Steve Wozniak Now Afraid of AI Too, Just Like Elon Musk 294
quax writes Steve Wozniak maintained for a long time that true AI is relegated to the realm of science fiction. But recent advances in quantum computing have him reconsidering his stance. Just like Elon Musk, he is now worried about what this development will mean for humanity. Will this kind of fear actually engender the dangers that these titans of industry fear? Will Steve Wozniak draw the same conclusion and invest in quantum comuting to keep an eye on the development? One of the bloggers in the field thinks that would be a logical step to take. If you can't beat'em, and the quantum AI is coming, you should at least try to steer the outcome. Woz actually seems more ambivalent than afraid, though: in the interview linked, he says "I hope [AI-enabling quantum computing] does come, and we should pursue it because it is about scientific exploring." "But in the end we just may have created the species that is above us."
Re:Quantum Computing Required? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was just having this discussion with a friend of mine who is a professor in this area. We were discussing the foundations of intelligence and this was her response:
" From my perspective, the best place to look for the basis of human intelligence would be the comparison of other animals’ brains to humans’ — because we are obviously the most intelligent animal, or at least the most agentic with our civilization-across-all-climates thing. Number of neurons alone cannot be the biological substrate of intelligence, because animals like whales have more neurons than we do*. It seems like the “scale” of the brain matters very much, too. Primates (e.g., humans) rule the intelligence hierarchy, and all primates have much more compact brains than other mammals; our neurons can communicate much faster, because they are closer together and properly insulated. However, among primates, humans have the same scale of neurons as other primates but we also have the most neurons out of all the primates (i.e., our brain efficiency is the same as chimps, but our brain is larger in size). So, it’s clearly a little bit of both: having a lot of neurons is good, but the efficiency of those neurons is of fundamental importance.
Human brains still have a few interesting differences from other primate brains, which I think further hint at the basis of intelligence: humans continue to generate new neurons (“neurogenesis”) throughout our lives, whereas primates have very little if any neurogenesis after birth! That’s got to count for something. Also, it seems that connections between the neurons in human brains change more rapidly in some areas of the cortex than other areas, whereas we are pretty positive that changes between neuronal connections occur at an equal rate throughout all areas of primates’ brains. This means that different areas of human brains can mature at different rates, which is probably rather helpful for us. Conversely, primates’ brains mature constantly across all regions, no matter what their function and when in development it is needed."
Assuming she is correct, quantum computing would greatly increase the amount of connections & speed between computer 'neurons', assuming we are talking about an AI programmed with a neural network.
Re:Quantum Computing Required? (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's the dots that have been connected:
1. Quantum mechanics is "weird", and seems like a magical thing because it goes against common sense.
2. Quantum computing therefore must have some magical abilities because it relies on quantum mechanics.
3. AI is also weird and strange, so must need a weird and strange thing to make it happen.
4. Nearly 40 years ago Steve Wozniak popularized the personal computer through some innovative designs, and "he knows about these computer things" and is officially smart. He hasn't done much since, knows nothing about AI, Quantum computing, or Quantum mechanics, but it doesn't matter because he's viewed as a god like person because of the work he did nearly 40 years ago, so he must know something the rest of us don't.
We *will* create a species greater than ourselves (Score:5, Interesting)
It's only a matter of when. Even if all strictly computational AI research stops tomorrow, we'll be able to genetically enhance human intelligence by and by, even if it takes several thousand genetic manipulations to do it.
When direct neural I/O becomes a thing, millions (or billions) of people will be directly, electronically linked via the internet. Tell me that's not a new form of intelligence.
For that matter, we'll almost certainly develop at least one form of AI the way nature did. We'll cobble up some genetic algorithms primed to develop the silicon equivalent of neurons, give them some problems to solve, and perhaps a robot or two to control, and we eventually "grow" an AI that way.
