The Trouble with Gerrold: Artificial stupidity
April 6, 2012 —
(Page 3 of 3)
True intelligence—sentience—has to be self-informing. It has to have the ability to learn. It needs to be able to recognize and adjust to circumstances not hardwired in. It would be able to model new patterns of information as it encountered them and consider the consequences of various actions. So that’s the next piece of the puzzle: the ability to create appropriate responses to unfamiliar situations.
When we see dolphins create new hunting patterns to catch fish in shallow waters, or chimps using sticks as tools to pry termites out of nests, when we see squirrels running obstacle courses to get to the bird feeder, and ants finding new routes to an unrinsed soda can, we are seeing how intelligence functions in practice: “I’m hungry, here’s food. I’ll try this and see if it gets me food.”
Indeed, this may be the evolutionary source of intelligence. Dr. Jack Cohen, a British biologist who informs the work of many science fiction writers, including Terry Pratchett and Anne McCaffrey (and myself), says that “Intelligence arises first in predators, because how smart do you have to be to sneak up on a blade of grass?” As predators become smarter, prey animals must develop stronger defenses, thus an evolutionary arms race is born. As intelligence develops, it becomes an evolutionary advantage.
The roots of language can be found in all the different calls that penguins and whales and cats and apes use to communicate with each other. At some point in the evolutionary history of our species, language and the resultant symbology achieved a critical threshold, an ability in the species to store and communicate experience. The result was that functioning intelligence hit a critical mass and our species became something else entirely: cognitive.
Some anthropologists believe that the tipping point occurred when primitive humans began burying their dead with weapons and pottery and trinkets. A burial suggests a ritual, and a ritual suggests a recognition of the personhood of the deceased. This certainly fits in with current theories that true intelligence—sentience—requires self-awareness. Not just awareness of one’s own self, but also awareness of the self-ness of others.
We see it in elephants and dolphins and dogs. We call it empathy. It’s a recognition of other people’s ability to hurt. (Autism is a kind of emotional blindness to the self-ness of others. While many autistic people have enormous cognitive ability—what we call “savants”—their ability to function is impaired by their inability to empathize with the feelings of others.)
Self-awareness as a philosophical construct is often summed up as cogito ergo sum: “I think, therefore I am.” More recent philosophers are unwilling to put Descartes before the horse. Many feel it’s more appropriate to say, “I think I think, therefore I think I am. I think.” That is, we have thoughts, but are we really thinking or are we just having thoughts? (Yes, I know. That one makes my brain hurt too.)
A key component of self-awareness is self-image. As a sentient being becomes aware of himself as an actor within his circumstances, he also creates an idealized image, a model of how a good person should behave. And this may be the heart of all neuroses. The human being worries, “Am I good person? Did I do right?” Dogs, cows, elephants and sea otters do not.
The point is that as we open the Pandora’s box of synthesizing intelligence, we are going to be dealing with some very interesting artifacts: unintended and unforeseen consequences, not the least of which is that as awareness grows, so does identity, and with identity comes the need to survive, and that triggers the development of emotions and all the attendant mishigoss that comes with emotions.
Marvin the Paranoid Android might be inevitable.
David Gerrold is the author of over 50 books, several hundred articles and columns, and over a dozen television episodes, including the famous "Star Trek" episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles." He is also an authority on computer software and programming, and takes a broad view of the evolution of advanced technologies. Readers may remember Gerrold from the Computer Language Magazine forum on CompuServe, where he was a frequent and prolific contributor in the 1990s.
Related Search Term(s): artificial intelligence
Share this link: http://sdt.bz/36507
Most Read
Latest News
Resources
SAP unveils SAP HANA platform innovations for Big Data and spatial processing
Features include smart data access and expanded cloud deployment options
|
|
|
Alteryx raises $12 million to put Big Data analytics in the hands of all business analysts
Quest founder's firm, Toba Capital, selects Alteryx as its first analytics investment
|
|
|
Google I/O kicks off
Developers get new APIs and tools, and the Go language hits version 1.1
|
|
|
Jelastic launches new version of its Java and PHP hosting platform
Jelastic today announced the launch of a new version of its ultra-scalable cloud hosting platform
|
Telerik adds back-end services to Icenium mobile tool suite
Icenium Everlive makes the suite a complete app development platform, the company says
|
|
|
CollabNet fuses CloudForge, TeamForge
New pricing structure and integration gives developers an enterprise-grade choice for dist...
|
|
|
Eclipse release train for Kepler arrives June 26
New version of Eclipse includes Stardust for business process management, and Orion 3.0 fo...
|
|
|
Google I/O kicks off
Developers get new APIs and tools, and the Go language hits version 1.1
|
IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Testing and ASQ SaaS
Demand for solutions to test applications on the cloud and for the cloud is rising signifi...
|
|
|
Get to Know the Database Decision Factors
What should you look for when choosing a relational database system? This informative arti...
|
|
|
Exploring the Database Forest
Today’s database technology landscape is more dynamic and varied than ever before. What’s...
|
|
|
Data Management Resource Guide
Today’s data is generated by more than just applications. Data is generated by trillions o...
|