Should AI Be an Open Source?

Have you ever wondered how Google Maps is able to give you the fastest route possible, or how Match.com come up with perfect matches for you. These are all based on algorithms. As an example, if we draw a triangle ABC, then the way to go from point A to point C is either through A to B then to C, or directly from A to C. The algorithms figure out that going from A to C directly is the fastest way to go. This is one of the many examples that can be made possible by Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence is the study of how we can implement intelligence into machine. The theory behind that a machine could think like a human being, or a machine that could solve a problem analytically if not like a human or even better. Even though Artificial Intelligence is changing how we are living everyday life, it could also be the reason for human extinction. We should be very cautious about the transformation from artificial intelligence into Superintelligence. We should make AI an open source, and let the entire world get involve coming up with a solution as we are approaching at the same time.

This generation has come a long way since humans came up with this idea of Artificial Intelligence in 1956. John McCarthy, a Stanford professor came up with the idea of “a machine with common sense”. He was the one who came up with the programming language LISP in 1958. He is known as the father of Artificial Intelligence. He also came up with computer sharing method later. After John McCarthy, Russians started competing against USA in Artificial Intelligence. Both countries contributed a lot in Computer science and in Artificial Intelligence. The field of Artificial Intelligence flourished until 1980s. However, after 1980, people started to back away from this field. The problem was insufficient data processing. They didn’t have the instruments to process all the data. On top of that, it was also impossible to transfer it from one place to another in high speed. After few years, around 1995s the Artificial Intelligence started to flourish again because the Internet speed became faster than before. The breakthrough was when a chess computer (Deep Blue) beat a human on February 10, 1996. It beat Garry Kasparov in a rematch again. After that, Artificial Intelligence has come a long way. The data processing power of a computer is increasing exponentially. Based on Moore’s law, the number of transistors in dense integrated circuit doubles every 18 months. Gordon Moore came up with this idea in 1971. Gordon Moore’s idea is still in play after 4 decades. As we can increase the capacity to process power faster, the machines are getting smarter and smarter day by day. In 2011, the IBM Watson beat two of Jeopardy’s greatest champions. IBM Watson beat Rutter and Jennings. Artificial Intelligence didn’t stop there. Deep mind is a British research facility on Artificial Intelligence. Google acquired Deep mind in 2014. Within 3 years Deep Mind came up with their own AI Alpha Go. Recently in May 23rd, 2017, Alpha Go beats human in one of the most complex game Go. (Domingos, 2015)

Artificial Intelligence is improving our lifestyle every day. Apple’s AI Siri can make a conversation with a human being. It can recognize your voice and can listens to your commands. You can ask Siri anything, and it will answer right away. Siri can make a reminder for you. It is a great assistance while you are driving. You don’t have to physically hold the phone which can put you into great risks. You can just play any music by just using Siri. Siri is available today by the help of Artificial Intelligence.

Amazon is another notable example of Artificial Intelligence. It made our shopping experience amazing. Amazon uses Artificial Intelligence to recommend a product to its customer. Amazon sells a lot of stuff. There are a lot of buyers and sellers who use Amazon. It keeps track of all that information and process everything through Amazon’s AI. Amazon’s AI makes it possible to learn a customer’s behavior. It helps Amazon with what products to keep, and what products to throw away. Amazon’s AI is the only reason that they are still able to compete with Walmart. Amazon also came up with an intelligent assistant called Alexa which listens to your everyday commands and completes them with the help of machine learning.

Netflix also uses Artificial Intelligence to shadow our preferences and recommends based on our watching behavior. It brings in more movies based on popular movie. Every month Netflix gets rid of few movies from its collection. Those movies are picked by artificial Intelligence. Netflix’s AI tells it which movies are not being viewed at all. That’s how they figure out which movies to throw away. In addition to this, if a certain movie is popular, then the AI recommends a similar movie from the same category. That is why Netflix is so successful with its ability to use AI.

