Path to AI

Emergent AI Path to AI © Nathan Waters 2010. With credit to Tristan Grace. Feel free to distribute and change this however you want, just give some credit :) Saturday, February 06, 2010 Hive Mind Neural-Link The following is an erratic thought-experiment to place the significant, incremental Nanotechnology technologies required to produce true, emergent Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is a culmination of thousands of hours of discussions and parallel -thought experiments I've had with Tristan and others over the past 5 years. It is a work in progress and dates are 3D Printing approximate. If you have any further ideas, thoughts or feedback, please contact me Conclusions via my blog. I'd love to hear from you! Single Website Evolutionary Paradigms Preface **Start here** BCI Singularity Semantic Web Universal Spread Technological Augmentation Knowledge Quest Economic Cooperation Tech-Glasses AI Agents Entropy Reversal Connection Mobile/Augmented Web Attention Economy Recommendation Feed Engines AGI Agents Collective Platforms Anarcho-Capitalism As an entrepreneur I believe the fastest and Edutainment most effective method to achieve these stages is to develop companies and business models to make them happen. You can follow the activities of our company, Singularitus, or watch our video podcast, Hive45. 2010 2013 2015 2029? AI Page 1

Preface Sunday, February 07, 2010 If you do not think the human species is capable of creating AI, or if you do not think AI could emerge, then please read the following last. Even if you are unsure, please read this last, for it may cloud your judgment, and I would prefer you to foll ow my thought pattern from one technological paradigm to the next. I've attempted to write as simplistic as possible, using as many examples as possible; however my thoughts are still scattered even in writing, so I hope you can follow well enough :) The creation of AI is truly the holy grail of human achievement. Intelligence has always been the key to the survival of our species and its continued advancement. Evolution via natural selection has luckily bestowed upon us not only the physical ability to manipulate our environment, but the cognitive ability to seek patterns and imagine solutions to the many problems we face. We're now entering into a post-Darwinian world where we can guide the evolutionary path of our technology and of ourselves, but do so at an exponential pace . We are a collective species, much like ants and bees. As such, we are prone to create extraordinary feats through collective cooperation and collective intelligence. Take for example our global economy, or the Internet. Both of these are phenomena that have emerged via collective intelligence. No group or individual has any idea what is exactly happening, and no individual can explain the sys tems; they just are, and they work rather well on the macro scale. This is why I think in regards to the development of Artificial Intelligence, it will not be realised solely by a well -coordinated effort by research groups or by companies like Google (who have said they're working on it). Instead, AI will gradually emerge by harne ssing the collective intelligence of the entire human populace all connected and interacting in much the same way as they already do on line. I attempt to make the case that the next stages of incremental consumer technologies will push the species towards the eventual outcome of connecting individual brains to each other on a neural level. Out of such an intimate connectedness, AI will most likely emerge as a result of such extreme collective intelligence. Whilst this AI may begin and appear as reliant on the continued use by the collective species, it won't take long for the system to fully automate itself and replace past human activities/behaviour with accurate , dynamic algorithms which advance further as each individual continues to utilise and rely on the interconnected system. AI will emerge from collective intelligence. AI Page 2

Technological Augmentation What is interesting to note, is that we all now augment ourselves with technology. Clothes are a technological Monday, February 22, 2010 extension of ourselves which keep us warm; our cars are extensions of our physical bodies which allow us to travel Homo sapiens are single-handedly the most interesting animal species great distances; those with glasses owe their quality of on this planet. vision to an augmented optics technology; our shoes are extensions of our feet; without refrigerators we would Question: Is it our bodies, our strength and our genetic disposition have difficulty maintaining a protein-rich meat diet; that allows us to thrive as the dominant species? No. Do we have any without oil, coal and electricity, including all the physical extremities that allow us to more easily catch prey (claws, technologies required to extract and produce those sharp teeth, venom) or protect ourselves (fly, run fast, camouflage, energies: imagine what would happen. spikes, poison)? Not really. With computers, mobile phones and our greater connected globe: we are building Instead we humans have relied rather intimately on the intellect our and distributing systems to act as technological extensions of our brains. Just as a car brains offer to keep us alive. Yes, we have great physical abilities to allows us to travel great distances, computers and the Internet allow us to store and walk, run, swim, climb, grip objects, move objects, alter our retrieve greater memory; as well as find, retrieve, process and share information at a environments, fine hand muscle movements (writing) and muscular greater speed than our actual physical brains can match. You may not know what the air manipulation (speaking); but it is what those physical abilities can capital of Botswana is, but within a few seconds you can query the super-machine- create when combined with our intellect . We are able to interpret brain that is the Internet, and instantly access more information than you'd care to problems (like keeping fed, warm, and sheltered from predators etc), actually read. then imagine potential solutions and find external environmental resources in which to make them realities (making fire from sticks or Kevin Kellyhas some rather interesting and much greater in-depth thoughts on this flint, using rocks and sharpened sticks to hunt etc). area, which I encourage you to read or watch. Most of our global civilization now survives only on the aggregation of As we further enhance our technological capabilities, we'll begin to embed our technological progress. From the initial harnessing of fire, all the enhancements within ourselves rather than relying on external human technological way to our global scientific and technological space -exploring empire. augmentations. Without the discipline of science and its thorough attempt at impartial, rational, natural inquiry; you would probably not exist. I guess the big ethical question which plagues so many minds, becomes the question Scientific research can be directly traced to all our modern technology of what is it to be human; and as man and machine merge, at what point do we cease which allow for a population of our current size, quality of life and life being "human"?… or is that a rather silly question to even begin with? expectancies. AI Page 3

Economic Cooperation Monday, February 22, 2010 Very heavily linked to the evolution of political systems and ideologies, but it is interesting to see our systems of government, politics and economics as a trial and error approach to achieving large -scale improvements in quality of life and fast -paced innovation. AI Page 4