But look, it's not the end of us, or anything else. We merge with the things. Our thoughts become linked with theirs. If we can transfer all memory, then eventually we *become* the AI, perhaps with a few spare physical copies of ourselves kept for amusement purposes.
Will AIs fight? There will be conflicts, of course. There always are. Resource conflicts, however, will be minimal. An AI doesn't need much, and can figure out how to get enough more efficiently than we can. Conflicts will be over other matters and are unlikely to be fatal.
Wozniak, et. al. need to chill. It's just evolution.
Re:Quantum Computing Required? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Quantum Computing Required? (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a few things in there that made me raise an eyebrow. Humans don't really experience much neurogenesis. There are some areas where new neurons can form, under certain conditions, but they tend to be special purpose ones, and the older structures in the brain as well. The thing that really differentiates us from other animals is our overdeveloped cortex, particularly the frontal lobes, but the neurogenesis that's been found is mostly in the deep gray matter and is more associated with things like motor coordination and reward processing. One interesting exception is the hippocampus which is known to be important in memory formation. Indirect hints of neurogenesis in the cortex have been reported, but other methods that should turn them up haven't, so the evidence is contradictory. I'm also not aware of neurogenesis being particularly pronounced in humans. It occurs in other primates, and in other vertebrates.
There does seem to be a connection between intelligence and the brain to body size ratio. Bigger bodies require more neurons to carry and process sensory and motor information, and these neurons are probably not involved in intelligence.
What we call intelligence seems to me to be likely an emergent property of a bunch of neurons that don't have any pressing sensory or motor tasks keeping them busy. Various factors affecting communication efficiency and interconnection among neurons are probably important, but these can be disrupted quite a bit in human disease and the sufferers don't lose their human intelligence (although their cognitive abilities do decline). I don't think there's a magic humans-have-it-and-nobody-else-does bullet. Human intelligence is just what lots of animals have with lots of extra capacity, possibly redirection from other things (like senses) to boost that capacity, and maybe a few tweaks for optimizing neurons that talk to themselves over ones that communicate with the body.
Re:Quantum Computing Required? (Score:4, Interesting)
There is some investigation that suggests that quantum consciousness is possible based on interactions between microtubule structures inside of neurons.
Ah, you're well-read. :) AIUI, the primary benefits of the quantum-microtubule model are: 1) increasing the order-of-magnitude complexity of the human brain by several digits. At least 10x more interconnections, almost certainly 100x, likely 1000x, maybe 10000x.
But there isn't really anything to suggest that much more happens inside of the brain that can't be explained by the classical interactions between axons and dendrites of a typical neural network that can be modeled satisfactorily by a simulation.
It's that the known estimates of the the number of classical connections don't seem to match up with the complexity observed. We're not too far away from being able to simulate a classical brain, but many Moore generations away from being able to simulate a quantum-microtubule brain.
2) There doesn't seem to be a great model for consciousness arising from classical connections. Consciousness modeled as a quantum superposition has several benefits for theory to match observation.
This shouldn't be surprising or an intellectual obstacle - plants have been doing quantum tricks for billions of years (photosynthesis) and due to the inherent thermodynamic efficiency gains of quantum processes, evolution should eventually stumble on and exploit them in many (all?) modes of evolution.
Chemical, electrical, topological (Score:4, Interesting)
To date, zero evidence of any active quantum process modulating the workings of human (or other) brains, regardless of low level structure, has been presented.
Consider a bipolar transistor. It is true that quantum effects make it work, in the sense that it definitely wouldn't work without them, but they are not, in any way, used to modulate or otherwise participate in actively, variably, moderating what the transistor does when actually performing -- amplifying, switching, etc. That process is exclusively moderated by current (electron) flow quantity -- for example, you modulate the current flow, the transistor accordingly modulates the current flowing between the collector and emitter. A bipolar transistor does not respond to quantum events (nor are any applied to it within the circuits we use every day), nor does it produce quantum outputs for the purpose of affecting other components.