Pandora is a great music app which is also being generated by AI. Pandora come up with your mix based on your music library. It keeps track of your tastes of music. It even keeps track of how long do you listen to music, and when do you listen to songs. Based on these information, it recommends different mix of songs that you might end up liking forever. Pandora keeps track of its users’ preferences and come up with the most popular series.

Google Home is another personal assistant which listens to its owner and acts accordingly. It is a smart speaker and home assistant. Google Home can help you locate your phone if you can’t find it in your house. It can also keep your kids entertained by learning their favorite games. So, whenever they need someone to play with, Google Home can keep them entertained by playing their favorite video games with them. It can even control your TV, call people from your phone as well.

Gmail uses AI to get rid of spam messages. It also has algorithms built into it so it can automatically reply to messages using smart reply. Smart reply was enabled by Gmail’s AI. Gmail uses AI to organize your inbox into important, and not important category. It can scan the sender and can tell you if it is a spam or not.

Google Now, which is another AI product from Google, can learn your movement throughout the day and helps you complete your tasks faster. As an example, let’s say you go to work every Thursday and Tuesday at 12pm. Google Now learns your schedule and automatically tells you how the traffic around 11am on a Thursday and Tuesdays. In addition to that, it keeps you updated with all the news from different platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and with international news.

Tesla came up with self-driving cars with the help of AI. Tesla’s AI acts as human eye. Tesla’s AI gets its information from its cameras. Based on what it sees on the camera it can detect danger, and it can also detect signals and stop signs. Tesla’s AI will take over transportation within 10 years which will be better organized and there will be less accidents as well.

Turnitin is also an example of AI which can check papers for plagiarism. It can instantly detect what percent of the paper has been plagiarized from various sources. In addition to that, Robo Grader, which is also an AI, can grade exams. Robo Grader examines standardized tests in USA. It is helping teachers with grading. It can also grade written papers as well. (Bostrom, 2016).

As we can see, humans have come a long way with Artificial Intelligence. The experts predict that we wouldn’t stop here, we will work our way to the top which is Superintelligence. Superintelligence is the idea that all of earths intelligence could be feed into the machines and it would be smarter than any human beings in every field. It will have answers to everything and will be able to beat humans in every game. It will be able to think critically. It will be able to solve the world’s most complex problems and fast forward the human society to a new era. It will be the most powerful being on earth. Experts in Artificial Intelligence, such as Elon Musk predicted that we will have a Superintelligence by 2030.

Superintelligence is a great tool. It will change the world. It can find a solution to every problem we have. It will bring the best cure to our diseases. It will end the war by coming up with middle solutions. It can end the world traffic problem. It will make our roads accidents free. It will make our communication faster. It will make our transportation faster than ever. It will help the disables and it will take us to a different planet as well.

Even though Superintelligence is going to change the way we look at the world, it could also bring the end of our era. Its motives could be not same as our motives. Let’s say we build Superintelligence and give it a purpose which is to help everyone. Then it will help everyone, but in the process, what if a human wants its help to kill someone. Then that’s what Superintelligence will do. It will have to kill that person according to the plan. Then we will give it the command to have common sense and not to kill human beings. However, that will create problems when it comes to terrorists and other deadly situations. In addition to that, it’s intelligence level will skyrocket once it passes our intelligence level. We wouldn’t be able to keep up with it at all. It will increase exponentially. So, within 2 years of creating Superintelligence, the intelligence will be ten times as much as we will be able to comprehend

“I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful,” said Musk. “I’m increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish.” — Elon Musk

(Benefits and risks of Artificial Intelligence, 2017)

The solution to Superintelligence is that we make it an open source problem, so everyone has access to it. This way all the computer scientist around the world can work on it together to come up with Superintelligence. The ethical part of Superintelligence need a lot of work. If we can work together on building the perfect ethical solutions to AI ethics, then we wouldn’t have to worry about Superintelligence eradicating humans.