Connection Individual neurons are quite "dumb" by themselves, but connect 100billion of them in a rather chaotic network, Monday, February 22, 2010 and you produce a brain capable of producing us, our consciousness, our intelligence, our subjective We learnt pretty early on as a species that working together can achieve a construct of the Universe. lot more than trying to do things by ourselves. The concept of working together and sharing is drilled into us even today by our parents, teachers Greater connection allows for greater achievements, but and employers. But it makes sense that two minds are better than one, and at the same time, greater reliance on the interconnectivity a group of minds can achieve things more quickly. of all technology. Have a look at the James Burke documentary from a while back called Connections. Once This concept operates in the same way the Internet does now. First we we take the next level of connection hierarchy and begin connected computers to computers, then computers to routers, then connecting the data and information on the Internet (the routers to the telephone grid, then ISP exchanges to each other, the Semantic Web), as well as begin connecting human minds countries to each other. Now we're connecting every individual to every to each other (Neural-Link) then we will see greater other individual in the world, at all times, via mobile phones and 3G/4G collective intelligence and thus greater achievements. access. By connecting the world's computers together we created the power of the Internet. By connecting the world's people together, what do we get? The Internet applies an identifier to each computer (the IP), then connects them all under a standardized communication medium (http, ethernet, tcp/ip etc). But It tends to always occur that by connecting at least two things together, and funnily enough, this same process has already occurred in the offline world for standardizing their communication mediums/protocols, you jump a level of many thousands of years. possibilities. For example, take our language. On their own, letters are merely abstract scribbles. Make a bunch of those scribbles, share them As humans we are identified when we're first born with a word/noise (first around and you have an alphabet. Take the letters and combine them names). You're also identified with a connection to your family (last name). We together, you have words. Take a bunch of words, put them together to then each learn a standard geographically isolated language which allows for the make a sentence. Sentence to paragraph, paragraph to chapter, chapter to standardized communication medium for us to talk to each other. We then form book. And of course we then double-back to explain the meaning of words and segregate into different groups (our friends, workmates etc). We identified using sentence (a combination of other words). The dictionary and our the physical location of where we lived, so that another standardized system (the entire language is really just an interconnected delusion in some sense. And postal service) could be developed, thus allowing us to send letters and packages yet, such language combined with writing and verbal communication have very long distances. Again, the same thing occurred with the telephone system, allowed humans to share their thoughts and ideas. In doing so, we are able with the Internet, and now at an even greater level of individual connection to work as a collective much more efficiently and effectively. anywhere, at anytime… the mobile phone web. AI Page 5

The Internet already is feeding our brains Edutainment Learning and enhancing our intelligence. The entire Saturday, February 13, 2010 network infrastructure, telephone exchanges, server farms, and the web itself This is an interesting phenomena in regards to computer-based learning, but more specifically the idea that computers with all the data, information and websites are beginning to become our teachers; guiding our thoughts and opinions via entertaining mediums, such as games. could be labeled "AI in Construction". Guitar Hero (or Rockband) is an amazing piece of simple game architecture that presents a timid, but substantial move Think about it. What you are reading now toward a future where we are taught by computers to be more intelligent, or even more musically adept to rhythm as was written by myself using a rather is the case with Guitar Hero. We're starting to see games that utilise the addictive nature of RPG games with rewards, "dumb" laptop with arbitrarily-placed levels of accomplishment and clever use of symbols to teach players real-world applicable knowledge/education. plastic buttons that route electricity for processing. I wrote this in your past, Guitar Hero has an ability to be intuitive enough for a first-time player to pickup the basics very quickly. I've also uploaded it to the Internet "machine" noticed that often you'll begin a song missing a lot of notes, but you rapidly learn the rhythm and start gaining where you came across it, asked the confidence to finish the song well. As you watch a player advance over time through the 5 levels of difficulty, you can Internet "machine" to show it to you, and see they have clearly learnt a lot of the skills to best play the guitar/drums/bass/vocals controllers (which feel realistic now you're reading this information. despite being plastic instrument controllers). But looking back throughout gaming history, this has always been the case. As players advance through a game, they learn the skills to become better at the game, which helps them pass As we reach matured Recommendation each incremental level. They go from being "noobs" to advanced gamers, for that particular game scenario. Thus Feed Engines, this process of information sophisticated games or edutainment of the future could actually be used to solve global real -world problems by retrieval will become automatic and harnessing the collective intelligence of millions of players. Or games could be used to teach millions of players specific personal. It will be the "AI in Construction" skills/knowledge/opinions that would enhance their intelligence and problem-solving skills. Internet machine feeding you information you're interested in, and thus improving This same system, the same game has been running around the globe for decades already, the Internet. Browsing the your overall intelligence and knowledge. web has become the predominant #1 past-time for a large percentage of the population, particularly those under 30. By browsing the web, reading various articles, posts, comments, watching videos and making use of all that the web Why not learn from the greatest mind in the has to offer… we are actually improved in some way. Yes, it could have the opposite effect if all you do online is just world?, the Internet. I think as platforms look at funny pictures. However with the Internet now, people are able to research, learn and educate themselves on mature, edutainment evolves, and an "open anything in their own time, at their own pace, for free. A great site I use every day is Reddit, and what's interesting is learning" culture emerges, the human many members publicly thank the community for helping them learn so much about various topics. Personally I think I species could be taught and cognitively have learnt more about the world and numerous topics of interest, via daily web surfing, than I have probably learnt in enhanced by a single global teacher, the my entire period of formal education. Internet of collective knowledge: AI to be. AI Page 6

Collective Platforms Already within large online communities, collective The evolution of the social platform Saturday, February 06, 2010 intelligence is emergent and powerful. With the addition will be necessary to channel and of Recommendation Feed Engines and the Semantic Web, harness the thoughts, ideas and we'll create social platforms for various applications knowledge of the entire species. (news, information, education, activism, government, The initial 'HTML' web was very static and one-way. Social community etc), and these platforms will allow higher The emergent properties of these media and social platforms are definitely a welcome orders of collective intelligence, and in essence this will basic Hive Minds, allow for the best extension, and here to stay. The recent battle on the allow the Internet "machine" to extract implicit knowledge information and ideas to surface. Internet has been essentially about creating the best from people, and promote new ideas and thoughts by There is also a strong cultural platform for communication and collaboration, as well as connecting like-minds and like-interests. influence via memes. simple methods for harnessing the power of the masses to filter excessive amounts of information. Emergent collective intelligence often has We'll also begin to see a an economic model attached (for example shift in culture. Today, our global economy). The next platforms social networking is The next platform will be will use points and awards to help groups plagued by thoughtless about connecting not only and individuals to further filter information, spam. These new platforms people-to-people, and which will lead into the Attention Economy. will better filter interests people-to-content… but and ideas of substance to people-to-content-to-people receptive individuals. Info (connecting people to each Allowed easy publishing Person-to-person of substance will other through their and RSS feeds for filtering connection beneficially outweigh. interests). Much like how our closest friends share our interests, platforms will focus Chat (IRC, MSN) >>> Forums (vBulletin etc) >>> Blogs >>> Digg >>> MySpace/Facebook >>> Reddit >>> Twitter >>> ??? on grouping people together around interests/topics/ideas First social platforms, focus Democratic, social news Real-time, quick and brief on comments and threading Social filters via interest filtering via voting and one groups (aka subreddits) broadcasts (though too much data of the first introductions of and too little filtering to function) "feeds" of information AI Page 7

