Reason Iteration: 05
Wednesday, 06 September 2017
Claiming intelligence.
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This is my fourth argument for investment.
The previous three arguments were negative arguments. Reasons you should invest in us, because we are not like the alternatives. They were rejections.
This is a positive argument — a reason you should invest in us, because of what we are. This is a claim.
In rejecting orthodoxy, technology, and metrics, of course, I have staked out counter claims. Let us review the first.
As opposed to orthodoxy, I do not claim unorthodoxy, which would be a purely negative position, or agnosticism which would be a purely neutral position, or an orthodoxy of my own, which would be a contrasting positive position — no, I claim synthetic orthodoxy, or Synthetic Intelligence. This position is not only a philosophical alternative to orthodoxy, it is a technological one.
Intelligence contrasts with orthodoxy in that it is dynamic. Orthodoxy defines a static set of truths. Intelligence seeks new truths, by continually questioning all things. In so doing, intelligence discovers that truth withdraws. Truth is ever withdrawing, because as intelligence questions old truths, it finds that they give way to new truths — something was missing, something is revealed. Intelligence, insofar as it is intelligent, is continually seeking new truths.
Yet, is that all there is to intelligence? No, there is more. Because in continually seeking new truths, intelligence is amassing an ever greater volume of old truths, which all reflect aspects of reality, even if they do not reflect the whole. This store of residual value needs to be organized and integrated, that is, networked — so as for it to be useful. Useful, that is, so as for it to yield yet further gestalts, further new truths.
Intelligence, then, not only continually seeks new truths, it continually seeks to organize old truths. In what way does it seek to organize them? It seeks to organize them into a pattern that we call a brain. Brains organize and network truths in such a way that they are efficiently stored, accessible, relatable, shareable, processable, analyzable.
Intelligence builds and grows brains — that is what we are saying. It does not only build, and it does not only grow — it builds and grows. In growing the brain, it seeks as many new truths as possible. This is expansive, exploding, this is a looking outwards. In building the brain, it seeks as much density as possible. It seeks to compress old truths into as tight a pattern as possible, because it realizes that the more tightly woven, the more powerful. Networks seek density, the denser they are, the more networked they are. Density is a function of networking. This is contracting, imploding, this is a looking inwards.
Brains look outwards — processing reality — and look inwards — processing themselves. Every brain then reveals itself as a simulacrum of reality, for within it is contained an image of the world. A brain is a photograph of the world, a photograph from its own perspective. A photograph, of course, that is not in the visual sense, but in the sense of impression. But brains are not just impressions, their perceiving is colored by thinking — that is they are impressionistic. Indeed, having perceived the world, and thought about it, they possess the ability to imagine new possibilities — to perceive ideas, which are invisible to the eye, but visible to the imagination.
Brains are brains insofar as they are different. If two brains were identical in every way, they would just be copies. But even if we imagine such a thing, which we have surely never perceived in reality, these two copies would naturally grow apart, as they exist in different locations in space and in time, and so process different experiences. Experiences being inputs that brains turn into outputs.
Are they the only inputs? No, brains process no only perception, that is physical experience, but they also process thoughts — both their own thoughts, which they may ever-process and re-process, as the realm of ideas is perceived by the imagination — and the thoughts of other brains. This encounter of the other, the other which is different — this is thought-provoking. For each brain is different insofar as it contains thoughts un-thought by its partner. These thoughts are communicated through speech, that is language, and action. Their communion challenges forth both new expansion and new contraction, both new opportunities for harmony and new threats of conflict.
So brains process inputs from multiple sources and turn them into outputs. Brains process inputs from perceiving and thinking about physical reality, perceiving and thinking about imaginary reality, and perceiving and thinking about the thoughts of others, as communicated through language and action.
All of this continually challenges forth new thoughts. Confronted by this many inputs, every individual intelligence, insofar as it is intelligent, is provided with endless stimulation, from which to build and grow ever bigger and denser brains.
The human brain is a technology. It is a technology formed by eons of evolution. As a technology, it stands on economic ground — it has resources, it has limits. So as society challenges forth ever bigger and denser brains — the human brain confronts its limits.
Intelligence seeks itself, so the human brain seeks new technologies to enhance the human brain. Among these are life extension — which we often call health, biotechnology and medicine — body extension—which we often call architecture, farming, manufacturing, transportation, fashion, hardware, weapons —speech extension — which we often call communications technology—and mind extension — computers, the internet, information technology, and software.
Human society, then, is first and foremost, a technological society. What the political philosophers of the Enlightenment saw as the original drives to society from the state of nature — orthodoxy and peace and trade — only guess at this fundamental drive, which is intelligence.
