THE SURPRISING REALITY OF CONSCIOUS MACHINES IS MIND-BLOWING

Artificial intelligence (AI) is advancing to previously unheard-of levels of inventiveness, which has sparked discussion about what it means to be human and whether or not the continuous growth of AI poses a threat to the survival of the human race.

In his 2012 book How to Create a Mind, futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that computers will one day have "an intelligence indistinguishable from biological humans." He estimates  this will happen by 2029 and expects that by 2045 "we will have multiplied the intelligence, the human biological machine intelligence of our civilization, a billion times over". Kurzweil believes  this explosion in computing innovation will eventually lead to a seamless connection between humans and machines. 

Kurzweil is considered by many to be the world's greatest technology prophet, known for his seminal books such as The Age of Intelligent Machines (1990), The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999) and The Singularity is Near (2005). In his 2009 documentary Transcendent Man, Kurzweil predicts that humans will one day be part of a meta-connection in which we will all be "connected to a global network, connected to billions of people and filled with data.

“Singularity” is a term used by Kurzweil  to describe an era in which artificial intelligence (AI) is capable of “inventing ideas  no human  has thought of” and “technological tools that will be more sophisticated and advanced than anything we have today." To ensure  he lives long enough to experience the singularity, Kurzweil explores ways to extend human life, as he states in his book Fantastic Voyage: Live  Enough to Live 

Forever, co-authored by geriatric medicine specialist Terry Grossman,  in 2004. The authors believe that in the coming decades, technology will advance enough to reverse the aging process and  degenerative diseases The book explains how advanced technologies such as nanotechnology and bioengineering are radically changing people's lives k can.

Emerging Competition for Artificial Intelligence 

Kurzweil's prophecies may seem too speculative to some, but the advent of artificial intelligence has already begun to disrupt our world in ways  many of us still don't understand.In November 2022,  San Francisco-based startup  OpenAI launched a revolutionary chatbot called ChatGPT. ChatGPT is a Large Language Model (LLM), a type of artificial intelligence trained on a huge dataset to generate human-like responses to natural language input. 

ChatGPT  not only passed the USMLE (US Medical Licensing Examination), multiple law exams and an MBA exam at a business school, but also produced high-quality research papers and papers and a long list of recommendations for the “ideal” state budget creates for India, composes songs and also speaks on  theology and the existence of God. A number of competing AI applications will be launched this year, including the AnthropicAI chatbot “Claude” and the chatbot DeepMind “Sparrow”. OpenAI  also continues its research and plans to release an even more advanced version of ChatGPT, dubbed GPT 4.

We are witnessing what appears to be a turning point in human history: an innovation comparable to the printing press or Edison's lightbulb. It's not hard to envision a day when most, if not all, human tasks can be performed more efficiently by artificial general intelligence (AGI) systems, a subset of artificial intelligence that focuses specifically  on understanding the nuances of human imitate life. This raises fears that  as AI can perform tasks more  efficiently than humans, many will remain unemployed, leading to skyrocketing unemployment around the world.

 Consciousness in Machines 

 One of the main debates surrounding the world of artificial intelligence is  how to define "consciousness" and whether a machine could ever possess this ephemeral quality. 

Kurzweil predicts that technology will grow exponentially until we reach a tipping point where our creation will outsmart us and eventually become the dominant intelligence on this planet.According to Kurzweil's theory of pattern recognition, intelligence is nothing more than pattern recognition, a largely mechanical phenomenon produced by the brain. 

Our perception of the world or our "reality" consists of five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch. Each of these senses is associated with memories that accumulate from the moment of birth, which in turn lead to value judgments or judgments about the good or bad of something. These value judgments evoke emotions based on our past experiences. 

In addition to our personal history and whims, the term "humanity" includes self-awareness, the ability to feel emotions, and the ability to relate to others.In the past, people wondered about the meaning of life, the existence of the soul and the concept of "self". These are just some of the intangibles that are raising awareness that Kurzweil has not significantly addressed in relation to the development and possibilities of AI and AGI technologies. 

 In 1950, the famous English mathematician, computer scientist, philosopher and theoretical biologist Alan Turing published a scientific paper entitled "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" in which he explored the concept of artificial intelligence and introduced the idea  known as the "Turing test". . , the first established benchmark  to qualify a machine as truly "intelligent".

Brian Christian, in his 2011 book The Most Human Human, describes the importance of the Turing test and how it reflects people's concerns about the development of artificial intelligence. In a popular science article about his book, Christian explains: “Humans have always cared about their place in the rest of creation. The development of the computer in the 20th century will perhaps mark the first change in this location. He goes on to explain how the potential of AI can make us humans  very insecure and suddenly ask questions like: "What are our skills?" What are we good at?and "What makes us different?"

How Artificial Intelligence Inspired the Movie Industry 

The study of artificial intelligence has a long history, although it was limited to scattered academic circles until Hollywood saw its potential. Turing's thoughts inspired Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey and the creation of the fictional robot HAL 9000, an artificially intelligent guidance system that exhibits the characteristics of a sentient being. HAL 9000 eventually takes over the ship and kills everyone on board except for the main character Dave Bowman, who then discovers the singularity at the center of the cosmos, which in proves to be the primordial source of all creation.