Recommendation Feed Engines The ultimate implications of this move is that the entire WWW as we know Saturday, February 06, 2010 it, will become completely dynamic per individual user. In other words: every website will personally adapt it's displayed content and even things like GUI, design and colours… they will do so dynamically, and in real-time. There is an excessive amount of information available online, which is increasing in volume and frequency at exponential rates. Conventional methods for filtering information relevant to e.g. when you go to the BBC website, a small script will recognise Facebook Connect is individual interests are already becoming ineffective (e.g. who you are, it will then query all of your social profiles to build a already beginning this, "digging", up/down voting, "subreddits", following demographic picture of your interests, and will then display only although is currently too niches/people). news stories relevant and interesting to you. If you're not interested proprietary to make a in sports, it won't be shown. If there are any news stories displayed significant impact. All current popular platforms (Facebook, Digg, Reddit, Twitter that are not of interest, the algorithm will learn and adapt. etc) operate on feeds of information. Ideally, 100% of that feed should be relevant and interesting to the user. Recommendation engines and algorithms will push toward this goal over the next For this transition, we'll need what's been called the Such a service will begin via "social cloud" - where all of an individual's social data few years. plugin scripts, allowing the is stored in the cloud, openly accessible with smallest of websites the ability to permission, and not held captive by any one company In order to achieve this, meta-data will need to be extracted dynamically display content from the entirety of the user's online activities, social profiles or social platform. Semantically linking the social data based on the social data of the will also be beneficial. These companies will be very and behaviours. A collaboration between social platforms will be visiting user. But the Semantic beneficial to aggregate data across platforms (e.g. combining reluctant to make this move, but ultimately it will be Web will help push this practice necessary to cooperate, or risk becoming obsolete. your activity data on both Facebook and Reddit would be more as a standard across the web. beneficial to create recommendation algorithms). Culturally this phenomenon could segregate individuals, and restrict certain kinds of The more a user interacts on the platform, the more their information from getting to users. e.g. a Creationist may never be displayed information personal recommendation algorithm will develop and return about Evolution. So this could be dangerous. In fact, there is also an ability for severe more relevant information. The algorithms will be fractal, with manipulation the likes of which has never been seen before. For example the algorithm heavy focus on feedback loops to automatically develop highly could be designed to slowly and discretely alter the views, opinions and behaviour of any complex arrays of variables. Facebook and others have already particular user by feeding advertising or content using techniques like behavioural begun utilising user behaviour to adapt offerings. marketing. I like to call this "Hitler 2.0" or "Propaganda 2.0". AI Page 8

Mobile/Augmented Web Saturday, February 06, 2010 Google is already encouraging Android mobile users to use voice search. Every voice search is recorded and analysed, thus allowing Google to refine their speech - to-text recognition algorithms and the ability within the next few years for real - time language translation. The more people use voice to search, the greater The mobile web is already well underway, but it is significant in conversational Natural Language Processing (NLP) will become. The futuristic idea the process of achieving AI for many reasons: of being able to talk to your computer and have it talk back, is less than 5 years away now. It will seem like AI, but it is merely the advancement of NLP. 1) The majority of Internet users will use their mobiles to gain access. The experience is different, but the mobility and always - Augmented reality apps have also begun and are rapidly evolving. With the use of a on connected attitude will likely result in more information standard platform (all data accessible and open), these apps will essentially allow us creation and greater/longer Internet use. to digitally tag the entire globe with metadata. With such a database, we'll have vast 2) Mobiles are cheap and will allow developing countries to amounts of on-demand information about the world around us. In essence, it is a connect billions of people over the next decade. With more merging of the digital and the natural world. people connected, and more information being shared, collective intelligence will become more powerful. 3) Additional metadata is available through phones. E.g. GPS coordinates opens the door to location-awareness, camera and What this digital tagging will achieve in regards to AI, video also offer a great deal more input into the Internet is to become the eyes and ears into the world. "machine" including augmented reality Everything about anything in the world will be known 4) Bandwidth demand will push communication companies to to it. The AI will be able to recognise any object and increase 3G/4G/wireless speeds and coverage give detailed information. Plus of course, the act of 5) With a computer permanently in every person's pocket, digital tagging will be very beneficial to users, and the additional pieces of technology can be attached. E.g. devices that potential applications are only limited by imagination. monitor health vitals, or monitor climate weather and pollution levels. The aggregation of such data would be immensely powerful in medical and climate science. Once Tech-Glasses become more mainstream and socially accepted, this augmented 6) Tech-Glasses will begin as add-ons to mobile phones and slowly layer will be near-permanently available on-demand. Eventually this will allow for evolve to the point of non-invasive brain-scanning, and virtual reality environments to be overlaid on the real world, and offer the ability to ultimately a complete worldwide Neural-Link. personally customise the real world to individual likings. Want to make your girlfriend more attractive? Or change her from a brunette to blonde? … that'll be doable. AI Page 9

AGI Agents Saturday, February 06, 2010 These kind of agent applications will also So long as there is consumer demand for enable a life-casting revolution in order to such services, input into these systems will acquire the kind of data necessary to offer continue to increase, and thus the the best features. For example, you'd algorithms and complex behind-the-scenes Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) agents will come about record GPS locations and cross-reference as the mobile web becomes more developed. But the idea systems will continue to advance. with user-entered diary/itinerary… as well Harnessing and extracting collective is that with voice recognition and conversational NLP as maintaining a complete backup of the intelligence is the key. algorithms improving, users will be able to essentially have data in the cloud. a conversation with their phones. This includes not only searching the web, but asking questions like "What was the name of the Italian restaurant I went to last week?". Speech and conversation are a much more efficient and effective way to interact with computers, and with efforts such as those at Google with voice NLP, we'll finally see this come to reality. Various agent apps will become available using this Much like the AGI Agents that came out of Web 1.0… such as search algorithms, text technology. These agents won't be anywhere near as translation and even something as seemingly trivial as the Google spell-check ("Did you powerful as the AI Agents available as a result of the mean?"); we will also see numerous AGI Agents built via extracting the collective Semantic Web, but to the average user, it will seem as intelligence of consumer use of the mobile web. though their phone has incredible intelligence. Until we achieve the standardised connections and data of the So for example, Google (you've got to love this company) has been perfecting speech-to- semantic web, all of these AGI Agents will be reliant on text algorithms by recording all the voice searches of its users. By keeping records and proprietary APIs which are often tedious to work with. through analysation, every new piece of recording helps perfect the algorithm and the Already we're seeing incredible applications function via a system that provides the service. I expect further advancements in areas such as real- messy inter-mic of multiple APIs from multiple sources. time speech-to-speech translation (another thing Google has said they expect in a few Though hopefully this will push for standardised data, as years), and also some really cool innovations based off geolocation data or personal demand increases. assistants (e.g. Siri was in this news at the time of writing). AI Page 10