The same can be said of the brain. Quantum effects are present -- we know this because two of the three active brain building blocks (chemistry, electricity) are what they are due to low level quantum effects. But just as one can very accurately model and simulate or emulate a transistor and its activities without ever considering anything at all on the quantum level, so it is with neurons -- all the evidence, bar none, presently says that brain operations are performed using chemical, electrical and topological moderation. Of quantum moderation there has been absolutely no sign at all.
Active quantum effects do play a role in some natural systems. For instance, quantum superposition is an active mechanism in photosynthesis. This was discovered because in photosynthesis something very low-level, but obvious (extreme high efficiency in energy conversion) was happening that could not be explained; when they went looking for what the mechanism for that was (by examining the precise states of molecular photosynthetic antenna proteins), that's the mechanism that was found.
The critical difference is that neurons and glia have not been found to exhibit any low level behaviors that are otherwise inexplicable.
The vast majority of speculation that "quantum" processes actively modulate brain operations is uninformed, typically brought about by fundamental misunderstandings of quantum effects, which in turn have been disseminated by the popular media attempting to "simplify" quantum mechanics for the layperson. Among the exceptions, none of the suggested ideas have yet to be backed by any evidence; there's no reason to think that they will hold up at this juncture. Determining that quantum modulation was ongoing would also have to be accompanied by the discovery of a presently unknown and non-indicated modulating mechanism -- but there's presently no evidence for that to even stimulate a question along those lines.
The relevant, fundamental question with regard to AI is: Can we, using other technology such as software emulation and hardware neural analogs, perform the same kinds of operations as a neuron, with all known modulating effects of the glia (propagation delay, synaptic neurotransmitter uptake, topological scaffolding/ specificity)? The answer to that is a definite yes. Consequently, just as with modeling and emulating a transistor's function, there has been, and no future likelihood portends of, any role for quantum operations whatsoever.
So when someone -- even someone as interesting and accomplished in other fields as Wozniak is -- starts talking about quantum computing ushering in AI in some fashion, you may rest assured that they are not talking about anything known to be valid in AI research today. However, he has drawn the correct conclusion from his incorrect perception of brain operations: The impending debut of artificial intelligence is not science fiction. Simply given that we can keep working on it (no nuclear wars, bad law, etc.), research is now
Re:OMFG (Score:5, Interesting)
This might not initially sound like a problem if one pictures himself being on the winning side of the shift, but the bottom can only get knocked so far out before you run into problems with insufficient consumer demand or outright civil unrest.
Why do you think almost every sci-fi dystopia has robot guards/goons? Today being rich is a lot about being able to pay poorer people to work for you, tomorrow it's about being able to buy the robots instead. Sure there'll be jobs, routed around by global mega-corporations depending on where labor is the best value for money and most politically and socially stable but the rich will have to deal less and less with the riffraff. The few trusted people you need and the highly skilled workers to keep the automation society going will be well rewarded, keeping the middle class from joining the rest.
I'm not sure how worried I am about an AI, since it could also develop a conscience. I'm more worried about highly sophisticated tools that has no objections to their programming, no matter what you tell them to do. How many Nazis would it take to run a death camp using robots? How many agents do you need if you revive the DDR and feed it all the location, communication, money transfers, social media, facial recognition information and data mine it? All with an unwavering loyalty, massive control span, immense attention to detail and no conscious objectors.
If someone asked people as little as 30 years ago if we'd all be walking around with location tracking devices, nobody would believe you. But we do, because it's practical. I pay most my bills electronically and not in cash, because it's practical. Where and when I drive a toll road is recorded, there's no cash option either you have a chip or they just take your photo and send the bill, most find it practical. I'm guessing any self-driving car will constantly tell where it is so it can get updated road and traffic data, like what Tesla does only a lot less voluntary. Convenience is how privacy will die, why force surveillance down our throats when you can just sugarcoat it a little?