our natural and inevitable death is offending.
Were it not for the "Wille", namely our deep and animalic emotions,
which seem to be such a strong force that they keep us alive against the
pure logic of our existence. We know from modern psychiatry that this
inborn will to live can be destroyed as a consequence to depression -
which is the major cause for suicide - and can be reestablished by
adequate medical treatment.

F.) If future computers achieve an artificial intelligence beyond of
what we humans possess; and if
this intelligence is only a logical one, then I expect a spectacle of
mass self destruction of
our computers and not a domination of our race by them.

Best regards,

Ulrich Oswald