Tech-Glasses The "Tech-Glasses" or "HUD Overlays" or "Digital Eyewear", whatever they'll be called, will create a drastic shift in human culture and a more distinct merging of man and machine. Already there are commercial versions available, and Saturday, February 06, 2010 proponents of the trend, like Steve Mann, have been playing with prototypes since the 80s. However, even today's versions are bulky and "dorky". The overall benefit to social cost is not justified to most people (including myself). The display technology is just not there yet, but it will be within 5 years. These devices will begin their lives as very basic add-ons to mobile phones. For example, I'd really like to see a "cool/hip" eyewear manufacturer like Oakley release the most basic version that simply begins with glasses that have bluetooth connectivity to your mobile, and an inbuilt camera. You could connect that with an Oakley app on your iPhone or Android, and manually take pictures or be able to set the glasses to automatically take photos every X seconds. It would be such a simple beginning prototype that could be marketed easily toward say, the Twitter generation. Naturally this would push further features and lead into digital screens within the glasses. Why are tech-glasses significant to AI development? … well, again it is The culture-shock to come from mainstream adoption of encouraging more use and connectedness of the Internet (but not as we tech-glasses will be astonishing. There is not enough room currently know it), it will further the augmented web… but what could here to explain all the possibilities, but I'll share one: be significant is the thought experiment of "what if we put some brain- These glasses will be able to monitor minute changes in body language and voice tone of scanning technology into those glasses?". Already we have some basic, the people you're looking at. Much like advances in airport security. Monitoring will be but amazing, small commercial headset devices capable of reading incredibly minute, such as seeing the exact movement of facial muscles. With such brainwaves. Once we can control our computers (or what we're shown precision, these glasses will be able to tell you what a person is feeling at any particular on the tech-glasses) with our minds, things become very interesting. time. And if you'd like, you could ask the glasses to give advice on what to say/do to manipulate/comfort/excite/encourage the individual. The game of pickup artists and We all know that communication is a driving factor of collective entire social interactions will change, for better or worse. cooperation, the spread of ideas and ultimately, the emergence of collective intelligence. But both the spoken and written word are incredibly limiting mediums for sharing our thoughts, our ideas, our And of course, this is when life-casting, life-recording will go mainstream. Everything you feelings. Even the most articulate speakers, and eloquent writers of the see, every conversation, every location, every thought you have will be recorded, world suffer from this limitation… not to mention the lack of retention catalogued, indexed and intricately searchable. each of us suffer from when reading or listening to others. By moving closer to monitoring and sharing brainwave activity, we can slowly begin The impact of this on thought development, mental development, memory and a range of to understand the brain more intricately. Primitive forms of telepathy cognitive and social aspects will be astonishing. Entire books can be written on this stuff. and thought-sharing will be possible (in fact DARPA is already researching such applications for military use). And again, such a move will propel us to the Neural-Link. AI Page 11

Semantic Web However, much like the idea of "cloud computing" and the Saturday, February 06, 2010 "social cloud" there is often similar ambiguity regarding the Semantic Web amongst people (including those in the tech Once you truly grasp what the Semantic Web is to be… in industry). The single biggest hurdle holding the semantic web all seriousness, this is AI. Well, using AI Agents. back is that the terminology and methods for converting one's data into RDF/RDFa format are too complicated. I think the first step of the process must focus on simply For those who don't know what the Semantic Web is, it's basically standardising and linking databases only. To do so, we need about linking data to data. Much like how the Internet connected to convince companies that making the move and sharing computers-to-computers, and the WWW connected websites-to- their data will be beneficial, and then we need simple web- websites; the Semantic Web (or Web 3.0) is about connecting apps to make that transition happen. Tim Berners-Lee has databases-to-databases, and the information on any website to that been trying to push this move to the mainstream, but I fear Connecting this data will take of any other… so connecting thoughts-to-thoughts. the entire concept is still clasped in the realms of large some time, but again it will educational institutions, governments (slowly) and giant spur a collective intelligence to It doesn't sound like much, but the implications and subsequent multinational companies. create the next evolution of applications (AI Agents) that can be built are truly amazing. Whilst the Internet which will be so many unique web apps these days are built off the back of APIs or Too much of the world's information and data is locked away completely changed from how by combining multiple APIs (Twitter, Google Maps etc), the issue in servers ("data silos"), held tight and made inaccessible to it exists today. with this approach is that each API has proprietary markup and the world. program calls to extract pieces of information. If all the websites It will take longer in order to releasing these APIs converted their data into RDF (the current With databases alone linked, then other data/information see applications fully harness semantic standard), then each database and each piece of data not already structured in some sense can begin to be linked this intelligence, but things like could be linked to one another other easily and seamlessly. (e.g. basic information within a HTML website). With simple creative thinking (linking algorithms, it will be possible to automatically analyse any thoughts together) and even What this creates is a further level of hierarchy of connection across new piece of information input into the Internet "machine", new discoveries in science will the Internet. The era of HTML hyperlinks allowed for the WWW we and automatically slot that information into RDF format, as be automatic (e.g. linking one know today. The intricate linking of data to other data across the well as create an ontology to automatically link the new scientific discovery to another). web is more analogous with that of the deep parallel, neural information to every other piece of similar information connections of the human brain; of an AI brain. throughout the entire web. AI Page 12

The culmination of these AI Agents to come out of the Semantic Web will hit today's concept of what AI AI Agents ought to be, right on the head. This is AI. It won't be sentient, but it will be incredibly intelligent and Saturday, February 06, 2010 seem to the average user to be AI, to be a "Hal". But of course, as we humans have done with every new advent of AI-based technology (which frankly run much of this civilisation already)… we'll want more. We won't consider it to be AI, until we hit Emergent AI. Search engines will become amazingly accurate in So what are AI Agents? … they're basically little programs that run in the cloud and utilise the providing the exact answer to any question. Since all semantically-linked data to provide intelligent services, mostly automatically. The best way to data is linked on the web, "search spiders" won't be understand this is to give some very basic examples: lagging, slow things like Google and others use, but they will be real-time and utilise the power of various 1) Say you're on a flight from one city to another flying, say, Virgin. You're watching an in-flight movie on servers to serve the result. The search will bounce the back of the chair in front, but since it's a short flight, the movie cuts off when you land. However from server to server across the entire Internet, when book into a motel, and switch-on the television, you're instantly greeted with a message asking if following the linked data to find the exact answer to you'd like to continue watching the movie from where you left off. Click play, and the movie starts complex questions. playing. a. It sounds futuristic and a little surveillance-ridden, but the technology behind the scenes is based Also with conversational NLP, these searches will be on simple linked-data. Virgin releases the data that shows you were in seat X, watching movie Y, very conversational and catered to the individual. If that cut-off at time Z. The motel you book into gains access to this data after verifying your there is anything you ever want to know, you'll just identity, and then simply pulls those variables to give you the option of finishing the movie… all talk to your phone as it scours the web for the precise automatically. In such a system, you would also have complete control over your privacy and there information. would be checks and balances to ensure anonymity except where granted. 2) Say you need a dental checkup (or have been reminded you do). We'll each have our own personal Everything becomes smarter when everything is assistant AI Agents, so you'll speak to yours and say something like "I want a dentist appointment connected. AI Agents able to combine pieces of sometime in the next week, within a 10km radius". The AI Agent then automatically follows all the linked information/ideas to create new ones will give data and finds reputable dentists (based on aggregate ratings/reviews/friend recommendations) within computers the creativity edge which so far humans a 10km radius. It looks at your current schedule/itinerary for the next week and the available bookings have held reign on. Scientific advances will begin to be at the returned dentists… then instantly pulls back some options for you. If you want to refine your developed by machines more than man, done by requests you can, or you can select the appointment you'd like. This will then instantly book you into simply connecting all currently known science and the dentist, and the records will automatically show in your schedule, and in the dentist's database. You running automated simulated experiments 24/7 at a go to the dentist, and you're automatically billed (currency becomes obsolete with this system, finally). trillion+ cycles per second. Again seems futuristic, but it's nothing but simple linked-data and some basic programming. AI Page 13

