Remnant Review
Moore’s law: the number of transistors per square inch on a chip doubles every [??] months. The number of months gets shorter, decade by decade. The pace has accelerated since 1965, when Moore made his observation. It may be as low as 12 today.
The cost of information keeps dropping. It gets less, decade by decade. This has been continual since at least the U.S. census of 1890 — the first punch card census.
“When the price drops, more is demanded”: the law of demand. It is the foundation of economic science.
A constant rate of growth eventually produces an exponential curve. As I described in 1970, continuity produces discontinuity.[amazon asin=0199678111&template=*lrc ad (right)]
As I also argued in 1970, every exponential upward curve has always slowed, then stopped. It has become S-shaped. It runs out of resources. This is the law of diminishing returns. Economists have declared this for almost two centuries. But the West has had compound growth for over two centuries. The curve has not stopped. It has extended to the whole world, as free markets have extended through price competition. Liberty is getting less expensive. More of it is demanded. Price competition works. This is a very good thing.
Then there is the one irreplaceable resource: time. Time is an arrow. It does not run backward. The second law of thermodynamics is a law. Things run down. They run out. Above all, time runs out. The world is running down.
This raises the ultimate question of our era: Is Moore’s law really a law, or is it an observation of a temporary phenomenon? Moore thinks it is the latter.
Some observers don’t.
SUPERINTELLIGENCE
Reason published a favorable review of Nick Bostrom’s book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. It was published by Oxford University Press.[amazon asin=0688119123&template=*lrc ad (right)]
Should humanity sanction the creation of intelligent machines? That’s the pressing issue at the heart of the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom’s fascinating new book, Superintelligence. Bostrom cogently argues that the prospect of superintelligent machines is “the most important and most daunting challenge humanity has ever faced.” If we fail to meet this challenge, he concludes, malevolent or indifferent artificial intelligence (AI) will likely destroy us all.
If accurate, this summary is by far the most apolcalyptic I have seen in a book published by a major university press. I think it is an accurate summary. But is the assessment accurate? I don’t think so, but I base this on theology, not technology.
Here is my position. Knowledge is always analogical. Data can be digital. But knowledge is a matter of judgment, and judgment is analogical. A machine cannot exercise judgment. It can only respond to data structured by mathematical equations. Executing an algorithm is not the same as exercising judgment.
If you kick a machine you are imputing humanity to a machine. It is not alive.
A machine is neither gracious nor malevolent. It does not care.[amazon asin=B00JG8GOWU&template=*lrc ad (right)]
The world is not impersonal. A machine is. It is therefore not responsible. Men are.
A machine has no soul to damn and no butt to kick.
Intelligence is a matter of judgment. It is not a matter of digital data and algorithms.
A machine is a tool. The problem is, evil people can get their hands and minds on powerful tools.
This is why I do not worry about this scenario.
Since the invention of the electronic computer in the mid-20th century, theorists have speculated about how to make a machine as intelligent as a human being. In 1950, for example, the computing pioneer Alan Turing suggested creating a machine simulating a child’s mind that could be educated to adult-level intelligence. In 1965, the mathematician I.J. Good observed that technology arises from the application of intelligence. When intelligence applies technology to improving intelligence, he argued, the result would be a positive feedback loop–an intelligence explosion–in which self-improving intelligence bootstraps its [amazon asin=B0036894XC&template=*lrc ad (right)]way to superintelligence. He concluded that “the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.” How to maintain that control is the issue Bostrom tackles.About 10 percent of AI researchers believe the first machine with human-level intelligence will arrive in the next 10 years. Fifty percent think it will be developed by the middle of this century, and nearly all think it will be accomplished by century’s end. Since the new AI will likely have the ability to improve its own algorithms, the explosion to superintelligence could then happen in days, hours, or even seconds. The resulting entity, Bostrom asserts, will be “smart in the sense that an average human being is smart compared with a beetle or a worm.” At computer processing speeds a million-fold faster than human brains, Machine Intelligence Research Institute maven Eliezer Yudkowsky notes, an AI could do a year’s worth of thinking every 31 seconds.
Is this science fiction? The experts say it isn’t. It is merely a scenario that is an extension of existing trends, extrapolated out less than a century.
The key to understanding this scenario is the definition of intelligence. The experts see intelligence as a mixture of digital data and algorithms. It is decision making devoid of ethics. It is decision making without responsibility.
That is science fiction.
CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY[amazon asin=B00INNP5VU&template=*lrc ad (right)]
Here is my concern. I can imagine a series of events that could reverse this trend. They all involve a breakdown in the international division of labor. What I cannot imagine is an event that could reverse this trend, which would not in itself be apocalyptic. I cannot see a reversal of this trend that is based on a rival trend. The continuity indicates super-intelligence. There is no continuity that indicates a cessation of the existing continuity. The magnitude of a discontinuity that might reverse this is so immense from a social standpoint that it represents a true collapse of the social order. In other words, the existing trend is so much a part of the existing social order that anything that could reverse the trend threatens the existing social order.
The longer the trend goes on, the greater the magnitude of the discontinuity that would be sufficient to reverse the trend. Furthermore, the longer the continuity goes on, the more interdependent the entire social order is on the continuation of the trend.
Put a different way, damned if we do, and damned if we don’t.
The basic trend is the trend towards super-intelligence, we are told. But is it? Are we facing machines that evolve into intelligent creatures, then super-intelligent creatures, and then masters? Is it going to be the terminators vs. humanity? Is a war coming: men vs. machines. That make for great science fiction. It makes for questionable ethics.
All of this has to do with the division of labor. It has to do with the interdependence of the economic system. It is what Hayek wrote about back in 1945. The free market system is bringing information into the marketplace. The possessors of this knowledge are in search of profit: exchanging one set of conditions for a better set, at an above-average rate of return. Hayek was correct: there is no government agency that can assemble the intellectual firepower to match the knowledge that is available on a decentralized basis in a free society. This is a defense of liberty. I thoroughly accept this defense of liberty.