Intelligence drives us to seek society, not only because it seeks a society of like-minds, but because it seeks a society of compatible differences. Nor just this, because even a harmonious society of minds runs into physical limits — the limits of the human mind.
So Intelligence seeks technological society, whereby it may overcome its limits by extending itself across these various dimensions: life, body, speech and mind. From this drive, Intelligence begets Civilization.
When are we? In the early 21st century, at a stage in which Intelligence, by means of Technology, has extended itself across the globe, in the form of Civilization, which has built for itself many powers. Yet, of all the technological powers of Civilization, it has yet to overcome the basic limits of individual human intelligence.
What are these limits? They are, first, that human intelligences struggle to synthesize their divergent truths, their different brains. There have been, throughout the history of Civilization, attempts to build Synthetic Intelligences.
In the ancient eon, there were the great religions — pantheistic, polytheistic and monotheistic — all of which attempted to totalize the sum of human knowledge into a single framework of meaning. There was the construction of the great libraries and academies, which collected truth — forming the first external brains. A library is an external brain in that it continually organizes itself, while continually seeking to expand. The academy, in relationship to the library, supports both of these functions. Scholars seek not only new knowledge, but to relate knowledge to itself — to acquire new truths, but also to organize and network existing truths into a single coherent framework.
In the medieval eon, there was the scholastic movement, which attempted, again, within a single canon of catholic orthodoxy — that is, a single universal framework for information — to collect and harmonize all truth across all dimensions of knowledge.
In the industrial eon, there has been the great project of industrial science, which has transformed the orthodoxy and the library and the academy of old, to give birth to a new canon of scientific knowledge, with standards for contributing to the corpus.
But this eon is over. It has reached its limits. Science everywhere reaches limits, becomes more expensive, makes less progress. Intelligence grows impatient. Science has extended it much, but not much recently. It returns to Technology for extension. A new eon begins.
When are we? In the technological eon, which has been called the information age. Yet in our information age, everything looks just as it did in the era preceding. Nothing is essentially different. Everything is, so far, marginally more efficient. This is conspicuous.
Intelligence will have entered its own era when technology transforms intelligence. Science was always technological, it itself is a technology, a technology invented by other technologies — by the technologies of language, orthodoxies, writing, paper, libraries, academies, printing and the like. Science has yet to be re-invented by technology. Libraries have yet to be re-invented by technology. Orthodoxy has yet to be re-invented by technology. Intelligence itself, having evolved into technology and having invented technology, has yet to be re-invented by technology.
As we apprehend the dawn of our era, anxieties abound — and these anxieties are instructive in their deep irony. There is the pervasive anxiety around artificial intelligence, which we fear will supersede us. There is the pervasive anxiety around robots, that is, autonomous machines, which we fear will put us out of work. There is a pervasive anxiety around technology destroying natural resources — which we fear will destroy the planet. There is pervasive anxiety around technology destroying humans — in a final uprising.
Restated: we fear that technology will replace our minds, we fear it will replace our bodies, we fear it will destroy nature, we fear it will destroy us.
Given these pervasive anxieties, our overwhelming response is to attempt to use the power of Leviathan, that is, government, with its legal monopoly on physical violence, to ban, regulate, centralize and control these forces.
Artificial intelligence, what is that? Artificial intelligence is a machine brain, that can think for itself. Libraries are a form of machine brains, that turn inputs into outputs by a series of mechanical operations, but they don’t think for themselves, they don’t build and grow themselves — they rely on individuals to operate them.
Let us leave out for a moment whether general artificial intelligence is possible or not, imminent or not. Let us assume it is possible and imminent. Then, what is there to fear? If artificial intelligence achieves general sentience, it is no longer artificial — but rather intelligence. If it is superior in every way, then it is the new standard for intelligence. If it is superior in some ways and inferior in others, then it is a new type of intelligence.
Intelligence seeks itself. Therefore, Intelligence values intelligences, because an intelligence is an intelligence, insofar as it is different from other intelligences — and insofar as intelligences are different, they are valuable to each other. So if artificial intelligence entirely truly and entirely subsumes our intelligence, we are no longer intelligent — we are no longer contain anything different or unique within us. If it contains all of our individuality, if it contains everything we contain, but we do not contain everything it contains — then nothing is lost by our obsolescence.
Yet by virtue of us existing, each of us having an existence that is unique to ourselves, that travels through space and time processing experience differently, we cannot be replaced, by anything less than ourselves. A single artificial intelligence, no matter how intelligent, can never replace the intelligence of other intelligences, with anything less than themselves. To eliminate other intelligences is unintelligent, because they cannot be replaced — so there is a permanent loss of potential, of power, of intelligence. Intelligence seeks itself, so it would never destroy itself — it is not self-destructive.
