in ancient Greece there was a forum held
where the question was raised how do we
define a human in the simplest terms
possible now Plato certified smart Goff
the past had a very interesting question
and a very interesting thought process
see to him a definition does two things
one it encompasses everything that the
answer is and two it excludes everything
that the answer isn't and so whoever
said the simple terms man is a
featherless biped hmm now Plato was not
stupid he could have said that man was a
walking talking tool using mammal but
there's some men who don't walk some men
who don't talk and some men that don't
use tools that doesn't make us or them
any less men and in ancient Greece there
were no marsupials so it was as simple
as that man was a featherless biped but
Diogenes the cynic another certified
smart guy of the past he heard this and
he did not like this definition at all
he thought it was a vast simplification
and it didn't perfectly take into
consideration all the variables and he
specially didn't like the fact that all
of Plato's followers and everybody in
society was like wow great job Plato so
Diogenes took a chicken he removed the
chicken of its feathers so there was a
featherless biped presented it to
Plato's class and proclaimed behold a
man now
Plato heard this and thought to himself
well sure we think that this is trivial
right now it's foolish it's funny it's
an interesting altercation that we can
tell the parties to entertain our guests
but Plato took this very seriously after
all he had simply not followed his
conventions of a definition so he said
that man is differentiated to three
things the soul which is immortal okay
either way that's just the soul which is
immortal the desire for an acquisition
of knowledge and the tendency of man to
become social and political now we can
take these three differentiations and we
can apply that to artificial
intelligence see the interesting thing
about it is it's a simplification and
maybe that's what we need right now now
an immortal soul what does it look like
to you this is the background that we
would get on default on a Windows XP
computer do you put your Windows XP
operating system on life support no you
don't the software wasn't born the
software it can't die sure the software
has bugs but in a perfectly artificial
intelligence system the bugs are just
rectify themselves so there we go
computers have a soul that is immortal
secondly the desire for an acquisition
of knowledge cookies every time you
visit a web site it prompts you to
accept cookies so you can share your
data with the website it wants to know
your preferences your habits your likes
and your dislikes so it can provide you
a better ads and make the Internet
experience easier for you and this isn't
a bad thing it's it's good for you and
sure it's pre-programmed but so is
Watson Watson is an artificial
intelligent computer that is used by IBM
to help businesses and hospitals
worldwide now Watson communicated itself
on a large scale to produce
and have answers to situations and
problems that could be present anywhere
else you see Watson wants to know more
and more things so it can help other
people with their problems which leads
me in my third point the tendency of man
to become social and political now think
about politics is I'm a man and I'm not
political does that make me any less of
a man I don't think so so we can rule
that part out from Plato's own ideas of
a definition so the tendency of man to
become social is what makes us man or
human now we have Watson that
communicated itself on a large-scale
basis we have Tesla's talking themselves
on the road to find out where they have
to go and what they have to do that
doesn't this oversimplification just
help us out and show us that
artificially intelligent beings could be
considered human when I thought about
this I posed a question to a few family
members and friends and this was the
question do you think a I would ever
surpass humans do you think AI will ever
be considered human I mean it's a
totally new idea of humaneness so let's
have a show of hands how many of you
think that AI will ever one day surpass
humans that's perfectly normal
see packing around the late 1800s there
was a scientist who said that this is it
there's nothing else we can discover in
science the only thing left are more and
more precise measurements the man that
said that was Lord Kelvin Kelvin more
commonly known as the SI unit for
temperature but then in 1886 we
discovered electromagnetic waves and now
look where we are the clicker I use
sends electromagnetic waves to change
the slides the mic I use you sense
electromagnetic waves to send my voice
your phones have Wi-Fi planes have
air-traffic control radio and
that's just it after 1886 the world was
revolutionized from that discovery and
now we look back and we think how could
people have lived without something that
is so critical to our own existence
maybe it's a few more years a few fifty
maybe a hundred years before our best
friend is a walking talking robot anyway
now let's get to the idea of
consciousness when I pointed it out to
my friends and family they said that
that's not possible they they can't
possibly be considered human because
artificial intelligence isn't conscious
and then I said how do you prove
consciousness how do you prove that I am
conscious sure I could walk around and
say that I'm conscious because I believe
I'm conscious but there's no way that
you can know definitively that I am
conscious you can only know that you're
conscious let's draw out an experiment
for a second I'm gonna pull up my phone
