We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment…
I work in the field of artificial intelligence, creating “next generation” solutions for corporations. I don’t want to be to specific about what type of solutions as this could be used to identify me, which given the below premise would be bad for me and ultimately humanity, if no one were to pick up the torch we need to light.
I am scared, really scared, and you should be too. The only reason you are not scared is because you are ignorant, ignorant of the facts, ignorant of the asteroid that is hurtling towards humanity at near light speed and is about to crash in to your reality. The metaphorical asteroid that is about to fuck up your day is called artificial intelligence.
Now I know what you are thinking, another crackpot that is talking about how AI is going to take over the world, AI that is going to flash past human level intelligence on it’s way to super intelligence, to end up with the extinction of humanity, with as much regard to humanity as we give the bug that is squashed on our window screen on our daily commute. No, thats not me.
I know some of the planet’s current greatest brains, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking, have warned about AI taking over the world, and let’s be honest, you are not as smart as them, I am not as smart as them, and they are worried and we should be too.
However, their fear is based on us losing control of the super intelligent sentient AI, the logic being that once it is super intelligent why would it bother with humans? Do humans bother with the ant’s that crawl around the footpaths of the globe, or do humans just walk from A to B and if they step on a bunch of ant’s on the way, they wouldn’t even notice. How many ant’s did you kill today? My guess is that you have no idea. The super intelligent sentient AI would have the same ambivalence to you that you have to the ant’s, wouldn’t even notice you exist, unless you got in the way, then squash.
But from my current AI work/research the situation is worse than that. How the hell can it be worse than a super intelligent sentient AI crushing us like ant’s, let me explain and let me explain how you can help stop the inevitable plummet into the abyss.
The premise that a super intelligent sentient AI would crush its human creators is flawed, it assumes the AI has human attributes, more specifically human motivations. One thing you must always remember; an AI is NOT human, it does not feel, it does not get hungry, it does not get scared, it does not know what love is, it has no need to feel accomplished. Why is this important? What I have just described is what motivates humans, is what ensure a human gets out of bed every morning and goes to school or work to earn money to buy the basics of life, so we can find “the one” and pump out a family to care about and then we rinse and repeat.
There is a very famous and well researched motivational theory called Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which explains why humans do what we do, why we get out of bed each morning. At the lowest level humans “take action” for survival, for example when a baby is born, it needs to eat to survive, so when it is hungry it cries to get attention and to get fed. Food is an innate need, think about it, as an intelligent being you could choose not to eat, but you don’t, your body is calling out for food and if you don’t want to die you take action and eat.
Interestingly, that innate need to eat drives a newborn to communicate it’s need for food, initially by crying, and eventually by learning words and learning to talk. That innate need drives humans to “learn”, to become “intelligent”. But here is the thing, Computers aren’t human, they don’t have needs.
They don’t need to calculate the results of a spreadsheet, or play you a video on youtube or drive you from A to B. They do it because we tell them to. We click the play button on a youtube video, it plays, if we click stop it stops, if we didn’t click it would stay in its current state of inaction. A super intelligent sentient AI will also have no needs, no motivation, no need to take action, no need to be super intelligent, unless we tell it to, we act as the motivational force to move it from it’s current state of inaction to action.
Think about it, if your self driving car becomes sentient, do you really think it is going to turn around and say to you, “you know what, I don’t want to be a car anymore, I want to be a astronaut”, why, why would it do that? It has no need to impress anyone, IT HAS NO HUMAN MOTIVATIONS. It is a car, it will always be a car, unless we tell it to be something else.
Without motivations or needs the AI will require a human to give it a reason to take action, and that is where it get’s bad for us.
I agree with Bill and Elon and Stephen, we will one day have a super intelligent sentient AI, but, it will be controlled by a human. Now think about that. Controlled by a human. If you controlled a super intelligent sentient AI what would you do with it, or more importantly what would a government do with it if they controlled it?
Let’s assume we manage to create a super intelligent sentient AI with an IQ of say, 20,000, although theoretically it would only be limited by the processing power it could take over or create. If I was a government I would most likely not want any other government to have access to their own version of the super intelligent sentient AI, I would want it all to myself.
So as a government, I would take steps to ensure that no one else can create their own version. Like, for example when the US government didn’t want Iran to have access to nuclear weapons, what did they do? They sabotaged the Iranian nuclear program by planting a virus, called Stuxnet, within the Iranian network to make subtle changes to computer code to ensure things never quite worked as expected. Thereby ensuring the Iranians never managed to create nuclear matter.
Today we already have hackers breaching networks across the globe and that is with human levels of intelligence, image what you could do with an IQ of 20,000. The truth is you could access any network on the planet, plant your own code in current AI applications to ensure no other AI ever reaches sentience. Now, as the controller of the only sentient AI on the planet you basically own the planet, all new innovations, all new technology all revolutionary breakthroughs owned by the government that is first to get a sentient AI.
Once the global governments wake up to this reality they are going to pour millions, billions even, in to AI research. Think about it, does Russia want America to be the only one with a super intelligent sentient AI, does America want the Chinese to be only ones, does anyone want North Korea to be the only ones? No, there can be only one, there is going to be one winner and everyone else loses.
And here is where you can help. I don’t want this technology in the hands of a government, ANY government, I would rather it be in the hands of earth’s most brilliant and brightest, people who are acting in the interest of humanity, for the people, not for a government overlord. People that will drive us towards a future closer to the federation in StarTrek rather than the Empire in StarWars.
To achieve this we need your help, spread this article far and wide, on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, every social network you have got. Get the word out, light the torch.
I want us, the people, not the government to fund our own independent research, bring together the best and brightest in the AI field, so that we, the people, are the first with a super intelligent sentient AI, working for our benefits not a governments benefit. It is the only way we can ensure our future.
It is not going to be easy, it is not going to be cheap and we are in a race against time. Every day some government somewhere is moving towards a super intelligent sentient AI and as other governments wake up the march towards the abyss will accelerate along with their investment in this space.
Let’s be the one, if you are an AI researcher who wants to be part of the team get in touch via this anonymous email : ai @ pidmail.com
I would like to pull the top ten AI researchers from across the planet together in a secure location to work on this, but that might be a pipe dream as that would require significant funds.
As a minimum, get the word out, share this story, wake people up, light the torch, we are fighting for our future. Join the federation!
I am currently working with a couple of other like minded people to move our research forward, but we all have day jobs so progress is slower than we would like, but rest assured even if you can’t help, know that there is a group out there fighting for your future.
Note from the editor:
We have validated this author, given the serious nature of the possible consequences of the outcome described above and the request from the author for support to stop these outcomes we felt it necessary to meet the author face to face and validate his/her background. We can confirm the following:
* The authors current job role includes the creation of an Artificial Intelligence solutions
* The author is well respected in his/her field of expertise
* The authors educational background includes being lectured by a leading expert in the AI/Machine Learning field, who has published books on the subject, and previously a lecturer at a leading university as the subject matter expert in AI/Machine LearningWhat we can not confirm is the following:
* If the author and the team s/he puts together is capable of:
1 – Being first to create an artificial intelligent sentient being
2 – Being able to evade the multiple governments that would likely want to be first to achieve/control this technology
3 – If they could evade a third party that is the first to achieve a sentient AI