Some Unpremeditated Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence

Will any android ever achieve the grace and fluidity of the human organism--not just in physicality but in the electro-chemo-mechanical functions known as thought and emotion? Certainly they can approximate or mimic the human organism--but can they ever achieve the almost water-like nature of a human? Hmm, maybe that is the key to perfect AI: liquid crystality.

I once perused a book called The Society of Mind by cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky. There he talked about how all of the simple functions--push and pull, move and stop, and so on--work in concert to behave in unpredictable and creative ways. Perhaps the key to AI is determining the simplest functional substances that can work together.

A corallary to the "society" concept of the individual mind is that of the group. A giant anthill was once pumped full of cement, allowed to dry, and then excavated. The scientists discovered a complex "metropolis" of highways and biways, ventilation and waste management systems, incubation rooms, and so on--all seemingly designed by a single architect. No one ant knew what was going on on the macrocosm, but by God the thing worked as a whole, and each ant did his mighty little part.

That is how human civilization works, as well. Of course. What else but compartmentation and an invisible "hive mind" can account for the fact that we all know as individuals what the collective should do, but the collective doesn't seem to give a damn what our puny individual thoughts are. No matter how influential an individual, the whole will move in ways much more similar to a flock of birds or a weather system: unpredictable, fluid.

There it is again: fluidity. So an organism of artificial intelligence must be fluid, no? How can we create an artificial human that thinks, feels, and moves with such grace as that normally afforded to humans--or to animals--or to the way a forest grows up and self-regulates and achieves homeostasis?

Perhaps it is time to re-engineer the very concept of intelligence. Why not a stone have intelligence? Why not a mote of dust? Our galaxy is in itself seemingly "of some design"--the way it spirals, pirouettes--like a ballerina, or a dolphin at Sea World. Why not every level of existence be afforded some "intelligence"? Not only will this go a long way towards improving our understanding and respect and empathy for the world around us, but it could help to redefine the quest for a perfect AI.

Maybe we should redefine what it means to be intelligent before we try to create a robotic being that, for all intents and purposes, is a human being in a very real way. Instead of trying to create an artificial homo sapiens sapiens, why not create an artificially intelligent substance or fluid? Maybe it has already been done. Maybe we are surrounded by artificial intelligence already. Orville and Wilbur Wright created an airplane that captures air currents and manipulates air pressures in such a way as to create lift. The human arms cannot do that--and yet the seemingly unconscious airplane wing is impressive and awe-inspiring just the same.

Back to ants: I saw an article in Popular Science recently about real-world "zombies"--or beings whose brains have been compromised by some outside force. There is a fungus that attaches itself to an ant's cranium, injects it with chemical "commands", rides the ant to an ideal location for the fungus to reproduce, and then boom: the fungus bursts out of the poor ant's skull having been incubated therein, in just the right place for its spores to take flight and find more ants to use for procreation.

Pretty gruesome stuff, but besides that, what can we learn from that? What can we learn about the cooperative nature of "intelligence"? Certainly a fungus is not intelligent like a human. But that does not mean it is "lower" than a human (unless we are talking about actual spatial relationships, in which case, sure, yes, it is physically lower towards the ground.) Instead, the fungus is intelligent like a fungus.

We must meet intelligence on its own terms, not on the arbitrary narcissistic terms we set out for ourselves. Yes, it is natural to see the world in terms of what we can most immediately relate to--out own human incarnations, in this case--but why not expand the very definition of the self? Why not say, "Yes, that stone is me, that ant is me, that fungus is me, that galaxy is me." Of course, we don't have to mean this in every literal sense, but perhaps if we simply imagine it to be true for a moment, we can empathize with beings that can help us to increase our understanding of Things.

Fluidity. Self. Cooperation. Unconscious organization giving rise to consciousness. Emergent properties. All of these concepts and more must be applied to artificial intelligence--not just mechanics, electrodes, and software. Why limit ourselves? Perhaps the great breakthrough in artificial intelligence will come not from a tinkerer, not from a scientist, but from a jack of all trades--or a society of jacks of all trades.

These are some of my unpremeditated thoughts on artificial intelligence.

I Loaned My Brain to Science

Many times, in fact. One of the experiences sticks with me.

I remember it in patches.

They stuck me inside a magnetic resonance imaging scanner--MRI for short. It's like a big sarcophagus made out of metal and plastic. You lay on your back in the dark while a loud hammering noise does semi-circles over your head from left to right and back again, over and over like one of those rotary lawn sprinklers: slow in one direction, fast in the other direction. It's so loud they have to give you over-ear headphones to protect your eardrums; the headphones double as a communication device. They talk to you through that, and a microphone over your mouth allows you to talk back. Essentially, an MRI scanner takes pictures of your brain by surrounding it with a magnetic field and registering the electromagnetic response. If the technicians are nice, they let you look at your brain pictures when it's all over.

While I was being scanned, they sedated me with ketamine--yes, the mild hallucinogen ketamine--"Special K" when called by its street name--until I was about, oh, I don't know, 1% conscious. They allegedly told me a story through the headphones. They brought me out of consciousness until I was about 75% cognizant of my surroundings. While I lay there in the dark, they asked if I remembered anything. I couldn't recall much of anything, and told them so.

Boom, they sedated me again, a bit less this time. I was about 15% conscious, or so it seemed. Allegedly they told me the same story as before. When they brought me back to about 75% consciousness they asked me if I remembered anything about the story this time. I vaguely recalled some girl by a river with a bridge. And there was a troll. And there was a room, and a boy--some boy--and someone was looking for something, and people were standing in a certain geometrical relationship. And I vaguely recalled the girl having red hair. Or did I make that up? It was a distinct impression, at the very least. The red hair felt real, either by their telling or by my imagining.

They brought me fully out of sedation and told me the story for the third and final time. When they asked me if I remembered anything about the story, I told it to them from beginning to end with total accuracy. I won't bore you with the details.

They extracted me from the MRI scanner and wheel-chaired me into another room to dry out. A researcher asked about my overall impression of the experience. She seemed really excited about the whole thing. Her face lit up every time I opened my mouth. She made me feel as though my words were important, which encouraged me to speak at length about every last detail. Kudos to her for that.

One interesting side effect during this experience was that at one point I distinctly recall scientists in white lab coats walking around behind me while I was in the MRI scanner. My brain totally made that up. The MRI is sealed on all sides except where your feet are, for one. Secondly, no one was wearing a white lab coat before or after I entered the scanner.

No, there are no lasting effects. Except aliens. I am always surrounded by aliens in pink tutus and they all want to sell me a vegan hamburger. It's cool though. I just play my ukelele louder until the aliens retreat to a far corner to shoot craps for a while.