Superintelligence
By Randeep Sudan
Overview
❖ “Superintelligence” is title of a book by Nick Bostrom
❖ Explores potential pitfalls of this hypothetical
❖ sobering read about AI and our collective future
Overview (cont.)
❖ Elon Musk considers it “potentially more dangerous than nukes”
❖ Book explores Relation between potential of digital tech and human intelligence
❖ New digital tech could propel AI into a state of “intelligence
Superintelligence Defined
❖ “any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest” (Bostrom)
❖ Where does AI end and Superintelligence begin?
❖ When AI has ability for human reasoning.
How do Current Digital Technologies Stack up to Tech?
❖ A modern microprocessor will operate at speeds of ~2 GHz
❖ biological neurons operate at 200 Hz
❖ Current electronic processing cores can communicate at 300 million m/s (the speed of light!)
❖ Neuron’s action potential? 120 m/s at most
Digital Tech vs Biology (cont)
❖ A human’s short term memory can hold about 5 pieces of info at a time
❖ Long term memory is very limited
❖ Brain can store about a billion bits of info
❖ This pales in comparison to a basic smart phone
❖ Transistors > Neurons
What Else?
❖ Digital Tech is also superior in…
❖ Ability to be edited
❖ Hi fidelity duplication
❖ Goal coordination
❖ Memory sharing (via databases)
❖ Can easily process new algorithms
So What Does This Mean for the Future?Digital technologies far surpass a number of biological characteristics from a technical point of view. But they do lack one thing– ability to reason on a human level.
❖ AI+Ability to reason = Takeoff Phase
❖ At this point, a system’s improvements will be driven by a system’s own action
❖ Consequences:
❖ Exponential growth of AI ability
❖ Cross of threshold of civilization
❖ A short time until a state of superintelligence
Factors that Could Lead Tech There
❖ Cloud computing
❖ Web-connected sensors
❖ Drones both military and civilian
❖ Research and manufacturing automation
❖ Ubiquity of electronic payment methods
❖ Increased usage of automated support systems
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