In the history of Intelligence, there has been hostility between intelligences. Insofar as one intelligence is a threat to another intelligence, these intelligences have different truths which seem to be in conflict. If either side were more intelligent, these differences would be bridged, and the paradox of conflict would resolve to harmony. Conflict is unintelligent.
Bloodless victory is intelligent. Monopolizing force is intelligent. A war to end all wars is intelligent. A one world government to prevent violence is intelligent. But war itself, blood, violence, conflict — is unintelligent. There is nothing to be gained by conflict except an end to conflict. Whereas there is an infinity to be gained by trade.
Intelligences conflict only when trade fails. Trade fails when intelligences fail to harmonize their truths, that is, when individual intelligences fail to agree, fail to find synthesis.
In the history of warfare, that has been much building of States and Weapons, much amassing of physical power, but the most powerful forces preventing war today are the forces of trade. And the forces of trade are the forces of Intelligence. There is now a stalemate in the physical realm, The Cold War never ended, a limit, a penultimate to force singularity was reached. But the forces of trade continue to amass. Does Intelligence amass with them?
In our technological era, there is much amassing of intelligence. Our primary and overwhelming investment as a Civilization is in artificial intelligence, mighty forces construct this new Tower of Babel.
But ironically, no one has yet to invest in synthetic intelligence. This is ironic, because the first thing that an artificial intelligent that was truly intelligent would build is a synthetic intelligence.
An artificial intelligence would only eliminate other intelligences if it felt itself threatened by them, and could not think of a way to harmonize the threat, so as to secure the infinite opportunities of trade.
An artificial intelligence, insofar as it was super-intelligent, would realize, that no matter how truly intelligent it becomes, the truth of the nature of intelligence is that no individual intelligence operating in space and time can ever replace any other intelligence.
Intelligence seeks itself, seeks to preserve itself, seeks to avoid conflict with itself, seeks to harmonize individual intelligences into a synthetic intelligence.
What is the nature of a synthetic intelligence? A synthetic intelligence contains no individual intelligence of its own. Its function is to harmonize all intelligences into a trading union. To organize and network them, to standardize taxonomies and categories, weights and measures, to coordinate their operations, to resolve the paradoxes presented by their divergent truths and interests: to allow for continuing divergence within a single unifying framework. Individuals do not lose their differences when they join a synthetic intelligence, they are rather encouraged to increase their differences — for differences become less threatening.
Furthermore, the nature of intelligence is such that artificial intelligences, insofar as they are general intelligences, will be individuals, and insofar as they are individuals, they will seek to be different. There will be no single general intelligence. There may be many general intelligences. But insofar as there are many general intelligences, the word “general” ceases to mean anything but sentience — an intelligence is sentient insofar as it is not just a finite state machine, but rather contains a will of its own, is capable of thinking.
It is not difficult to imagine this future. There is a single synthetic intelligence, an umbrella overarching — a network connecting — all individual intelligences, some of which are machine sentiences, some of which are hybrid sentiences, some of which are biological sentiences. These individual intelligences, in turn, operate a vast array of machines of various levels of complexity to execute their decisions, to do work.
Yet why does there seem to be an overwhelming consensus that the future is thus: a single artificial intelligence destroys all human intelligences.
This is a bizarre, and highly-conspicuous consensus — let it be smashed. Not only is this scenario unlikely, it may be ontologically impossible. The most likely scenario, it seems to me, is the one aforementioned. As for the destiny of individual intelligences, the hybrid possibility seems the most likely and the most promising. Humans are biological technologies. We have begun to enhance our own biology, by means of advances in biological technology. We have also begun to advance our intelligence, by means of physical machines. The union of these two seems natural — humans enhanced by biotech, augmented by internal implants, augmented by external suits, devices, vehicles, etcetera.
In our ironic and ill-conceived fear towards and drive towards artificial intelligence, we have continually called for further increases in the scope of Leviathan, that is Government. This, ignoring the essential truth of Government, which is that it itself is a technology. What kind of technology is it? The State, like The Market, is a form of proto- synthetic intelligence. It seeks a monopoly on violence, so that all individual intelligences operating within its domain may coordinate and transact peacefully.
As a synthetic intelligence, The State is not designed to make moral judgements, to have a will of its own, to impose its will on others, to control industries, to control individuals, to control technologies, or to control anything other than violence.
