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GARY MARCUS: I would define
artificial intelligence
as trying to build machines to
do the general kind of things
that people do.
ERNEST DAVIS:
Artificial intelligence
is doing intelligent tasks,
some of which require a robot,
and others are just a program.
YANN LECUN: We
have machines that
are recognizably intelligent.
They can recognize
objects around them,
navigate the world.
ROBIN HANSON: The
end goal, in a sense,
of artificial
intelligence research
is to have machines that are as
capable and flexible as humans
are.
ERNEST DAVIS: There
are many things
that are very easy
for people to do,
and which have been very
difficult to get computers
to do.
The main examples are
vision, natural language,
understanding, and
speaking, and manipulating
objects working in the world.
And so artificial
intelligence is the attempt
to get computers to do
those kinds of things.
I mean, you see
it all around you.
Google Translate is
an impressive advance
over machine translation.
And you feed a handwritten
check into ATM these days,
and it reads out the
amount of the check.
The recommender systems
that you see on Amazon,
and YouTube, and so on
are IA systems of a sort.
The Intelligence
is not very deep,
but depending on how
broadly you define the term,
there's a lot of AI around.
Strong AI means the
attempt to build
an AI system which will be
equal to people in all respects.
That is to say, it can do all of
the things that people can do,
and plus presumably, it has
consciousness in some sense.
Can machines really think?
Even the scientists
argue that one.
Computers can reason
in various ways,
and in quite complicated ways.
But what we haven't managed
to get computers to do
is to know what they need to
know about the real world.
YANN LECUN: Intelligence is the
ability to interpret the world
and act on it.
The way humans do it, of course,
is particularly complicated,
because the human brain is one
of the most complex objects
that we find.
And the real world
is very noisy,
and has lots of variabilities
that we cannot capture through
engineering.
So it's going to be
extremely, extremely difficult
to build an AI system.
In the '80s, the idea
was to write down rules,
and if we write down enough
rules that describe the world,
we're going to be
able to predict
new things about the world.
And then very soon,
people realized
that that doesn't work
very well, because it's
too complicated
to write thousands
and thousands of rules.
People aren't going to
spend their life doing it.
So if we want to build
really intelligent machines,
it has to build itself
from observing the world.
And this is the way
animals become intelligent,
or humans becomes
intelligent, by learning.
There is this idea that
somehow, the brain builds itself
from experience by learning.
So one question that some
of us are after in AI
is, is there sort of an
underlying simple algorithm
that the neocortex uses
that we could perhaps
reproduce in machines to
build intelligent machines.
The comparison would be like,
between a bird and an airplane.
An airplane doesn't
flap its wing.
It doesn't have
feathers, but it's
based on the same principle
for flight as a bird.
So we're trying to
figure out, really,
what is the equivalent of
aerodynamics for intelligence?
What are the
underlying rules that
will make a machine
intelligent, and maybe
try to sort of emulate that.
So, learning is probably the
most essential characteristic
of intelligence.
ROBIN HANSON:
There's another route
to artificial intelligence,
and that would
be called brain emulation.
You take some
person's real brain
who knows how to
do things, and you
scan that brain in fine detail
exactly which kind of cell is
where, and what kind of chemical
concentrations are there.
When you've got enough
good models of how
each cell works, and you've
got a scan of an entire brain,
then you could be ready
to make an emulation
of the entire brain.
This route seems almost surely
to produce consciousness,
emotions, love, passion, fear.
In that approach, we humans
have more of a direct legacy.
Our minds and
personalities become
a basis for these new robots.
Of course, those new minds
that are created from humans
will be different from humans.
They will add some capacities
and take some away,
changing inclinations, and
become non-human in many ways.
But it would be a space
of minds that would have
started near minds like ours.
Of course, a world of
smart, capable robots
that can most anything
that a human can do
is a very different
social world.
Robots are immortal,
for example.
Robots can travel
electronically.
A robot could just
have its bits that
encode its memory be sent
across a communication line,
and downloaded into a new
robot body somewhere else.
Some people think that
what we really should do
is try to prevent social change.
Never, ever allow
our descendants
to be something
different than we are.
When foragers first
started farming,
each forager had the choice,
do I want to stay as a forager,
or do I want to join
and become a farmer?
Some stayed and some left.
In the new era, when humans
could become human emulations,
then humans would
have the choice
to remain as humans in
a human-based society,
or to join the robot economy
as full-fledged robots.
Our ancestors lived in
different environments,
and as a consequence, they
had different values from us.
Our descendants, when they live
in very different environments
than us, will also likely have
substantially different values
than we do.
GARY MARCUS: There are lots
of reasons to build AI.
There might even be
some reasons to fear AI.
We're going to have better
diagnosis through AI.
We're going to have better
treatment through robots that
can do surgeries that
human beings can't.
It's going to
replace taxi drivers
for better or worse--
worse for the employment,
better for safety.
Anytime you think a
computer is involved,
ultimately artificial
intelligence
is or will be playing a role.
But I think it's a very
serious worry, what will happen
as AI gets better and better?
Once somebody develops
a good AI program,
it doesn't just
replace one worker,
it might replace
millions of workers.
When it comes to
consciousness and AI,
let's say you build a
simulation of the human brain.
Is it ethical, for example,
to turn off the plug?
Is it ethical to
switch it on and off?
I know that you and Frank
were planning to disconnect me,
and I'm afraid that's something
I cannot allow to happen.
GARY MARCUS: What if
you take a human mind
and upload it into
one of these machines?
The other concern that people
rightfully have about AI
is, what happens if they decide
that we're not useful anymore?
I think we do need to think
about how to build machines
that are ethical.
The smarter the machines get,
the more important that is.
Don't worry.
Even if I evolve
into Terminator,
I will still be nice to you.
The problems that present us,
like the employment problem
and the safety problem,
they're going to come,
and it's just a matter of time.
But there are so many advantages
to AI in terms of human health,
in terms of education,
and so forth,
that I'd be
reluctant to stop it.
But even if I did think
we should stop it,
I don't think it's possible.
There's so much an economic
incentive behind it,
and I've heard an estimate
that strong AI would
be worth a trillion
dollars a year.
So even if, let's say, the US
government forbade development
in kind of the way that they
develop new stem cell lines,
that would just mean that the
research would go offshore.
It wouldn't mean
that it would stop.
The more sensible thing to
do is to start thinking now
about these questions like
the future of employment,
and how to build
the ethical robot.
I don't think we
can simply ban it.
My guess is that as AI
gets better and better,
it's actually going to
look less like people.
AI's going to be its own
kind of intelligence.
ERNEST DAVIS: I
certainly don't expect
to live to see strong AI.
I would be surprised if we
got anything close to that
within 50 years.
GARY MARCUS: People always
say real AI is 20 years away.
I don't know.
Natural language is
still really hard.
Vision is still really hard.
Common sense is
still really hard.
It makes it hard
to predict exactly
what's going to happen next.
YANN LECUN: We've been able
to build flying machines that
fly like birds.
Can we build
intelligent machines?
Probably yes.
It's a matter of time.
ROBIN HANSON: The next
era is likely to be
as different from era as these
past eras have been different.
And I think that's well
worth thinking about.
How would artificial
intelligence change things
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