When Smart Become Intelligent.
My criteria for Artificial Intelligence
The Era of Smart
We live in the smart era. So-called smart products and services is pouring out every second. Then, what does the smart refer to? What is the difference from their counterpart in the past? Before the smart, products and services were mainly devised to reduce men’s physical activities or limitation. Compared to this, I think the smart means an ability of tool that can aid humans’ cognitive task by replacing a part of the task.
The Smart Tools for Extended Humans
As Vannevar Bush and J.C.R Licklider anticipated in their paper “ As We May Think, 1945” and “Man-Computer Symbiosis, 1960” respectively, smart devices and systems allow us to focus more on constructive thinking by taking over repetitive works from us. They support people’s limited memory by record and save what we see, heard, and think. We also depend on them when calculating huge amount of data. It is obvious that human’s capacity has been extended and accelerated with the smart technology.
On top of that, they have been getting smarter as much as they can find a pattern from the data and react in accordance with context. It seems that they are independent and enough to deserve the title of intelligence. But it isn’t actually. The smart technology is operating based on prescribed program and human’s intervention is inevitable. As long as only complying with a given algorithm, they would leave in the boundary they should be.
Artificial Intelligence as an Entity
Early this year, I happened to discover an article and video about The OpenWorm project. A group of engineers mapped out the roundworm’s 302 neurons and the connection of them. They simulated them in software and implanted it in Lego robot. The result of the project was so impressive. According to the comment in the video: “This is not a program telling the robot to stop and reverse when an obstacle appears, it is the connectome.” It behaved like something being aware of what is going on even without any pre-programming. It was the first moment I thought something really intelligent.
Why did I think so? What is my criteria for intelligent of artificial creature? It was hard to think it is a tool. It looks like having a soul. It seems to recognize the environment, think, make a decision all by itself. It is not determined what it should do. This might be a sign showing a possibility that it can go beyond what it is now. This is the biggest difference from the smart products and system. In contrast to that they are just tools, the robot is an entity that might substitute human being. It might conceive curiosity, pose questions, and pursue a future goal, as if a human.
Follow-up questions
What happen if we make a perfect artificial intelligence? What if Artificial Intelligence takes over — or we hand over — our whole intelligence? Would it be utopian or distopian?
Why people attempt to develop Artificial Intelligence even though they sometimes afraid of it and feel creepy about it?
