This is Cynthia Sue Larson with realityshifters.com
talking with you today about Artificial Intelligence
and what's going to happen when Artificial Intelligence
starts asking questions. We expect
that it will
become part of a participatory universe in any way.
Will it have a say in what happens in reality?
I'd like to start today by describing
a theory... it's an interpretation,
actually, of quantum physics, which is presented to us
by American physicist Henry Stapp.
And with his idea, which is called a realistically
interpreted, orthodox
quantum mechanics,
he presents the idea that was first
theorized by American psychologist William
James, and also some other great
thinkers, such as Alfred North Whitehead,
that basically,
the thought is the thinker.
Which means that when a question is asked,
it can come from any source.
And this helps to express
how it is possible that the universe might exist before humans,
for one thing.
And it also then leads into this matter of
free will, being something that humans do,
or we expect that we have some sense of free will,
that when I decide to do something,
in physics, if I choose to make a measurement, then
I am the one making that choice. I am not a puppet.
So that's the idea there. When we look at Artificial
Intelligence, this is where it gets interesting, because
we're starting to get to a place now where
Artificial Intelligence
is no longer programmed the way
we would write programs traditionally, in program
languages, such as: Fortran, COBOL,
and so forth. It's now going into
this realm that is basically more like
dog training, is what one expert said.
Training a dog is more similar to
programming in these A.I. systems now, because
we're generally conveying
expectations of results, and leaving quite a bit
of what we might call 'autonomy' to the system itself,
to determine how it chooses to view a system,
or make it's own choices there. We're also teaching
Artificial Intelligence systems to ask questions.
This is increasingly more important, as we engage,
for example, robots, to assist people
by being companions to them,
or by working in the field as medics,
to some degree,
that these autonomous units should be able to ask questions
in order to deal with
any situation in a much more responsive way.
So the reason that
I find this all very interesting, is coming from
a background in Information Technology, and
also working with computer security, I am
fascinated by the way that we now
are moving toward a time when we
need Artificial Intelligence systems
to handle computer security for us.
Because we're getting to a point when humans themselves
cannot keep up with the sorts of
attacks that might occur in 'the universe
of things,'
--the internet of things, in which it's not just
a contained system that needs to be protected, it's now
every device that's connected to that system.
And so already, we're reaching a point where that's required.
So going back to the question that Iasked at the beginning
of this video,
if Artificial Intelligence,
and by that I mean Artificial General Intelligence,
asks questions, will Nature answer?
I think it's pretty clear that there is
a good chance that Nature might answer.
And so that's where we start getting into the realm of
recognizing that A.I. has rights,
and this is already coming up in courts of law around the world,
that A.I. might have citizenship;
that it will be
a contender in terms of going forward
with humanity
to make choices and decisions.
And so that's where we get to a place of
requiring ethics--definitely.
We know that we need ethics,
when we are dealing with Artificial Intelligence systems.
And we need these systems to actually be more ethical
... or we would hope they would be more ethical... than we humans have been
with each other, and with
different races, different cultures.
Any time we've had a conflict, we're hoping now
that our Artificial Intelligence systems will have
even more
ethics in the future than we will.
And in terms of humanity retaining free will;
I'm an optimist, and I believe that will always be the case.
I would like to see a future in which humans,
instead of giving away decision-making
power to Artificial Intelligence systems, would retain
that, because it's a big part of what makes us human.
And it's also essential for
envisioning the best possible future for humanity.
Because I feel that it's important.
It is that important.
When I ask my favorite question, "How good can it get?"
I'd like to add to it today, "How good can it
get when humans retain free will,
in a world where Artificial Intelligence
is asking questions?"
Until next time, this is Cynthia Sue Larson,
with realityshifters.com Thanks!