Last time, we talked about the concept of Superintelligence as proposed by philosopher
Nick Bostrom at the University of Oxford. As mentioned in the previous video, he uses
the term “superintelligence” to refer to intellects that greatly outperform the
best current human minds across many very general cognitive domains. Now, this definition
can be quite vague since many machines and animals already perform at superhuman levels
in narrow domains. For example, calculators can easily outperform any human in arithmetic,
while bats outshine us in interpreting sonar signals and so on. But although specialized
information processing systems will continue to grow and expand, only with the prospect
of machine intellects that have enough general intelligence to substitute for humans could
have profound implications for humanity. So, for Bostrom, it is important to separate the
notion of superintelligence by distinguishing different bundles of intellectual super-capabilities.
He decomposes the term superintelligence into three different forms: speed superintelligence,
collective superintelligence, and quality superintelligence. Today, we will be taking
a look at what Bostrom means by speed superintelligence and some of its defining characteristics!
A speed superintelligence according to Bostrom is an intellect that is just like a human
mind but faster. This is the easiest form of superintelligence to understand conceptually.
So, he formally defines Speed superintelligence as “a system that can do all that a human
intellect can do, but much faster.” Meaning, this system can be multiple orders of magnitude
faster than the regular human mind. Now, the human brain’s processing power is difficult
to determine precisely, but common estimates range from 1014 instructions per second (IPS)
up to 1017 IPS or more. So, speed superintelligence operating on a whole-brain emulation running
on fast hardware, operating at a speed of ten thousand times that of a biological brain
would be far superior to any human that has ever lived. For example, it would be able
to read an entire book in just a few seconds and write a Ph.D. thesis in an afternoon.
Now, imagine a speedup factor of a million. A brain emulation with that much processing
speed could accomplish an entire millennium of intellectual work in just one working day!
To such a fast mind, events in the external world appear to unfold in slow motion. Now,
let’s assume that your mind ran at a mere 10,000 times faster than a regular human.
Then, if your non-enhanced friend happens to drop her drink on the floor, you could
watch the glass slowly descend towards the carpet over the course of several hours. This
would give you enough time to not only order a replacement glass but also read a few scientific
papers and take a nap! This is very similar to how time slows down for some superhero
characters like the Flash from Justice League, or Quicksilver from the X-men franchise.
But of course, in real life, a speed superintelligence would prefer to work with digital objects
rather than physical ones due to this time dilation. It would prefer to live in virtual
reality and deal in the information economy. Alternatively, it could interact with the
physical environment by means of nanoscale manipulators, since limbs at such small scales
could operate faster than macroscopic appendages. So, enhanced people who like to be part of
the real physical world would still have a choice. But generally, a fast mind might want
to interact mainly with other fast minds rather than with extremely slow sloth-like humans.
Now, of course, the speed of light becomes an increasingly important constraint as minds
get faster since faster minds face greater opportunity costs in the use of their time
for traveling or communicating over long distances. Light is roughly a million times faster than
a jet plane, so it would take a digital agent with a mental speedup of 1,000,000 times about
the same amount of subjective time to travel across the globe as it takes a contemporary
human traveler. Moreover, dialing somebody long distance would take equally as long as
getting there “in person,” although it would be cheaper to call since a call would
require less bandwidth. Agents with large mental speedups who want to communicate extensively
might find it advantageous to move near one another. Extremely fast minds with the need
for frequent interaction, such as members of a work team, may take up residence in computers
located in the same building to avoid frustrating latencies.
Now, all this may sound really impressive, but a super¬intelligence that is created
by uploading a human intellect and then accelerating and enhancing it falls under what some call
a weak form of superintelligence! This is because the outcome of this process produces
a super¬intelligence that is a fundamentally upgraded version of one particular human mind.
Other than that, it has no special defining qualities. So, many others, including Bostrom
have defined different, perhaps higher levels of superintelligences besides this one that
are obtained through different means such as the A.I. route and so on. One of these
includes collective superintelligence. So, what differences does collective superintelligence
possess when compared to speed superintelligence? Well, that is a topic for another time!
And that brings us to the end of this video. If you enjoyed it, do leave a like, share,
and subscribe to our channel for more content ahead! What do you think collective superintelligence
would be like once we attain it? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down
below. Until then, we’ll see you in the next one!