Twister

"This is one of the most important topics of our time."
~ Gerry McCartney ~

Things I remember from lectures given last year by
James Barrat ~ Alfredo Canziani
Torbert Rocheford ~ Gene Spafford
1. Essential vocabulary:

event horizon: a point of no return or theoretical boundary beyond which current experience does not count, such as the rim of a black hole
singularity: when machine intelligence becomes capable of self - improvement and surpasses human intelligence

2. Efficiency of Artificial Intelligence vs our "huge mammalian legacy . . .

of kindness (e.g., Mother Theresa)
but also of violence (e.g., Charles Manson)"

3. Components of human thought / AI

psychological
neurological
logical
ethical
philosophical (thinking about thinking)
psycho - pathology
cogno - technolgy
confluence of intelligence
intelligence exposure

4. Some may ask,

"Without biological imperatives, will supercomputers be slackers?"

Barrat foresees "an ingenuity vastly, incomprehensibly greater than our own."

5. On the other hand:

Can a submarine swim?
Can an airplane fly?
Does IBM's Watson think?

6. Improved Automation = Time, which, for humans, is finite and invaluable

Will automation / AI take away jobs? Maybe.
Will automation / AI save lives? Definitely.

7. Is the brain magical? [Yes!]

Consider, for example, the neural pathways:

8. Canziani on "Visual Intelligence"

He described the brain as a "black box" and illustrated it as a Twister Game -- 6 x 4 circles -- with input receptors to the left, and ultimately, an idea emerging on the right. The brain seems to learn by itself, as every circle sends a message to every other circle, some stronger, some weaker, including sensory details and cultural preferences, in addition to references still unknown to us.

Compare the thoughtless ease with which we can walk or run to the halting gait of a video game athlete, whose input is processed in a straight line across the Twister circles, rather than the interwoven intricacy that is human thought.

9. Spafford on "Faster Than Our Understanding":

Humans are teaching machines to think faster.

Initially, as the only species to recall (from a long time ago), anticipate, and communicate in a way that transcends our existence, we recorded data to capture the past for future humans to reflect on. Now, information is processed immediately and sent from one machine to another for current (as well as future) use.

It is increasingly possible to eliminate humans from the loop.

10. Rocheford on "Global Vitamin Enhancement of Maize Grain":

Women farmers will go for smaller yield if the resulting crop is better for the children.
Men tend toward bigger yield, regardless of quality.

Malnourishment = not enough calories
Malnutrition = not enough vitamins

The cruel reality: humans can be simultaneously obese and food insecure

2015 ~ Wisdoom

Dawn or Doom?

This Week at Purdue University

"We humans govern the future
not because we're the fastest or strongest
creature but because we're the most intelligent.
When we share the the planet with creatures
more intelligent than we are,
they will steer the future."

Arthur C. Clarke, 1917 - 2008
British Science Fiction Writer

Schedule of Events

For more on human weakness and lack of speed:
see my current FORTNIGHTLY blog post:
~ Safe Home ~

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PS. More about the Dawn or Doom Summit:

I attended sessions given by various faculty in agronomy, linguistics, nanotechnology, and visual arts who were all voting Dawn. However, at the end of the day, the keynote speaker, James Barrat, author of Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era could not be dissuaded from his conclusion of Doom!

Barrat quoted Woody Allen: “Mankind is facing a crossroad -- one road leads to despair and utter hopelessness and the other to total extinction -- I sincerely hope you graduates choose the right road.”

We also watched several movies leading up to the conference -- Transcendence, A.I., Jurassic Park -- and Barrat pointed out that "Hollywood has inoculated us from thinking seriously about the risk of Artificial Intelligence because we've had too much fun letting the humans always win."