Last night I listened to Art Bell interview Sir Charles Shultz about AI, artificial brains, and many other interesting things about current and future technological development. I am not one to oppose scientific discovery, because I believe that exploring all areas of science and technology is vitally important to our progress. However, listening to the ideas presented made me realize that there are huge changes on the horizon, whether that be in five years, or twenty five years. It is important for us to be ready to understand and accept those changes.
It would be hard for anyone to argue that the internet has not had an enormous impact on the civilized world. Pretty much everyone is online, and it has changed the way most people communicate, shop, and find information. And indirectly, it facilitates a great deal of how our society operates. Even people who choose to remain off-line benefit from the internet. And of course the internet has brought about change that some people believe has been harmful to society. Antisocial behaviour, and immersion in online games which can consume vast amounts of peoples' time have made some people question society's lack of regulation of such potentially damaging behaviour. Yet despite the concern, our society continues to function.
The discussion I heard about artificial brains reminded me of old archive radio recordings from the 1940s and 1950s about "electronic brains" (aka: computers) and the like. Discussion covered such topics as evolutionary computing, small manufactured brains that could perform complex tasks, and animals who were implanted with electrodes and taught to control machinery. Everything seemed completely understandable and plausible until the conversation turned to brain replication, downloading a human brain, and simulating a brain in a computer. That is when my feelings toward the subject began to change.
We have successfully made computers, and these turn out to not be very complicated machines. Most of the advancements in computing have not been with the actual processing methods, but with the physical construction of circuits and chips to make them go faster, have more memory, etc.. The basic idea of how a computer processor works has remained relatively unchanged for a long time. But when we begin to synthesize the actions of a human or animal brain, we start to chart new territory with a new set of rules and ethics. Of course people have been experimenting with neural networks for a long time, but advances in computing technology and biology apparently have us close to being able to synthesize real human or animal brains in computers or biologically. And as we get closer to this goal, it becomes important to explore what this all means in terms or ethics. Because there is one distinguishing feature between a computer and an animal or human, and that is conscience.
Conscience is something that almost all animals have. Creativity and the idea of self are traits that humans have, and it can be observed that some animals possess them too. But so far we have not created computer programs or devices that have a conscience. What will happen when we do? How will ethics apply to these manufactured devices?
Currently most of society values human life more than it values the life of other animals. We still breed livestock for food, and we still do experiments on all kinds of small animals. Apart from pets, most people do not respect the fact that animals think and feel like we do. So if we were to create artificial brains with conscious behaviour, our current values and ethics would allow unrestrained experimentation with the device. But if the brains became good enough to emulate the behaviour and conscience at the level of a real human, how would need to deal with it?
What is the difference between an artificial brain and the brain of a real human? Some people would argue that a real human is the will of a God, and therefore it has different rights than an artificial brain. But many people view humans as simply having evolved from something simpler. In this case, we would probably need to treat our artificial brains with the same respect we treat each other. Which means that we would have to allow the brain to make its own choices, teach it things, and allow it to go to school. We would not be able to turn it off without its consent, and it would be required to work and pay taxes just like everybody else.
But what if this brain were a piece of software running on a computer? What if it had cameras and sensors and a speaker in which to interact with the world? What if its existence relied on continuously operating computer hardware? What would happen if its hard drive was copied to another computer, or hundreds of computers? What would happen if someone beat it up and damaged it beyond repair? Would it be creative? Would it be smarter than us, or more able to adapt to new situations?
The possibility of an artificial brain, whether biological or electrical, does not seem completely out of reach. A human brain is of a finite size, and eventually we will probably be able to simulate, or actually replicate the action of a brain in realtime. It will be someone, and it will learn and want things.
And most importantly, it will have desires and goals which might not be aligned with our own.
And that got me to thinking about myself and my life. Perhaps skills and creativity mean less than I once thought. Perhaps the set of circuits that I have are not really all that important. After all, there are already billions of actual human brains, and with the ability to synthesize many more, I wonder about my meaning. Is there any point in writing music or playing the piano anymore? If a 25,000 neuron brain in a petri dish can fly an airplane, then why am I spending thousands of dollars learning to do it? If we can design artificial brains to solve all of our problems, what is our purpose?
I feel more insignificant, and less enthusiastic.
