Computers or Humans, Which Will Achieve Superintelligence First?

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Here's an interesting little Web article by Peter Voss on "Why Machines Will Become Hyper-Intelligent before Humans Do," the arguments of yet another artificial intelligence researcher on why AI is going to leave all other sentient beings in the dust. In Peter's own words:

These notes detail some of the reasons why it will be much easier to build hyper-intelligent non-organic machines, than to dramatically enhance individual human intelligence – why SI (super intelligences) will appear before radical human IA (intelligence augmentation).

In this context, super/ hyper intelligence refers to general intelligence far exceeding current top human abilities in (at least) the areas of abstract thinking, innovation, and practical problem solving; Systems obviously clever enough to understand human language and affairs, science and technology, and – crucially – to be able to
radically enhance their own design.

He adds:

Individual versus collective smarts/ Maximum versus aggregate intelligence – Individual, maximum intelligence is an overall limiting factor. It imposes limits on the maximum complexity of problems that can be effectively tackled. Quantity can ultimately not make up for quality: A million monkeys can not solve problems that individual humans can – A million porn or Pokemon messages will not cure cancer (see note1). This is not to say that group interaction and collaboration add nothing - they clearly do increase overall smarts.

Rates of change in individual human intelligence, machine ‘intelligence’, and overall human ability -
· Maximum individual intelligence has remained about constant over the past two thousand years: Aristotle - or someone as clever as him - would have formulated a ‘Theory of Relativity’ 2000 years ago given Einstein’s knowledge base
· Overall human knowledge and ability – smarts – has been, and continues to, accumulate and increase exponentially
· Machine intelligence is only just starting to emerge. The last fifty years have seen exponential improvements. I predict that machine progress will become hyper-exponential once near human-level intelligence is reached (causing a self-improvement feedback loop – more details below)

One of Voss' core arguments in favor of artificial superintelligence emerging before human superintelligence is that biological minds are extremely complex, difficult to tamper with, and effectively near the apex of biological evolution already.

Some additional problems with radical human intelligence enhancements/ upgrades:
· The human brain is already highly optimized by thousands of generations – difficult to improve further.
· Substantial difficulties with experimentation, development, and implementation:
a) Practical/ technical - see above: re-boot, hack, duplicate, increase speed, etc.
b) Social opposition – eg ‘Frankenfood’, human genetic engineering
c) Regulatory – eg. FDA restrictions, costs, delays – government bans
· Brain design/ structure does not lend itself well to integrating with existing digital data and communications (data formats, serial communication).
· Working with biological cell/ axon/ receptor structures essentially requires advanced biological nanotech. More generally, the level of computer technology needed to overcome IA’s technical problems will already at or near SI level – ie. SI will be at the hard-take-off point. In other words: Computers smart enough to help us dramatically enhance human brains will be more than smart enough to radically enhance themselves. A related point is that to the extent that we figure out the workings of the brain, this knowledge can (and is) immediately used to improve artificial systems.

I'm personally not as convinced of these arguments as Peter Voss is. He may be right... or at least, we may end up with superintelligent AI before we develop superintelligent humans. But I wouldn't necessarily bet on it. Why?

Because we still don't have the beginnings of even human-equivalent artificial intelligence (admittedly, the takeoff point for many radical evolution scenarios), and in the meantime, most of the technologies that can drive AI can also be used to improve humans -- as can all of the exclusively biotech research being done to protect and enhance human health.

More to the point, we already have various technologies and mental disciplines that significantly increase human intelligence, and not only can we develop more, there is nothing to prevent us from using more and more of these tools synergistically to produce truly radical augmentation with our existing resources. Even as officials argue about whether or not our latest Olympics have displayed the feats of genetically modified athletes, and a coach to Olympians faces charges related to (among other things) "gene-doping," we know that the bodies and brains of animals have already been successfully augmented by biotech treatments.

What is more, we know there are effective nootropic drugs, a number of relatively effective nootropic herbs and nutrients, accelerated learning methods, creativity stimulating techniques and non-invasive "mindtech"... all of which are capable of enhancing human intelligence. What happens when someone combines a few rudimentary genetic enhancements with all of the above options?

Done correctly, we could have a "transhuman" or "posthuman" already, with nothing but our present-day technology.

Which poses some interesting questions in itself. If we aren't prepared for the ethical questions and competitive element of a genetically modified athlete or ten at the Olympics, are we ready for a posthuman (or 50 million) of unfathomable intelligence? My answer would be, probably not...


Future Imperative