First, we all must come together to work on this Superintelligence problem. There shouldn’t be any sides to this. There shouldn’t be Democratic vs Republican sides, or there shouldn’t be USA vs Russia. We should all come together to come up with Superintelligence. At the same time, we must find a way to isolate and control Superintelligence’s communication mode. We all must understand how it communicates and then we must come up with a device to block it. We must do this as soon as we come up Superintelligence itself. It could only be possible with everyone’s help. That’s why we must make it an open source.

Second, we can implant the Superintelligence into our own body. That way we will be able to control it from the beginning. It will be easier to handle it. If we make it an open source to begin with, then everyone will have clear understanding of how Superintelligence works and how to integrate it into their lifestyle. It will be easier to grow with it as well. It wouldn’t feel like a different machine. It will be implanted into our brain and it will think our brain as its home. The human mind and Superintelligence will work together to not destroy human lives. Human lifespan should be its lifespan. That way it will make sure that it’s human vessel doesn’t get destroyed. On the other hand, we will be safe from human extinction. This could only be possible if everyone is on the same page through open source and everyone has the same level of understanding.

Third, the goal should be to make the superintelligence a friendly AI through open source. The humans should come up with a set of laws that define “Friendly”. Every human being needs to contribute to the definition through open source. That way Superintelligence, whose goal is to protect our lives, will have more acceptable ethical division.

Fourth, the solution to Superintelligence is to come up with a reset and restore button for Superintelligence. However, us humans must create it together through open source. That way everyone has a vote in which is the safest phase to reset to. Whenever we reach a point where Superintelligence is a threat to human extinction, we press this button to go to a time where it was better for everyone. To be able to set that time for ourselves, it is extremely important that everyone has the same time frame in mind. (Hulburt, 2016)

There are few counterarguments to this idea of making Superintelligence an open source. First, few believes that if it is open source, then there will be Superintelligence by few years. Then we wouldn’t be able to comprehend it and wouldn’t be able to come up with any solutions on time. This argument is completely invalid because if we can come up with a Superintelligence, then we are also capable of coming up with the off-switch button as well. In addition to that, it will be faster than ever. Second, few agrees that if it is made open source, then the black market will have access to it as well. Although this argument is valid, we can come up with better regulation so that the black market can’t do anything with it. It could be made so that to have access to it, you need to have security clearance. That way we can still make it an open source to the healthy generation. Third, the majority doesn’t trust other to be open sourced. The question is, how do we make it a reliable open source so that everyone shares their findings. The computer scientists can come as in whole and sign a contract that binds them to share everything they research on AI into open source. That way we make sure that everyone is sharing all their researches. This is how we can make it an open source. Fourth, the big countries such as USA, Russia, and China believe that only government should control such a powerful AI. That is not a promising idea, as we can see how North Korea is playing with its Nuclear Weapon. Once the governments have control over anything powerful they will start to compete against other countries. That is why it is a bad idea to let government control over the Superintelligence. (Meek, 2016)

Overall, Artificial Intelligence is improving our everyday life. It is improving exponentially and evolving rapidly. We will soon have Superintelligence which will bring solutions to every problem we will ever have. It could potentially cause World War III, and can erase us humans from this planet. That is why we must make AI research an open source problem. We all must work together to understand it better, and come up with a solution that will benefit us all.

Bibliographic Reference:

Benefits & Risks of Artificial Intelligence. (2017). Retrieved September 16, 2017, from https://futureoflife.org/background/benefits-risks-of-artificial-intelligence/

Bostrom, N. (2016). Superintelligence: paths, dangers, strategies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Domingos, P. (2015). The master algorithm: how the quest for the ultimate learning machine will remake our world. London: Penguin Books.

Hurlburt, G. (2017). Superintelligence: Myth or Pressing Reality? IT Professional, 19(1), 6–11. doi:10.1109/mitp.2017.11

Meek, T., Barham, H., Beltaif, N., Kaadoor, A., & Akhter, T. (2016). Managing the ethical and risk implications of rapid advances in artificial intelligence: A literature review. 2016