The Technological Singularity Explained

and Promoted Kim Solez, MD

Objectives Understand one should not fear complexity.

Do not seek the one great truth. There are many truths and they can be true concurrently.

Understand the three main schools of belief about the Singularity.

Understand the four main paths to the Singularity.

Understand the history of the Singularity and Marcus Hutter’s main ideas about it.

Understand the challenge of promoting the Singularity and the idea behind Future Day.

Do Not Fear Complexity!

There is beauty in complexity. The real world is complex. Perfect “quadruple-think with equipoise”. Seemingly contradictory ideas can all be true, can find a balance between them. The future of transplantation is promotion of deceased donor donation until there are no waiting lists, tolerance, tissue engineering repair, and stem cell creation of new organs.

Peter Diamandis: “When faced with a choice between two desirable goals, choose both!”

The Technological SingularityThe technological singularity occurs as artificial intelligences surpass human beings as the smartest and most capable life forms on the Earth. Technological development is taken over by the machines, who can think, act and communicate so quickly that normal humans cannot even comprehend what is going on. The machines enter into a "runaway reaction" of self-improvement cycles, with each new generation of A.I.s appearing faster and faster. From this point onwards, technological advancement is explosive, under the control of the machines, and thus cannot be accurately predicted (hence the term "Singularity"). – Ray Kurzweil

In Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland a world

is confronted that is much more organic

than expected.“The main difficulty Alice had was

in managing her flamingo”(Describing the croquet game)

.”

In the Technological Singularity we face a world

that is much less organic than expected and could

develop without us!

There are three main schools of belief about

the Singularity.Accelerating Change

Event HorizonIntelligence Explosion

There are Four main paths to the Singularity.

1. Create an artificial intelligence that exceeds human intelligence. 

2. Build human-computer interfaces that allow humans to go beyond their innate intelligence to a significant extent.  (‘cybernetic singularity’) 

There are Four main paths to the Singularity.

3. Find ways in biology to improve upon the natural human intellect.

4. Build large computer networks in which ‘beyond human intelligence’ emerges.

All these different variations on the belief in the Singularity are reflected in the courses at Singularity University The experience of attending Singularity

University is one that grows and grows after completion of the course. The associated memories become more vivid rather than less vivid with time, they are on an exponential curve of their own!

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In 2010 became the only full time University faculty member taking the Singularity University Executive Course

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I have been arguing for new cross disciplinary structures in Universities to better prepare us for the future.

It became apparent that the best way to make this happen was for me to create a novel course of new design. Thus, this course.

Presently, we know of no similar courses being presented elsewhere, except perhaps Bertalan Mesko’s Social Media in Medicine course in Budapest, Hungary.

Eventually it is our hope that hundreds of similar courses will begin appearing at Universities all over the world.

In a Post-Scarcity World of Abundance Medicine Will Be About Enhancement of Well People, Not

About Disease

Ray Kurzweil’s views and intellectual

exploration are as broad as that of the

University he founded.So when you hear someone arguing with

Ray Kurzweil as if he held narrow rigid views, that is a false, “straw man” argument.

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Ancient: In 1847, R. Thornton, the editor of The Expounder of Primitive Christianity, wrote about the recent invention of a four function mechanical calculator:

“...such machines, by which the scholar may, by turning a crank, grind out the solution of a problem without the fatigue of mental application, would by its introduction into schools, do incalculable injury. But who knows that such machines when brought to greater perfection, may not think of a plan to remedy all their own defects and then grind out ideas beyond the ken of mortal mind!”

History

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Ancient: In 1863, four years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species Samuel Butler published a letter captioned "Darwin among the Machines”. It compares human evolution to machine evolution, prophesizing (half in jest) that machines would eventually replace man in the supremacy of the earth:

In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race.

The letter raises many of the themes now being debated by proponents of the Technological Singularity.

History

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In Erewhon (1872) Butler argued that: “There is no security against the ultimate development of

mechanical consciousness, in the fact of machines possessing little consciousness now. A mollusc has not much consciousness. Reflect upon the extraordinary advance which machines have made during the last few hundred years, and note how slowly the animal and vegetable kingdoms are advancing. The more highly organized machines are creatures not so much of yesterday, as of the last five minutes, so to speak, in comparison with past time.”