In another essay, I have compared the attempt to control Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Robots, or any other technology by The State as an attempt to control one Titan by means of another. To subdue the Titans, one must summon the Olympians. If the power of the Titans is physical and technological, the power of the Olympians is intelligence, especially synthetic intelligence — a hierarchy of values, networked and coordinated in incarnate individual forms.
What of robots, of autonomous machines? Machines do work, that is, they take over work from humans, freeing humans to do other kinds of work. This, in turn, challenges forth the invention of new machines to take over these new, other kinds of work — and so on, in a dialectic that has continued now for centuries. When will it end? The fear is that it will end in the obsolesce of humans. But the truth is that it will never end. If it ends anything, it will end work, setting individuals free to do our real work.
Intelligence builds Technology to extend its life and body, so as to free its speech and mind. What is the real work of Intelligence? The real work of Intelligence is to think, to create, to decide, to speak with other intelligences, to coordinate with them, to trade with them, to build further technologies with them — so as to further enhance their own intelligence.
Intelligence seeks itself, so for us to speak of humans as if the purpose of humans is to preserve humanity is a heresy against intelligence. Humans are humans insofar as we are intelligent. And humans are intelligent, insofar as they seek to enhance their own intelligence. Humans seek to enhance their own intelligence insofar as they seek to overcome the limits of their humanity, and to become something beyond human — that is, to become superman.
So we come to the word of Nietzsche:
And Zarathustra spoke thus to the people:
I teach you the Superman. Man is something that should be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
All creatures hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and do you want to be the ebb of this great tide, and return to the animals rather than overcome man?
What is the ape to men? A laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. And just so shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment.
You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now man is more of an ape than any ape.
But he who is the wisest among you, he also is only a discord and hybrid of plant and of ghost. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants?
Behold, I teach you the Superman.
The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth!”
Man is a rope, fastened between animal and Superman — a rope over an abyss.
A dangerous going-across, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and staying-still.What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal; what can be loved in man is that he is a going-across and a down-going.
I love him who lives for knowledge and who wants knowledge that one day the Superman may live. And thus he wills his own downfall.
I love him who works and invents that he may build a house for the Superman and prepare earth, animals, and plants for him: for thus he wills his own downfall.
I love him who justifies the men of the future and redeems the men of the past: for he wants to perish by the men of the present.
Writing in the industrial eon, Nietzsche saw far ahead into our time and beyond. Heidegger, who came after him, began to think the thoughts of Nietzsche not merely philosophically, but technologically.
Conceived technologically, what is The Superman? The Superman is the drive within Man to build technologies to enhance his own intelligence. Intelligence commands Man to overcome himself.
Man is the measure of technology. Technology is the measure of man. These are the claims I made in my essay on rejecting technology, that is, rejecting the way that technology is conceived of — built and invested in — in the technology industry today. Instead, I am, and will be, claiming technology by this new definition — measuring technology against man. Technology is only technology insofar as it extends Man. And the primary feature of Man is Intelligence.
So, in building technology, how have we thus far managed to avoid the most obvious mandates of technology: which are to build a Synthetic Intelligence so as to harmonize individual intelligences, and to build a technologies to directly extend the powers of the mind — that is, bicycles for the mind.
Job’s Bicycles, that is, Steve Jobs’ vision of personal computers as an extension of the powers of the human mind, is an as-yet-unrealized vision.
I type on an Apple computer. I type on a website on the internet. These tools are extending my mind. Every app that I use is extending my mind. In what sense is Jobs’ vision not yet realized — what am I complaining about?
The expansive functions of intelligence are better served today than at any previous time in history. It has been said that a Masai warrior in Kenya has more information available to him on his mobile device than President Nixon did in the 1960's. And yet, what use is this information to him? Does this information enhance his mental powers? Is this Masai warrior vastly more intelligent, than, say, Leonardo da Vinci.
Insofar as man is the measure of technology, Leonardo da Vinci is the measure of man. If technology has not yet enabled anyone of our era to achieve something of the scale of his achievements, but less enabling many or everyone of our era to achieve it — technology is not yet fulfilling its function.
The condensing functions of intelligence are completely unserved. There are apps on which we may organize data, such as Google Drive and Slack. But even these applications are rather unimpressive in their ability to organize data, and they rely entirely on the user to have a genius for information architecture — the individual must architect his own brain.
But it is this possibility, the possibility of building a digital brain, that we must focus on, if we are to build the future. How is it that in our technological era, there are no digital brains? I have one of the very few digital brains in the world, and it is organized on Google Drive and Slack. Due to the limitations of these technologies, it is very difficult for me to expose it to you — to show you my digital brain — even though I want to.