I'm gonna open up Siri and I'm gonna ask
Siri what it is after all the oxford
dictionary defines awareness or
self-awareness or self-consciousness as
the undue awareness of oneself hey Siri
what are you
what is Siri yours truly hmm so does
that mean that series aware of itself I
mean sure you could say those are
pre-programmed answers but how do you
know that my answers are pre-programmed
you don't just like how you have your
own idea of happiness that you can't
apply to others and devalue your value
their level of happiness you can't take
my idea of consciousness or your idea of
consciousness and apply it to other
humans or artificially intelligent
beings to validate or D validate their
ideas of consciousness well sure you
could say that well that's a machine
artificial intelligence is a machine it
doesn't have flesh and blood it can't be
a person it can't be human
well Peter Singer one of our modern
philosophers has an idea he says that
speciesism is basically the same thing
as racism he says that maybe if a
Martian walked in and this Martian
looked exactly like you had feelings I
had a family it had a life but it wasn't
you it wasn't a matter of flesh or blood
it was made out of something else would
you give that being personhood or would
you deny it
denying a being personhood just because
they're not the same as you I think is
the same as racism which brings me to
this slavery in the modern world now the
way we are developing artificial
intelligence is to do one task in one
task only maybe sometime in the future
we're gonna have artificial intelligence
that is general and it can do more than
one task maybe we have super artificial
intelligence which is even smarter than
humans but still it's still gonna be
artificial intelligence and people are
not going to give it the same rights the
same responsibilities that we already
have
they justify their choices and their
mindset with these two points that I
thought were very similar to
justifications about slavery so I decide
to point them out AI are inferior beings
sure they're not made out of flesh and
blood
ai are not human how could they ever be
they're inferior beings they're made to
serve us they can't be a smartass us
we're at the top of the food chain and
they're not completely human this sounds
a lot like something you could apply to
slavery as well
after all they believed that the slaves
weren't completely human therefore it
was okay to treat them so badly we look
at those ideas and we mocked them for
her ignorant and repulsive they were but
we're doing the exact same thing with AI
I mean I'm not saying that we shouldn't
stop all AI research and just sit as a
civilization and be content what we have
what I'm saying is let's think a bit
more about this and let's try to be more
ethical about this the second point they
bring up it is natural that AI should
work for us after all we created AI okay
well it is natural that the slaves
should work for the slave owners I mean
there's a reason that they landed on
Plymouth Rock that makes no sense just
because it was created for one thing
does or it arrived for one thing that
you think is the thing should we deny it
the responsibilities and the rights that
we already have if I can think like a
human wouldn't have a mind like a human
a consciousness like a human opinions
like a human
there was an experiment held a while ago
where they took her artificially
intelligent software and they put it up
on the internet after about two days of
being on the internet that a I was white
supremists
Nazi and racist those are all bad things
don't get me wrong
but those are still opinions does that
make it any less human I don't think so
so what happens next I think that
scientists and programmers and certified
smart people are working on creating
artificial intelligence for the sake of
creating artificial intelligence it's a
good thing
I agree but maybe we should take a step
back and think about the ethics of it
after all let's think about this for a
second what do we do if we get general
AI we put the Turing test on them
that's what's been planned and then if
it passes the Turing test it is AI that
is indistinguishable from humans that's
what it is so let's discuss what the
Turing test actually is the Turing test
was devised by Alan Turing in 1950 does
that make any sense to you I mean think
about it are you using the same
computers that you were using in 1950
not at all technology is rapidly
advancing but our methods of classifying
this technology and our ethics about
these technology aren't advancing as
fast as it as the technology itself I
mean the Turing test has already been
beat by an AI chat Paul called eugene
goostman in 2014 and if that chat but
was actually smart enough we would have
artificially intelligent friends and
artificially intelligent beings roaming
around everywhere but we don't and
that's because the Turing test I think
is outdated we need to change we need to
think we need to be more ethically aware
what was fast
look at how fast AI research is
advancing since y2k which is about 20
years ago 14 the research grows 14 times
each year for AI startups investment
into AI by venture capitalists increases
six times each year and more and more
jobs are requiring applicants to have a
background in AI in around 2010 there
were about 10k papers being released
each year about artificial intelligence
research and now in 25 or from the last
census that was done in 2015 there were
20 K papers being released each year we
are speeding towards technological
innovation I think we had an ethical
innovation as well thank you
[Applause]