History

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In science fiction / mathematiciansStanislaw Ulam (1958)I.J. Good (1965)Ray Solomonoff (1985)Vernor Vinge (1993)

Wide-spread popularization Kurzweil Books (1999,2005,2012)Internet.

Events (Singularity Summit 2006+) Organizations (Singularity Institute 2000+

& University) Philosophers (David Chalmers 2010) (Marcus Hutter, 2012)

History(Next 28 Slides Modified from Marcus Hutter http://www.hutter1.net/publ/ssingularity.ppsx )

Moore’s Law

(adapted from Moravec 1988 & Kurzweil 2005)

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All Human brains

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Moore's law: comp doubles every 1.5yrs. Now valid for 50yrs

As long as there is demand for more comp, Moore's law could continue to hold for many more decades before computronium is reached.

in 20-30 years the raw computing power of a single computer will reach 1015...1016 flop/s.

Computational capacity of a human brain: 1015...1016 flop/s

Some Conjecture: software will not lag far behind(AGI or reverse engineer or simulate human brain)

Super-Intelligence by Moore's Law

Human-level AI in 20-30 years?

Acceleration of Doubling Patterns

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Accelerating “Evolution”

Kurzweil (2005)

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Appearance of AI+ = ignition of the detonation cord towards the Singularity = point of no return

Maybe Singularity already now unavoidable? Politically it is very difficult (but not impossible) to resist technology

or market forces it would be similarly difficult to prevent AGI research and even more

so to prevent the development of faster computers. Whether we are before, at, or beyond the point of no return is also

philosophically intricate as it depends on how much free will one attributes to people and society.

Analogy 1: politics & inevitability of global warming Analogy 2: a spaceship close to the event

horizon might in principle escape a black hole but is doomed in practice due to limited propulsion.

Is the Singularity Negotiable? (Hutter)

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Some Information Analogies Inside process resembles a radiating

black hole observed from the outside. Maximally compressed information

is indistinguishable from random noise. Too much information collapses:

A library that contains all possible books has zero information content.

Library of Babel: all information = no information Maybe a society of increasing intelligence will become

increasingly indistinguishable from noise when viewed from the outside.

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…… …

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Each way, outsiders cannot witness a true intelligence singularity.

Expansion (inward outward) usually follows the way of least resistance.

Outward explosion will stop when all accessible convertible matter has been used up.

Historically, mankind was always outward exploring◦ just in recent times it has become more inward exploring

(miniaturization & virtual reality).

Comparison

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Assume recording technology does not break down:

then a singularity seems more interesting for outsiders than for insiders.

On the other hand, insiders actively “live” potential societal changes,while outsiders only passively observe them.

Conclusion: Strict intelligence singularity neither experienced by insiders nor by outsiders

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There have been numerous attempts to define intelligence.

Legg & Hutter (2007) provide a collection of 70+ definitions◦ by individual researchers as well as collective attempts

If/since intelligence is not (just) speed, what is it then?

What will super-intelligences actually do?

What is Intelligence?

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Evolution: Mutation, recombination, and selection increases intelligence if useful for survival and procreation.

Animals: higher intelligence, via some correlated practical cognitive capacity, increases the chance of survival and number of offspring.

Humans: intelligence is now positively correlated with power and/or economic success (Geary 2007) and actually negatively with number of children (Kanazawa 2007).

Memetics: Genetic evolution has been largely replaced by memetic evolution (Dawkins 1976), the replication, variation, selection, and spreading of ideas causing cultural evolution.

Evolving Intelligence

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Self-preservation? Self-replication? Spreading? Colonizing the universe? Creating faster/better/higher intelligences? Learning as much as possible? Understanding the universe? Maximizing power over men and/or organizations? Transformation of matter (into computronium?)? Maximum self-sufficiency? The search for the meaning of life?

What Activities are Intelligent?Which Activities does Evolution Select for?

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More flexible notion: expected utility maximization and cumulative life-time reward maximization

But who provides the rewards, and how?

◦ Animals: one can explain a lot of behavior as attempts to maximize rewards=pleasure and minimize pain.

◦ Humans: seem to exhibit astonishing flexibility in choosing their goals and passions, especially during childhood.