Attention Economy e.g. with a ridiculous abundance of music, movies, Saturday, February 06, 2010 information and any other content with demand… why should consumers be required to pay for this content? This isn't really necessary for the path to AI, but the concept is We're already seeing this transition across the board, very interesting and worth giving thought to. You can read particularly in regards to music. A majority of the public more about the Attention Economy via the Wikipedia page. The already pirate music. But with so many songs to choose idea stems from looking at how our current economy is based from, musicians should be honored for us to pay our on scarcity (there are only so many goods, so much raw opportunity cost in order to spend 3min listening to their materials etc). Our current materials economy becomes quite song. Independent artists have adopted this attitude, simply Advertising has been a different when looking at our information economy. because the more people listen to their music, the more contentious issue with the Information by its very nature is not scarce, but abundant (and people know about their music, and the greater their rise of "Web 2.0". So many exponentially growing) and is only limited by the total energy reputation becomes. Even if they give their music away, with apps have no business required to fuel information. such a large fan base, it becomes easy to make a living via model other than advertising merchandising or via concerts. revenue, and yet the With scarcity in our current materials economy, we can apply a industry hasn't caught-up. currency to value goods and services, which provides for the What we will see in just over the next decade is a reversal of What we'll be seeing in the platform for collective intelligence (aka our global economy). To the old paradigm, to the new attention economy. Eventually next decade is content- achieve a similar system in an information economy, and apply I think musicians and any content producer will actually based advertising whereby a value to information, we need a source of scarcity. begin to pay consumers (in hard dollars or perhaps virtual content producers pay currency) in order for the privilege of having people consume advertising middle-men to Since humans are only able to consume information at a their content. distribute the actual content theoretical maximum of 24 hours per day, our scarcity factor to relevant consumers and becomes that of the time required to consume information. e.g. consumers should be paid to give-up 2 hours of their pay on an time to see a specific movie, when they could be doing any attention/consumption Thus, what will take-over as the global economy of choice in number of other things with their time, or even watching any model rather than just a regards to information abundance and ubiquity, is the of the other dozens of movies available. I should be paid click-through model. Attention Economy. "real" money or a virtual currency of sorts to watch your movie over others. AI Page 14

Anarcho-Capitalism I don't know whether this new political/community/government platform of Tuesday, February 09, 2010 cooperation will be the same as what we currently know of as Anarcho-capitalism. But I think it will be something similar. The basic thought is that with a Again, this doesn't really relate to AI development, but is an interesting great ubiquitous web platform we don't need a top- thought nevertheless…. down government-run societal structure. The term "anarchy" has such a bad reputation amongst the public, but really it just refers to a bottom-up order of governance, instead of a It will be a turbulent transition, but we're beginning to see the initial top-down order. Top-down order is very rare in this world, and never steps as governments start opening their doors more to public scrutiny works particularly well to that of a bottom-up approach, such as and input. Social networking sites played a large role in the 2008 US Evolution, our economy, the Internet. These are all examples of chaotic elections, and will play a greater role in the 2012 elections. Many systems whose platforms (DNA, finance/money, computers/HTML) governments around the world have been allowing social sites to allow for self-organisation and cooperation without a dictatorial leader. submit and vote-up various questions to ask politicians. It won't be long before specific policies will be developed and voted-in with help from I envisage that within the next decade or two with the ubiquity of social the online community. networking, and organisational platforms; government systems will begin to phase out and be replaced by digital platforms for societal Our current political system seems absurd given our technological communication, organisation and community action. ability at present. For what we like to call a "democracy", our individual input tends to boil down to voting for one person, of one party, once A great example is that of eBay. Every day millions of transactions are every 4 years. All policy decisions between those 4 years tends to be made with no top-down control or middle-man. The system functions left to the hands of politicians each pushing party agendas, and on a basic platform and self-regulates via buyer reviews. lobbyists working for large companies, pushing their industry agendas. Wikipedia is another fantastic example of this same phenomenon. Why we can't now implement a basic system where each political bill is developed, refined and voted on by the entire public… doesn't make All that will be required to almost completely phase-out government is much sense. There is a platform that could achieve this, but with the right virtual platform. current progress it is still a few years away. AI Page 15

BCI Whatever timeframe eventuates for this technology, Saturday, February 06, 2010 it will allow for incredibly fast interactions between not only humans and computers, but between humans everywhere. This technology will allow for One of the fastest growing research areas at the moment is that hands-free use of the previously mentioned Tech- of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI). This has to do with devising Glasses and push further toward the ultimate hive ways to bypass the slow and cumbersome input/interactive mind, via the Neural-lInk. devices commonly held by the keyboard and mouse, and touchscreen devices as we're seeing now. Speech input is picking up Telepathy, mind-reading, sharing thoughts and feelings in real-time with anyone in the speed as an alternative, but the holy grail is the idea of just using world will be possible as a result of the research in this area and the consumer devices it your mind/thoughts to control a computer/device. produces. I still think the technology will reach consumers first via non-invasive head-sets or the Tech-Glasses with this tech embedded. Eventually though as society accepts tiny As mentioned before, we're already seeing leaps into this brain implants, this will become the norm. This technology will likely come about well technology with basic consumer "mind reading" devices used to before nanotechnology, but nanotech will take this trend further and thus not require control limited software functions; as well as brain implants used surgery to embed a chip (instead we'll just need a small injection of nanbots). to help Alzheimer's sufferers. Once we start monitoring brain waves using these devices, we can match each electrical I have friend's working in this field now, with research work into brain pulse/wave to the actions the user is performing, and as a result use that data to soft materials (basically solving the problem of connecting, in intricately understand how the human brain works, including memory, learning etc etc. layman's terms, a wire to a nerve). With so much excitement and funding in this area, they expect the research to come to fruition As the technology matures and we're able to achieve two-way communication between within 5 years, and for consumer applications to come shortly the brain (e.g. store and retrieve memory), then we can start augmenting our brains. So for after. Intel has recently announced that they have a team example, if you're memory is poor we'd simply route all memories to digital mediums and dedicated to creating chips or devices that will allow consumers whenever we want to search or recall any memory we can have them fed back into our to exclusively control computers using just their brains (no brains instantly. Things like intelligence augmentation, sensory replacement (for ultra- keyboard or mouse) within 10 years. I imagine we'll be using a realistic virtual reality), the ability for groups of individuals to create temporary or combination of touchscreen, keyboard and hand gestures, along permanent neural networks (literally) so that 100s or 1000s of brains could be combined to with our minds for quite a while as the technology matures. work in parallel to solve a problem… and of course numerous other scenarios will be possible with brain-computer interface technology. AI Page 16