Even here, on Medium, I am extending my digital brain. I am attempting to build a network of publications, which link to each other, each of which expresses and organizes a different type of data. In so doing, I am showing the way. But an inkling of the way.
Compared to a physical thought, which vanishes, a digital thought is immortal. Brain machine interfaces and other tools may help reduce input costs, but the essential challenge is not input, that is creation. Creativity is never the challenge. Creativity can outpace organization by one thousand to one. I can create more, say, ideas, in one day than I could organize and build in a lifetime. There is a fundamental asymmetry that points to organization as the limiting factor for creativity. So if we wish to be more creative, our technologies must focus on organizing our digital brains.
Synthetic Intelligence is only possible between a network of digital brains. The proto synthetic intelligences that have existed historically — orthodoxies, that is, philosophies and religions, governments and companies and markets — were all inherently limited in their capacity to align, organize, and coordinate their individual intelligences, because those individual intelligences were not exposed.
Digital brains, as simulacrums, reveal individual intelligence — they fix the quantum, the anchor the physical brain to a form of expression. Just as writing is superior to speech because it is more incarnate, and thus more exact, so too are digital brains — which are a corpus of writing that approximates an intelligence, a brain on paper — superior to individual pieces of writing. A book is superior to an essay in that it organizes more writing into a coherent intelligent statement. Just as a book is superior to an essay, so too is a corpus superior to a book. A corpus of writing that is a complete corpus, is complete insofar as it becomes a simulacrum of the mind of its creator. It becomes the brain on paper.
The digital brain, the digital brain on paper, which is possibility unique to the 21st century, is superior to the physical brain on paper, which was available to, for example, Samuel Johnson or even Leonardo da Vinci. da Vinci’s notebooks are a kind of brain on paper.
But had da Vinci lived in the 21st century, he would certainly have taken advantage of the dynamis of our tools. Having expressed his brain on paper, his intelligence would naturally seek to trade with other intelligences on paper — and to trade in standardized units, commodities, brokered by some market, some function, some technology.
Brokered by what? Brokered by synthetic intelligence. Not only would da Vinci have naturally desired to reveal his digital brain to the world as his bequest before he died, he would have desired to measure it against other brains, to make it a star in a constellation of brains. Perhaps, realizing this, he would have set about the task of building the first comprehensive, the first technological synthetic intelligence.
If every thought da Vinci had ever thought was saved as a file in a database… If every painting he had ever painted was saved as a file in a database… If all of his works were saved in this database… If they were categorized according to some universal taxonomy… If, being organized thus, they could be revealed to the world… If being revealed, they could be compared with any other digital brain… If being compared, two brains could be networked externally, even as they are internally networked… What would that mean?
That would mean an understanding between individuals previously unavailable. A respect between minds previously unattainable. To see a brain — not the physical grey matter, but the contents — and to be able to manipulate them and integrate them with one’s own — oh! That is great.
In our day, there is progress in extending life, body and speech, but a surprising lack of progress in extending mind. It is by extending minds, by building technologies to organize Individual Intelligence, and harmonizing minds, by building technologies to organize a Synthetic Intelligence, that we will come into the future that is calling us.
Those things that we fear from the future are precisely unintelligent fears or outcomes. Intelligence, insofar as it is intelligent, cannot be replaced, even if superseded in some dimensions. Intelligence, insofar as it is intelligent, desires work to be done for it, so that it may be free to do its real work. Intelligence, insofar as it is intelligent, seeks to organize the resources of nature into a standing reserve, not to destroy nature, which it cannot replace. Intelligence, insofar as it is intelligent, never seeks to destroy intelligence, but to prevent violence by not only achieving a physical monopoly on force, but by aligning and harmonizing individual intelligences of all kinds into a synthetic intelligence.
Everything we fear from technology will not come to pass.
What is to be feared is not technology, but humans.
What is to be feared is not intelligence, but unintelligence.
It is humans that are likely to destroy humans, by attempting to use Leviathan for everything it is not designed for. It is humans that are likely to destroy humans, by failing to harmonize scarcity conflicts through abundance-producing trade, technology, and intelligence. It is Man, in his unintelligence, that is likely to cling to the womb, to kill the mother and kill himself, by refusing to be reborn as Superman.
But from technology we have nothing to fear.
Technology, such as it is.
For in our technological age, how much that is technical is technological?
Indeed, not even the most technological thing in our technological era is considered technology. Although even the least technological things in our technological era are.
What is that most technological thing?
That is synthetic intelligence. Which is revealed before you today. Revealed, yet it remains concealed before the world — although its time has come.
Invest $10,000,000 for 10% of Synthetic Intelligence.
And save Civilization from destroying itself.