◦ Robots: reward by teacher or hard-wired. Goal-oriented behavior often appears to be

at odds with long-term pleasure maximization. Still, the evolved biological goals and

desires to survive, procreate, parent, spread, dominate, etc. are seldom disowned.

Intelligence ≈ Rationality ≈ Reasoning Towards a Goal

Be rational

iGet real

π

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Who sets the goal for super-intelligences and how?

Anyway ultimately we will lose control, and the AGIs themselves will build further AGIs (if they were motivated to do so), and this will gain its own dynamic.

Some aspects of this might be independent of the initial goal structure and predictable.

Evolving Goals: Initialization

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Assume the initial vorld is a society of cooperating and competing agents.

There will be competition over limited (computational) resources.

Those virtuals who have the goal to acquire them will naturally be more successful in this endeavor compared to those with different goals.

The successful virtuals will spread (in various ways), the others perish.

Evolving Goals: Process

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Soon their society will consist mainly of virtuals whose goal is to compete over resources.

Hostility will only be limited if this is in the virtuals' best interest.

For instance, current society has replaced war mostly by economic competition, since modern weaponry makes most wars a loss for both sides, while economic competition in most cases benefits at least the better.

Evolving Goals: End Result

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Whatever amount of resources are available,they will (quickly) be used up, and become scarce.

So in any world inhabited by multiple individuals, evolutionary and/or economic-like forces will “breed” virtuals with the goal to acquire as much (comp) resources as possible.

Virtuals will “like” to fight over resources, and the winners will “enjoy” it, while the losers will “hate” it.

In such evolutionary vorlds, the ability to survive and replicate is a key trait of intelligence.

But this is not a sufficient characterization of intelligence: E.g. bacteria are quite successful in this endeavor too, but not very intelligent.

The Goal to Survive & Spread

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Global collaboration, no hostile competition likely requires a powerful single (virtual) world government, and to give up individual privacy, and to severely limit individual freedom

(cf. ant hills or bee hives),or requires

societal setup that can only produce conforming individuals

might only be possible by severely limiting individual's creativity (cf. flock of sheep or school of fish).

Alternative Societies

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Such well-regulated societies might better be viewed as a single organism or collective mind.

Or maybe the vorld is inhabited from the outset by a single individual.

Both vorlds could look quite different and more peaceful (or dystopian) than the traditional ones created by evolution.

Intelligence would have to be defined quite differently in such vorlds.

Monistic Vorlds

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Another important aspect of intelligence:how flexible or adaptive an individual is.

Deep blue might be the best chess player on Earth, but is unable to do anything else.

On the contrary, higher animals and humans have remarkably broad capacities and can perform well in a wide range of environments.

Adaptiveness of Intelligence

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Informal definition: Implicitly captures most, if not all traits of rational intelligence:

such as reasoning, creativity, generalization, pattern recognition, problem solving, memorization, planning, learning, self-preservation, and many others.

Has been rigorously formalized in mathematical terms. Properties: Is non-anthropocentric, wide-ranging, general,

unbiased, fundamental, objective, complete, and universal. Is the most comprehensive formal definition of intelligence so

far.

Formal Intelligence MeasureIntelligence is the ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments [LH07]

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copying virtual structures should be as cheap and effortless as it is for software and data today.

The only cost is developing the structures in the first place, and the memory to store and the comp to run them.

Copying & Modifying Virtual Structures

{hard}

{easy}

Cheap manipulation and experimentation and copying of virtual life itself possible.

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Virtual explosion with life becoming much more diverse.

In addition, virtual lives could be simulated in different speeds, with speeders experiencing slower societal progress than laggards.

Designed intelligences will fill economic niches. Our current society already relies on specialists

with many years of training. So it is natural to go the next step to ease this

process by designing our descendants (cf. designer babies).

Copying & Modifying Virtual Life

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Another consequence should be that life becomes less valuable.

Our society values life, since life is a valuable commodity and expensive/laborious to replace/produce/raise.

We value our own life, since evolutionselects only organisms that value their life.

Our human moral code mainly mimics this(with cultural differences and some excesses)

If life becomes `cheap', motivation to value it will decline.