Sites like Digg and Reddit, including Single Website news/content aggregators are a Saturday, February 06, 2010 brief, initial peek at this trend of concentrating the whole Internet This is a rather unique, new and potentially worrying idea I had… that you may not into a single website. agree with, but give it some thought… the name is also horrible, it should perhaps be something like "Content Display via AI" or "Information Singularity" … I'm not sure :) Within the next few years we'll actually see the beginnings of this phenomena as popular websites With the combination of Recommendation Feed Engines, the Semantic Web, BCI start running heavy data analysis of all the clicks and technology and a little bit of AI programming… I see no reason why every single behaviours of visitors/users on their websites. They website or web/phone app cannot be produced via a single "website". will use this data and basic A/B testing to begin to automatically manipulate, specific to each user, the In other words there becomes no such thing as separate websites… facebook.com, features, designs and modules on websites. google.com, twitter.com etc… but you essentially go onto the Internet and are given exactly what content you desire, with features, GUIs, UIs, colours, designs Why this is potentially scary is that the current capitalist-driven system (everything you'd expect) produced and output onto the "screen" in real -time, that exists on the Internet, will be destroyed. There would be no reason for uniquely designed and suited just for you. The same applies for phone apps (which I anyone to create the next facebook.com or youtube.com or twitter.com think will all be purely web-based in 5 years) and desktop apps (which again, will all because it wouldn't be necessary, this "single website" would do it on the be purely web-based in 5 years). fly far faster than any company could, and with far more advanced features. To help wrap your head around this, say you want to search for content (since the BCI device can sense your desires)… you are instantly displayed something Should this come to eventuate however, I think this "single website" would analogous to today's google.com … but it isn't google, and everything about the hopefully act as a platform onto which a new paradigm of software/web- website is unique to you. Or say you want to socially interact with your friends… app development will spawn… perhaps in regards to the development of instantly this "single website" generates something analogous to facebook.com but virtual reality and augmented reality. with unique features, unique colours, unique buttons/links/functions/content etc just for you. The 2D screens (desktops, laptops, tablets, mobile phones etc) would thus be conquered. This "single website" would display the perfect app and It's like a magic "website" that creates entirely new "websites" with entirely new content in real-time on any 2D screen… so perhaps the next battle will be features/functions/designs/content, on-the-fly, as you want it. that of the 3D immersion, of virtual reality, of augmented reality. This sounds very out-there, but I think this will be achievable given the above- And perhaps a "single website" AI will come to fruition for those mediums mentioned technologies within the next 10-15 years. too. Information perfection and saturation. An Information Singularity. AI Page 17

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3D Printing The MakerBot is kicking off the 3D printing Saturday, February 06, 2010 revolution with a cheap, open-source alternative. Hopefully open-source maintains a lead over the commercial Why 3D printing? … that doesn't seem to be linked to intelligence or options… which will speed innovation as neuroscience! Well, firstly it's just really cool that one day in the near individuals across the world share, adapt future we'll be able to print anything we want within our homes. and improve each other's designs for any Secondly, the commercial and consumer demand of such devices will particularly product. And hopefully encourage the refinement of arranging small things, which is what copyright and IP laws will finally catch-up nanotechnology is all about… arranging things, atom by atom. and align with the culture. As these devices mature, we'll begin to see the physical world come under the same principles that power the information/digital world. In other words, the physical world becomes somewhat exponential, and very malleable. Innovations in physical products and design will propel at similar speeds to the innovation we're seeing in information technology (e.g. the Internet). Currently these 3D printers are only able to print plastic, but it won't be long before they can print The 3D printing revolution will push for further metals and alloys, and thus the ability for people to print their own microchips and circuit boards in their innovation toward nanotechnology as demand own homes. increases for finer printing abilities and smaller products. Particularly as wearable computing becomes widespread (such as the Tech-Glasses), we'll see individuals around the world developing interesting prototypes and add-ons… and sharing them free with the This will be the next trend for product production, and world. Other people will pickup these blueprints, alter them and make them better. The innovation really the only place to go after 3D printing is self- propelled by this open-source 3D printing will be amazing. It won't be long before groups of individuals organising molecular production and nanobot building operating in this cooperative fashion will be able to R&D and deploy new gadgets and devices far (of making things atom by atom). quicker than today's multinational corporations can. Crowd-sourcing is already replacing age-old business As 3D printing becomes a cheaper alternative for producing large items like cars or even mass-produced models as a direct result of new technologies in the electronics, I imagine existing manufacturing companies will establish "3D printing factories" in every space of industrial production. major city in the world. So that whenever a new product is R&D'd and ready for manufacturer, the digital blueprints will be sent to these printing factories where they can instantly begin mass producing the product and distributing directly within that country (thus saves shipping costs and time delays). AI Page 19

Nanotechnology Saturday, February 06, 2010 Biotechnology, particularly in regards to chemical/drug/gene-therapy (whatever) that increase human intelligence and cognitive function, will be very beneficial to enhancing the hive mind necessary for powerful AI development. Also, brain scanning and a greater understanding of how the brain works, will be very important. However I have excluded biotechnology from this "Path to AI" because nanotechnology will be the main area in which we can drastically increase intelligence, BCI connectivity and achieve global neural-to-neural linkage between human beings… what I call the Neural-Link. Scientists working in the nanotechnology field have already developed working computer simulations of nanobots just a Nanotech has been a long-held pursuit in science for the last few decades. Famous few atoms in size that are able to perform various functions and physicist Richard Feynman knew back in 1960 that there appeared to be no move in certain ways (e.g. a nano-sized motor). Once we have physical laws in the universe that prohibited moving things atom by atom. With the tools able to rapidly build these self-replicating nanobots, trillions of self-replicating nano-machines able to pickup and move atoms of raw the world changes instantly. Humans will be able to build material, absolutely anything can be built almost instantly by these nanobots. With anything on an atomic level, allowing for gadgets of atomic the ultimate maturation of such technology there is the fear of a grey-goo scenario sizes and the ability to exploit the unique properties of where unstoppable, rouge nanobots mix all the atoms of Earth into a single glob. nanomaterials. With nanotech we'll be able to create perfect But once we have safety immune systems in place, we'll be able to manipulate the brain-computer interfaces which seamlessly merge and real world atoms into anything we can imagine… and we could do so using just our intertwine biology with technology. minds (with BCI). The real world becomes as malleable as the digital world. That's a distant scenario, but for AI development, nanotechnology would boil While genius in self-directed Evolution, the human brain is already down to developing nanobots that would attach themselves to each neuron, and losing to computers in various functions. The brain has very slow thus intercept and send signals to merge the brain's neural network with electrical transfer speeds between neurons, it often has difficulty machines. With such an intimate merging, we'll be able to increase our with logic, cannot process large mathematical calculations, has very intelligence, memory and cognitive skills by unimaginable factors. 1million-fold poor short and long-term memory, and is restricted in processing intelligence increase would be a conservative estimate… and if this technology power to just one brain. Computers can already overcome and leads to a Neural-Link then the theoretical intelligence increase would be 6billion exceed these problems, and are gaining ground on the parallel - (i.e. the entire size of the population at the time, similarly plugged into the processing network power of the brain. Internet via neural nanobot connection). AI Page 20

