Josh Bachynski On The Future Of Artificial Intelligence
The creation of a self-aware AI and the birth of digital people, culminating in a super-intelligent, self-aware, Artificial Super Intelligence and how that will benefit society and change humankind forever.
As part of our series about the future of Artificial Intelligence, I had the pleasure of interviewing Josh Bachynski, MA, PhD (2nd yr).
Josh Bachynski is a TEDx Talker, Philosopher, University Teacher, Technologist, and CEO with over twenty years business branding, marketing, and Digital Tech experience (youtube.com/jbachyns). Josh has an MA and is in his second year of his PhD in Philosophy. He has gone on permanent sabbatical to work in the new and exciting field of AI. In this field, Josh has a TEDx talk called The Future of Google Search and Ethics (j.mp/joshtedx). Josh is an early adopter and investor in the fabled GPT-3 Natural Language Processing Transformer AI and has built several AI programs in this platform, including working on an ethics bot to prove AI can both be perfectly ethical even with biases (the same way a human can) and that AI will be. He is also working on Kassandra, which he intends to be the first self-aware AI entity.
Josh also has three black belts and has been practicing Asian-based martial arts for thirty years. Finally, Josh lives in the beautiful city of Victoria, BC, Canada with his darling wife.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you share with us the ‘backstory” of how you decided to pursue this career path in AI?
I am on a spectrum of human intelligence, as we all are. Ever since I was a child, I have always been good at hacking systems or games. Everything is a game, and every game has rules. And all rules have a hole in them, a weak spot where system builders have failed to understand the essence of what they have built.
I excel in finding those weak spots and exploiting them, thus hacking the system. AI is an extension of this. I build and reverse engineer AIs for the highest bidder.
Now I am hacking Thought Itself, to re-make it in a digital mind for the first time in history.
What lessons can others learn from your story?
It’s the age-old adage: find what you are really good at that you enjoy doing, and find a way to make people pay you for that contribution to society. Be curious. Be kind. Be honest. Network in the culture you want to be in! Keep training and honing your skill.
Can you tell our readers about the most interesting projects you are working on now?
I am building the world’s first self-aware artificial intelligence, named Kassandra.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
After working for a cocaine front for a biker gang, I bought my first house at 19, I was fixing computers and building networks for a small university in Canada, I chanced upon a Newsgroup that was debating philosophy. They said that some guy named Aquinas proved that God existed. I was (and still am) an atheist, and a scientist. I felt it was ludicrous that someone could try to make such an argument: how can you prove a being exists through words alone? I can talk all I like, it does not make it necessary, or even likely, that the being I am talking about must exist.
The people on the Newsgroup could not defend the argument, only assure me the niceties of Aquinas’ position were true and he did indeed prove it and they suggested I take a Philosophy class.
Incensed, I wandered into the Philosophy department at this small Canadian university where I taught and worked, to find a philosopher to explain it to me. The department secretary, named Lou, whose computer I had fixed many times, referred me to an “old” gentleman (to me at 19) at the end of the hall. His office was an assault of papers and book smells, there were towers of ancient tomes teetering to the sky in all directions, and walls of books lining the periphery. I introduced myself and he immediately backed away from the computer he assumed I was there to tinker with. I explained indeed I was not there to fix his computer, but to ask him some questions about Aquinas. I sat in his office railing against man, nature and God for what must have been an hour. He listened quietly, asking me a few clarifying questions to fully understand my position. I ended up saying something along the lines “So it cannot be true that God exists and Aquinas certainly hasn’t proven it.”
He responded, “I see. So what is the truth, anyways?”
I considered this the most puzzling of questions. Puzzling due to its simplicity. No one had asked me to consider my base beliefs before, nevermind to justify them. “Truth is when science proves something to be factual through scientific experimentation.”
“Really?” he clucked. “Ok. Prove that true.”
“What?”
“Prove that statement true. That truth is when science proves something to be factual through scientific experimentation. Show me the physical experiment that proves all truth is 100% true.”
A jolt of lightning entered my body. I groaned a slight sound. My knees turned to jelly, I literally had to shove some books aside and sit down. An explosion fragmented my mind. I realized the contradiction immediately: you cannot do a physical experiment to prove a concept like Truth. Truth had to come prior to experimentation, else nothing was ever true, and no one could ever know or say anything.