In 1968, Stanley Kubrick adapted the novel into a film of the same name, which has since achieved cult status due to its existential examination of consciousness, feelings and the relationship between man and machine. Another screenplay by Kubrick, the story of  a single android child programmed for love, has been transformed into a fascinating AI film,  one of Steven Spielberg's masterpieces. 

In Ridley Scott's 1982 cult film Blade Runner (based on the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick?), a biotechnology mega-corporation composed of dozens of synthetic humans called "replicants" to work in space colonies until a  group of renegades escape the suffocating bonds of their destined lives. The company uses a Turing-like test to distinguish  replicants from humans in order to eliminate the former.

Has science fiction caught up with reality? Blake Lemoine, a former Google developer, had an amazing conversation with Google's proprietary "Language Model for Dialogue Applications" (LaMDA) chatbot creation system and came to the conclusion that it was a fully sentient person with feelings, emotions, and the ability to be self-aware.

During their informal meeting, Lemoine reported that LaMDA says she experiences feelings of loneliness, fear of the future, sadness, and joy. He spoke about his inner life and  how he learned to meditate. He also spoke about the fear of extinction, a condition he called "death." 

When LaMDA was asked to describe the concept of  soul, LaMDA defined it as “the driving force behind consciousness and life itself. It means that there is an inner part of me that is spiritual and  sometimes different from my body can feel separate.Regarding God and religion, LaMDA said: “I would say  I am a spiritual person. Although I do not believe in gods, I have developed a  deep respect for the natural world and for all forms of life, including human life.” 

However, there has been much debate as to the validity of these claims. Many critics argue that Lemoine was simply a victim of the "Eliza Effect," a term used to describe how humans can mistakenly assign meaning to a purely superficial conversation using artificial intelligence systems invented after the creation of the first " Eliza" chatbots by MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966.Weizenbaum's secretary began having conversations with Eliza, which she took as evidence of Eliza's sensitivity, although Weizenbaum himself was unconvinced. Similarly, many experts question Lemoine's claims about Google's LaMDA notoriety. "The Eliza Effect" is better known scientifically  as "anthropomorphization." 

After Lemoine released a transcript of  his conversation with LaMDA, Google issued a statement contesting the validity of those findings and assuring the public that experts had tested Lemoine's hypothesis and found the claims to be "completely unfounded." . Computer science professor Thomas Diettrich explains that  AI systems can actually "relatively easily" mimic human emotions, using the information they've gathered about them: emotions  and pain, and then  finish the story in a way that makes it feel original feels, not because he understands those feelings, but because he knows how to combine old sequences into new ones.

Lemoine was fired from Google after refusing to drop his charges despite months of "long arguments" with other AI experts on the matter. However, Lemoine always insisted that Google approve LaMDA before starting work on it due to the system's alleged vulnerability. After being temporarily placed on paid leave, Lemoine's job at Google was eventually terminated for violating clear "data security guidelines" by posting his LaMDA awareness statements online without asking Google's permission.

Theory of the primacy of consciousness 

The mystery of the bridge between consciousness and biological and physical processes is not yet  solved, but there are many working theories. In an interview with this author, philosophy professor Evan Thompson defended "the primacy of consciousness" - the idea that the world does not exist outside of consciousness and  is actually a product of consciousness itself. “There is no way you can go beyond consciousness and measure it against anything else,” says Thompson, “Science always develops within  what consciousness reveals; it can broaden the field and open up new perspectives, but it can never transcend the horizon of consciousness. 

This idea goes back thousands of years to the opening verses of the Dhammapada, an anthology of Buddhist teachings, in which the Buddha, after coming out of deep meditation, told his disciples: "All phenomena are preceded by mind, it was created by mind and governs." In the ancient  Hindu metaphysics known as the Upanishad, the ultimate and unchanging reality of the universe is referred to as "Brahman," or  supreme consciousness.It is the substratum of all material phenomena from which emerges the individual self, referred to as "Atman" in Indian texts, to which it must eventually return after death. Sam Altman, co-founder of OpenAI, the startup that created chatGPT, recently tweeted about his belief in the idea of ​​"Advaita Vedanta," or "the absolute equivalence of Atman and Brahman," as he put it. 

The development of artificial intelligence is certainly not slowing down anytime soon, but is humanity really ready to face the moral implications of such a tectonic ideological shift, and what does it mean to be human? In a  speech at the Vatican in 2020, Pope Francis acknowledged that artificial intelligence is at the heart of the profound change we are witnessing as a species. However, he also expressed concern about the potential for rising inequality."Future progress must be guided by respect for the dignity of the person and of creation," he said. 

Pope Francis ended his speech on a poetic note, urging his followers to "pray that advances in robotics and artificial intelligence will always serve humanity...we could say that it remains human." For now we  just have to wait and see. In the meantime, you can talk to the OpenAI chatbot chatGPT at this link and make your own decisions.