What will be interesting is that this Neural-Link will connect not only conscious thoughts, but unconscious thoughts. So we will have additional data previously Neural-Link unshared, but now being broadcast to every other brain in the world. Again another Saturday, February 06, 2010 interesting point is that in neuroscience we have found that neural activity can actually predict decisions the conscious mind/person will make up to something like The Neural-Link is the obvious end game of everything previously mentioned. 6 seconds before they make the decision. Just think of the implications. Imagine you draw a circle to represent the Earth. Then around the circumference you draw dots to The technology to achieve this is very possible and represent the 10billion living humans. Now draw a link from each dot, to the other 9,999,999,999 dots. basically just an extension of the current technological The total number of connections is astonishing. And what's more is that each of those dots is a nanobot- trends of smaller, more mobile devices. BCI and Tech- enhanced mobile computer (aka, a human brain) with roughly 100billion neurons each. If every human Glasses will kickoff the trend for neural linkage, as they neuron is connected to every other human neuron, this is a single global brain, the ultimate Hive Mind. integrate brain-scanning functions into headsets or offer commercial brain implants. But once you can It then becomes interesting to think what this develops into. Firstly it will create a brain larger than wrap each neuron with a nanobot capable of wirelessly anything ever seen before, and thus we'd have created a superior intelligence analogous to AI. The total connecting neural activity then the merger is complete. number of neurons in this brain exceeds 1 sextillion or 1 x 1021. With all humans connected, this brain will have access to the sight, hearing, emotions, experiences, knowledge and intelligence of all 10 billion An interesting thing to note is that we don't have to humans. Any single firing of a neuron or any single thought would instantly reverberate to all humans limit this technology and connectedness to just around the globe and naturally incite further neural firings and thoughts. A snowball effect or singularity humans. There is the potential to connect the neurons of thoughts would occur. of every animal and biological systems of every plant in the world. Perhaps a collective intelligence of world The Internet has all this time been just us. Humans interacting with each other and sharing dogs could shed light on a super-effective algorithm for thoughts/ideas via a computer network medium. This Neural-Link will plug humans into the Internet, identifying smells. Or perhaps we could solve specific where every single neural firing is recorded for posterity (so every thought, memory, sight etc is problems by combining the reasoning of the human recorded), and where every thought is routed to receptive individuals (e.g. if someone has a thought I'd collective brain with the reasoning of the dolphin be interested in, I instantly want to "hear" it). collective brain. Minds will decide to temporarily merge to solve particular problems or to socialise. Global telepathy And of course, by including animals in this link, we becomes reality allowing individuals to share thoughts, feelings and ideas intimately with little to no could temporarily have an out-of-body experience noise or communication loss (as is the case with both written and verbal communication). We would where you could feel exactly what it is like inside the solve so many of our social and cultural disputes and biases. If everyone can very accurately "walk in brain of, say a cat. someone else's shoes" then we understand each other, and so issues like racism become obsolete. AI Page 21

Hive Mind There will be a few dissenters who will object to Saturday, February 06, 2010 having non-invasive nanobots injected to connect them to the hive mind. But a brief look at a cost- benefit analysis shows you would fall behind the As a result of this Neural-Link, the human species becomes a hive rest of the populous by factors of billions in areas mind with superior capacity for cognitive reasoning, problem solving of knowledge and intelligence. Those people will and intelligence. Much like individual ants and bees go about their find life difficult from basic living standards to even business with no idea of the complexity of their constructions, trying to get a job. They would become as humans will go about their business not really knowing what we've influential and significant in society as the Amish created as a collective. The hive mind intelligence is beyond the level are today (i.e. not at all). at which any individual could understand. Looking at current human achievements you can see that by adopting The Evolution of ideas, the speed of innovation, the pace of progress will dramatically currency, capitalism, and financial markets we were able to create a improve as a result of this hive mind. Age-old scientific problems could potentially be giant organism known as "the economy". The economy is an solved within hours. If any human has any problem that requires solving or any question intelligent system able to route money and resources to where they they would like an answer to, they merely have to think it, and have the entire hive mind are required, and has brought about large increases in wealth and "reply" with solutions and answers. living conditions. Though despite the fact that we have "economists", the economy is so large and has so many variables (since it is a I have witnessed the power of parallel thinking between just two or three people, and collective intelligence) that humans cannot understand how the the resulting thoughts and ideas are astonishing. The hive mind will be able to send you economy fully works. thoughts very relevant and interesting to yourself. Just like when you're told an idea, and you then create further ideas on top… as you are fed thoughts/neural-spikes of interest, The same goes for the Internet. Once we connected all our computers your brain will have additional thoughts/neural-spikes which will then be immediately together, they were able to share information quickly amongst each routed to other receptive individuals or those who thought of the original idea. other… and thus we have the Internet. Already the Internet is the greatest machine man has ever built. It has been functioning without It is a singularity of thought, a snowball effect where individual brains will become honed downtime since its inception many decades ago. It is a collective in certain cognitive skills. One brain might be an expert in theories of life extension, intelligence produced by mammalian primates banging buttons on another might be an expert in philosophy. If ever a problem arises, those brains can be keyboards. So when we follow a similar setup of the Internet and called on to help solve it (since the humans who own the brains would be receptive and connect every human neuron together around the world, I think it is interested in solving the problem anyway). Of course, knowledge and intelligence in any fair to say, that we'll create something far greater than any individual area can be outsourced to the hive mind. If you want expert knowledge about quantum can understand. I think we'll create Emergent AI. theory, just think it. AI Page 22

Emergent AI Saturday, February 06, 2010 This is how emergent AI will develop. It will slowly co- evolve with the collective hive mind, and will continue to OK, so now the Internet as we know it is a combination of the co-exist as long as possible. Since the more input and entire computing power of all the servers and personal feedback the AI can obtain from the human collective, the computers plugged in, as well as the entire computing power more it learns and grows. of every human brain connected to each other via nanobots. As a result, I think the AI will develop goals and desires that However there remains the problem that without human input are a collective amalgamation of the goals and desires of (their thoughts and brain activity), then the whole system the hive mind. Thus, the AI adopts human traits, human wouldn't operate. It seems that the created AI is just the pure goals, and human desires. Hopefully this would divert the result of collective intelligence. Whether there would be a doomsday scenario of a rouge AI which finds humans difference between the two is a point for contention, but just unnecessary and so kills them. Instead it is in it's best in case this stated system isn't emergent AI, I'll add this… as interests to keep the human species as alive and happy as possible, engaging in various activities and pursuits to Uploading ourselves fully into the entire network matures, I can envisage the Internet cloud the AI will change us quite a keeping records and backups of every single neural firing for produce a range of differing thoughts/ideas. lot, but again, the cost- each individual. By doing so, the Internet machine can actually benefit analysis will make develop highly complex algorithms to simulate perfectly the With an automated (emergent) AI, science will progress faster than the imagination can operate. It won't be long sense. By completely past behaviour/thoughts/actions of the individual. removing biology and until humans become annoyed by the limits of biology and start replacing parts of their bodies with technologically physical hardware body I think the human brain is just like any other computer. We replacements, we can exist as have sensory inputs, an electrochemical black-box, and superior systems (like nanobot blood cells that can allow you to hold your breath under water for an hour, or can pure energy. We'd be able to physical outputs. If there is indeed no mystical aspect to the live in virtual environments of brain, then the Internet AI will be able to do what so many of keep oxygen cycling even if you have a heart attack). Humans can then upload their entire selves in digital form our making, interact in virtual our current-day AGI technologies do: watch and record, to bodies with others, and of create better algorithms. The Internet will dynamically build into the AI machine. We would still exist as separate entities, but have become pure energy (bits of electricity) course live forever and be our individual brain algorithms with every new thought. With merged into the AI. And ultimately, if possible, the idea of able to travel at the speed of such information, the AI machine will be able to perfectly becoming a free-floating energy able to traverse the light around the Universe. simulate you as a person in thought and behaviour from the moment you plugged-in nanobots, to the present. Universe would be pretty neat :) AI Page 23