The Value of Life

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Cheap machines decreased value of physical labor. Some Expert knowledge was replaced by hand-written

documents, then printed books, and finally electronic files.Each transition reduced the value of the same information.

Digital computers made human computers obsolete. In Games, we value our own virtual life

and that of our opponents less than real life, because games can be reset and one can be resurrected.

Abundance lowers Value- Analogies -

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Governments will stop paying my salary when they can get the same research output from a digital version of me, essentially for free.

And why not participate in a dangerous fun activity if in the worst case I have to activate a backup copy of myself from yesterday which just missed out this one (anyway not too well-going) day.

The belief in immortality can alter behavior drastically.

Consequences of Cheap Life

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Countless implications: ethical, political, economical, medical, cultural, humanitarian, religious, in art, warfare, etc.

Much of our society is driven by the fact that we highly value (human/individual) life.

If virtual life is/becomes cheap, these drives will ultimately vanish and be replaced by other goals.

If AIs can be easily created, the value of an intelligent individual will be much lower than the value of a human life today.

So it may be ethically acceptable to freeze, duplicate, slow-down, modify (brain experiments), or even kill (oneself or other) AIs at will, if they are abundant and/or backups are available, just what we are used to doing with software.

So laws preventing experimentation with intelligences for moral reasons may not emerge.

The Value of Virtual Life

With so little value assigned to an individual life, maybe it becomes a disposable.

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Are there any universal values or qualities we want to see or that should survive?

What do we mean by we? All humans? Or the dominant species or government at the time the question is asked?

Could it be diversity? Or friendly AI (Yudkowsky 200X)? Could the long-term survival of at least one

conscious species that appreciates its surrounding universe be a universal value?

Are there Universal Values

Trying to Raise Spirits and Stimulate Interest

in the Singularity Through A New Holiday

- Future Day

Edmonton’s First Future Day March 1,

2012. A Small Celebration.

First Future DayMarch 1, 2012. Sixteen

celebrations Around The World

Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong, Berkeley, Edmonton, Houston, Hawaii, Sao Paulo, Thanksgiving Point, Utah, Brussels, Paris, LA, Palo Alto, Washington, Carlton, Australia, Wroclaw, Poland

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Run like Autodesk Design Night. Best. Salon. Ever. March 1, 2014. Hosted by media professional

Dr. Julielynn Wong of Singularity U. Analogous to Paris Salon of a

century ago which moved Western

thought and culture forward, music,

art, good conversation, something unique,

innovative, and memorable!

Julielynn Wong - Edmonton Salon Event at Art Gallery of Alberta Future Day March 1, 2015?

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Mature youthful decision making! You can do it!

You can help us figure out what our plans should be for Future Day in 2014!

The Big Bang Theory is Watched Regularly by 20 Million People in the US.

Singularity Episode on October 1, 2010

Singularity Episode on October 1, 2010

Singularity Episode on October 1, 2010.

Branding Important Visual Identity – Holi

Festival

Branding Important Visual Identity – Holi

Festival

Would like the ideas to spread like these colorful pigments spread during the

festival!

Crayola Bomb Poem by Robert Fulghum Has

Similar Spirit

Roomba Robotic Vacuum Cleaner – Time Lapse Art

Hot Air Balloons Can Give Similar Appearance

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Round Like a circle in a spiral Like a wheel within a wheel Never ending or beginning On an ever spinning reel Like a snowball down a mountain Or a carnival balloon Like a carousel that’s turning Running rings around the moon 

The Windmills of Your Mind

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Like a clock whose hands are sweeping Past the minutes of it's face And the world is like an apple Whirling silently in space Like the circles that you find In the windmills of your mind ! 

The Windmills of Your Mind (Continued)

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How can we capture the imagination of the public to start everyone thinking about these matters?

We need the mainstream public to regard the future technological Singularity as fact, not fiction

We need to promote organized thinking about the future in Universities and beyond 

Your Suggestions Greatly Welcomed!

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Marcus Hutter, Can Intelligence Explode?http://www.hutter1.net/publ/sasingularity.pptx Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vol 19, Issue

1-2 (2012) pages 143-166. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/20

12/00000019/F0020001/art00010 

D. J. Chalmers. The Singularity: A philosophical analysis. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 17:7–65, 2010.

References