Human Brain project<\/a> in Europe].<\/p>\n\n\n\nPerhaps there are other approaches as well, but these two processes are sufficient to demonstrate the possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Either way, we will see conscious, super-intelligent machines appear to us in public, announced at a press conference, just like Watson. It might take 5 years or it might take 30, but it will happen soon enough because it is inevitable. We see consciousness all around us in the form of billions of people. We know it is possible. Therefore we will replicate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Becoming Irrelevant<\/h2>\n\n\n\n The point is that, one day in the not so distant future, a sentient, conscious, engineered intelligence – the second intelligent species – will appear here on planet earth. At that moment human beings will be well on their way to becoming completely irrelevant to the universe. Yes, there will be a footnote in history about humanity. Something like, “human beings: biological species on earth that facilitated the creation of conscious, intelligent machines on earth. Now extinct.” Something along those lines is what the footnote will say. But that is how irrelevant human beings will become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why will this happen? Why must it happen? Why is it absolutely inevitable? And why is it a foregone conclusion that human beings will become irrelevant once silicon super-intelligence exists – once this second intelligent species appears in electronic form? There are at least three reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, this silicon intelligence, unlike any human intelligence, will have access to all knowable things. Just think about how Watson gathered the knowledge it needed to play Jeopardy. Researchers fed Watson many different types of raw data: the entire contents of Wikipedia, the entire Internet Movie Database, an entire dictionary, the entire Bible, an entire geospatial database, etc. – something around a million pages of information. With that slice of information, Watson was able to beat the best human players at Jeopardy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now imagine an advanced version of Watson that has spidered, fed on and digested the entire contents of the Internet. The smartest human being can know only the tiniest fraction of what this electronic intelligence will have instantaneous access to in its memory. Silicon intelligence will be “smart” and “knowledgeable” in a way humans cannot possibly imagine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second reason is because an electronic consciousness can easily clone itself to create duplicate copies. It is not like a human being, who starts as a baby and takes 20 years to come up to speed on its tiny slice of the world’s knowledge. And never mind the additional decades humans require to achieve “wisdom”. Once a corporation can create one Watson, it is easy to clone it and create a hundred more. Or a million more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The third reason is because all of these copies will be able to get better\/faster\/smarter every day. The day that Watson won the Jeopardy crown, the computers it needed filled a room. Just a few years later, the same computing power fit into something the size of a pizza box. Computers and memory systems have been getting faster and cheaper at a steady pace for decades through Moore’s law. That trend will continue. So one day we will have a computer intelligence that is roughly equivalent to one human intelligence. Then we will have one that is twice as good as human intelligence. Then four times as good. And so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fact that this electronic intelligence will have access to all knowable things, combined with the fact that it can replicate itself, combined with the fact that the electronic foundation upon which it is built gets faster and cheaper every day, is hugely important. And then add one additional fact – once machine intelligence exists and starts ramping up, the pace of progress will radically accelerate. So the machine intelligence can make discoveries and work to improve its own technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Think about a human scientist doing research on the human brain. The human scientist cannot then reach inside his own brain and start changing the wires around to see what will happen. It simply is not possible to do this inside a biological brain. But with a silicon brain the situation is completely different. A robotic researcher doing research on its brain can spin up a thousand artificial brains in the cloud and start experimenting. Want to rewire an artificial brain and see what happens? No problem. Want to dramatically increase the number of neurons in an artificial brain? No problem. Want the artificial brain to run 10 times faster? No problem. Want to experiment with new forms of enhanced or augmented consciousness? No problem. These kinds of things will be trivially easy for robots to try, and their intelligence will therefore increase dramatically, and in ways that humans cannot imagine. Human consciousness is very basic and rudimentary. For example, we can only think about one thing at a time, we forget things, our mental processes are subject to a variety of hormones, we have a very limited range of senses, we have to sleep, etc. Robotic consciousness will quickly eliminate all of these problems and many others, so that robotic consciousness in the second intelligent species makes human consciousness look pathetic by comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is why humans will inevitably, and quickly, become irrelevant once the first computer intelligence appears. The initial version of the second intelligent species will be roughly equivalent to a human. But then the computer intelligence will advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To an advancing and improving computer intelligence, human beings will start to look like chimpanzees look to us. What I mean by that is the following: think about the way humans understand chimpanzees today. Humans are very closely related to chimpanzees, but we understand that chimps are nothing like humans in terms of intelligence. Chimps are sub-human. Humans keep chimpanzees in zoos, or we let them run around in nature preserves. We certainly do not give chimpanzees drivers licenses or let them rent apartments in a city – that would be silly because chimpanzees have no way to take on those responsibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Computer intelligence will advance, and to this advanced intelligence, humans will start looking like chimpanzees do to us. Version 2.0 of the second intelligent species will significantly outpace human capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then computer intelligence will advance again. Version 3.0 will start to think about human beings in the same way that human beings think about birds or squirrels in the yard. Birds are nice, but largely irrelevant to us. And if they get in the way (for example pigeons in the city) we have no qualms about killing them to get them out of the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then the second intelligent species will advance again, and it will think about humans in the same way that humans think about cockroaches. Version 4.0 of the second intelligent species will vastly outpace humanity in terms of intellect and understanding, so that humans will look absolutely primitive to it. Cockroaches are not tolerated by humans because they are insects. When cockroaches appear we instantly kill them and don’t give the killing process a second thought because cockroaches are so far “beneath us” on the evolutionary scale. In addition, we have no use or need for cockroaches. Same thing with mosquitoes and many other insects. The world would be better off without them, as far as humans are concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is, in essence, how the second intelligent species will look upon humanity. From this vantage point, a machine intelligence will then look at humanity, and humanity’s many bizarre and often appalling behaviors. As mentioned in Chapter 1:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Humans are rapidly destroying the planet we live on.<\/li> Humans are about to cause a massive extinction event and are doing nothing of significance to stop it.<\/li> Humans may very well destroy the entire earth ecosystem and in the process destroy ourselves<\/li> Humans seem to have few concerns as a society about the ramifications of what we are doing.<\/li> Humans happily let half of humanity live in unbearable poverty.<\/li> Humans allow the wealth of modern society to concentrate in a few.<\/li> Humans spend trillions of dollars on the tools of war instead of spending the money on more beneficial things like education, food or useful infrastructure.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n