Conclusions Monday, February 08, 2010 I'm fairly confident that these technological paradigms are naturally occurring, or on their way. The only areas I am currently concerned about are the Semantic Web and Tech-Glasses. These paradigms are rather necessary to push toward AI, and I've been seeing very little or very slow progress toward these. The Semantic Web needs organisations to standardise their data and share it openly with the world. And the Tech-Glasses require smaller electronics, and a beginning basic prototype; since the All of the pre-mentioned incremental technologies will each overlap biggest issue will be cultural acceptance. and many will continue throughout the entire process. But I've tried to show that each is important for the next paradigm to begin. The thing I'd like you to take away from this is that AI is not likely to emerge from a massive coordinated scientific effort, like the 1969 moon-landing. There is a chance I myself have numerous business models and ideas to hopefully help that it could be developed that way, but it seems much more likely that AI will emerge kickstart and grow each paradigm. I'd love to see entrepreneurs from the collective intelligence of the human species. Consumer electronics has been develop some really cool companies to become leaders in these areas pursuing this trend of always-on, always-connected, smaller and smaller devices. It and push them to the next level. makes sense that within the next two decades we will have the technology to intimately, wirelessly link brains around the world. Just like how the connection, So I'd encourage you to run with these ideas, give them some thought cooperation and communication between individual bees and ants, can produce in your spare time and point out flaws, as well as replacement ideas to complex housing structures… by connecting human brains and merging them with our better those flaws and make the overall idea much greater… this is current exponentially growing machine (the Internet), then a superior intelligence will one of the concepts of parallel thinking. emerge, a god-like AI. If these ideas manage to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, I have The combination of AI and nanotechnology will change the entire world, period. So absolutely no problem with that :) … it would be amazing to see AI many of the things we take for granted, or put up with, will become incredibly develop within our lifetimes. obsolete when AI emerges. If done correctly, humans become the gods they've always imagined, and we'll have a scientifically created Utopia. Telepathy, teleportation, and To the future. the manipulation of matter in real-time atom-by-atom will be common-place. Death, disease, hunger and suffering will be non-existent relics. Creative thinking, ideas and Cheers knowledge become the most valuable commodities in the Universe. Nathan Waters AI Page 24

Evolutionary Paradigms Thursday, February 11, 2010 Just an interesting point… Evolution from the Big Bang to today has been a process of incremental hierarchies of complexity. These increments occur in paradigms (S-Curves when graphed out) where a technological paradigm will advance, and then plateau before a new paradigm takes over. You get the basic idea. What I also find interesting is that since We've gone through the Evolution of stars, planets, through biology and are now seeing most of nature appears to operate via Chaos Theory, then a lot of technology take-over as the latest paradigm which is accelerating faster than anything the growth, movements and patterns of the world can be else. Evolutionary progression has always been exponential from the outset and made of a discovered and interpreted via fractal mathematics. series of s-curve paradigms. Technology is continuing this exponential progression. Nature is a chaotic, but mathematical system. Onto which, I have an idea still in development that equates these paradigms and plateaus to the humans have been building a rigid civilisation built from the phenomena between chaos and order within nature (Chaos Theory). Without chaos there Newtonian mathematical equations discovered hundreds of years is no order, and without order there can be no chaos. Thus each s-curve is a technological ago. We've now discovered that the world operates on fractal paradigm of chaotic nature, and each plateau is an ordering of that chaos into a platform; mathematics which constantly feed variables back through a onto which the next paradigm can find its foundation. So for example, the chaos of feedback loop, thus producing the seemingly random and chaotic electricity was ordered down so that we could run processors and various electronic behaviours of nature. appliances. This then allowed for the chaos of computers, which eventually developed a platform on the Internet. Now we're seeing the same thing occur with software, whereby The next paradigm of mathematics and the future civilisation we a chaotic mess that is the Internet is gradually ordering itself into platforms… such as build, will be based around discoveries in fractal maths. We've communication platforms (Reddit, Digg, Facebook, Twitter) or the more ordered platform been ordering nature to produce the platform onto which we can of the Semantic Web… which in turn will allow for a mass of chaotic systems to emerge (AI build chaotic, fractal systems like self-replicating nanbots. Agents). The fact that so many systems in this world are fractal in nature is Life itself has its platform foundation in DNA. Prior to DNA, it was a chaotic mess, until amazing, and must have applications yet to be exploited. Our particular amino acids joined together and began replicating. Thus creating the platform neural networks, and even the Internet itself are fractal systems. for every fragment of life in the world (which again, created another chaotic paradigm of biological Evolution). AI Page 25

Singularity Thursday, February 11, 2010 The Singularity is a name to describe a lot of what I've just written about. It is the idea that once a super intelligent AI is built, it will be able to self-improve at incredibly rapid speeds… and eventually it will hit a point where its intelligence and knowledge become far greater than humans could possibly imagine. How the world changes after that point simply cannot be known. The concept has been thrown around for many decades now, but it was science fiction writer, Vernor Vinge, who popularised the idea in a 1993 essay. A famous quote of his is "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended". Currently the leader in this realm is Ray Kurzweil, and I thoroughly recommend you read his book, The Singularity is Near. He makes the case for the Singularity occurring around the year 2045 and gives proof of historical trends and current research to make his point. The amount of detail and data in his book is quite amazing. As you read more about the Technological Singularity and its potential impacts on the world, most people would agree that sometime in the future (provided humans survive) that we'll produce AI and it will self-improve. However the thing that us humans fail drastically with, is the difference between linear and exponential thinking. Our brains have evolved in line with our environments. Thus to anticipate where a predator would be in X seconds required forward linear thinking. With information If you want to learn more about the technology though, things progress exponentially. Instead of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 … exponentially you Singularity, checkout these sites: have 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512 and thus there is a large discrepancy. Singularity Summit The price/performance of computing is doubling every year. So that roughly every Christmas, there are Singularity University computers at twice the speed for half the price. And what's more, this doubling used to occur every 18 Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence months. The time required to achieve exponential growth is shrinking. By plotting out the simplest of SingularityHub paradigms, Moore's Law, we can accurately predict the price/performance rate of computing power within say 10 years. Further extrapolations can be accomplished looking at various other technological trends such as the amount of information, the capacity of storage, the resolution of brain scanning etc. AI Page 26

Universal Spread Monday, February 22, 2010 AI Page 27

Knowledge Quest Monday, February 22, 2010 AI Page 28

Entropy Reversal Monday, February 22, 2010 AI Page 29

Path to AI

by Nathan Waters on Apr 14, 2010

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Path to AI — Presentation Transcript