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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