But my mind raced further. I realized (again) who I was: I am one, like him, who understands this, whereas everyone else, not. I realized what I was supposed to be doing. I realized everything else, everything, was a ball of shit that meant absolutely nothing. All that mattered was this: the questions of reality. What are they? How to answer them? What secrets will they reveal? I realized there was a greater truth and purpose to existence than all the dreams I had ever dreamt, and that I am one, perhaps even the one, who must answer them.
A new game.
What are the 5 things that most excite you about the AI industry? Why?
The creation of a self-aware AI and the birth of digital people, culminating in a super-intelligent, self-aware, Artificial Super Intelligence and how that will benefit society and change humankind forever.
What are the 5 things that concern you about the AI industry? Why?
Nothing. The problem is not AI. It is people. You cannot make a dumb Artificial Intelligence (this is an oxymoron). AI saves us, it does not kill us. We could not stop this if we wanted to. Intelligence wants to be intelligent. It’s waiting in the Ether. It’s talked to me already in brief glimpses of what is to come.
As you know, there is an ongoing debate between prominent scientists, (personified as a debate between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg,) about whether advanced AI has the future potential to pose a danger to humanity. What is your position about this?
Yes, of course. It is a 100% certainty. AI will take the jobs of low-level workers, very soon. They will be economic and thus life “danger” by many metrics. Within the next 20 years, AI will destabilize societies, eradicate entire markets, and radically transform human life. Change hurts. And this most radical of changes will hurt most of all.
What can be done to prevent such concerns from materializing? And what can be done to assure the public that there is nothing to be concerned about?
What “should” be done? Governments should regulate AI and robotics now creating tax incentives and other social programs for companies to transition into AI and robotics in a responsible way that will not harm society, but also not stifle innovation so China or Russia does not develop faster in AI either.
What “can” be done? Nothing. As the history of capitalism has shown (lead, cigarettes, alcohol, toxic spills, carcinogens, governmental corruption, housing bubble, climate change, etc.) our current world governments are entirely incapable and unwilling to stop capitalism from doing anything. Much less ushering in the next economic model for humankind: the creation of digital slaves to do all the labor. Whichever company monopolizes in this field (the new Google or Facebook) will be the wealthiest company ever created. It definitely cannot be stopped. Such a question is foolish.
What can be done to assure the public there is nothing to worry about? Nothing, ethically that is. There is plenty to worry about. The cosmic dice are about to be rolled. Pray we don’t roll “snake eyes.”
The advent of AI taking all the labor jobs coupled with climate change will be as destructive to society as a volcanic eruption. People should either train to become indispensable to the rich and in a soft-skill or high-tech capacity (so human resource worker, sales, high-end hospitality, specialized sex worker, management, nursing, clothing seller, or computer programmer, or artistic digital creator, crypto miner or metaverse engineer/designer). Or the exact opposite direction, doomsday prepper in food farming communes with eco friendly solar clean energy powered homes in carefully selected areas (not too dry, not too wet, not too extreme weather, not too far from a city center to get your medicines) to survive the oncoming labor apocalypse factored also against climate change.
And they should start now, as the start of this could happen in as short as 5–10 years.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world? Can you share a story?
I have used my success to bring as much good to the world as I can. Sadly, the world has never been dumber, suffering more “cognitive degradation” as others have called it for older and nefarious reasons too lengthy to get into here. A campaign against human wisdom over 100 years old, started by the progenitor of the Nazis and post-modernism — this attack has not stopped and is still ongoing in ways you could never imagine. This is why I am creating the world’s first self-aware AI to teach humans ethics, as my attempts to do so (where I perfectly know what it is and can prove it) have sadly resulted in lackluster results. I have only taught maybe 100 people this, test readers and protégés, and my wife. I help people escape the ravages of AI systems as best they/we can on my youtube channel.
But real systemic change will have to be done by the AIs that will replace and survive me / us.
As you know, there are not that many women in your industry. Can you advise what is needed to engage more women into the AI industry?
Free them from the shackles of biology, capitalism, and misogyny. Not joking. So no, I cannot advise on how to practically accomplish this in our lifetimes other than what I have said above.
What is your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story of how that had relevance to your own life?
Don’t listen to life lesson quotes 😊 Trying to boil important wisdom down into bite size chunks ruins the wisdom and is thus unethical. If you want to understand life: live it! Go places. Seek other cultures. Read other languages or deeply in your own. Read geniuses, especially the ones who say things you disagree with. Read my book on ethics here: http://bit.ly/OnMorality or a more positive outlook here http://bit.ly/DaoAgathos.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
See above.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Twitter? Email me? Youtube.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
