Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine

by J. Storrs Hall Ph.D

Overview

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now advancing at such a rapid clip that it has the potential to transform our world in ways both exciting and disturbing. Computers have already been designed that are capable of driving cars, playing soccer, and finding and organizing information on the Web in ways that no human could. With each new gain in processing power, will scientists soon be able to create supercomputers that can read a newspaper with understanding, or write a news story, or create novels, or even formulate laws? And if machine intelligence advances beyond human intelligence, will we need to start talking about a computer's intentions? These are some of the questions discussed by computer scientist J. Storrs Hall in this fascinating layperson's guide to the latest developments in artificial intelligence. Drawing on a thirty-year career in artificial intelligence and computer science, Hall reviews the history of AI, discussing some of the major roadblocks that the field has recently overcome, and predicting the probable achievements in the near future. There is new excitement in the field over the amazing capabilities of the latest robots and renewed optimism that achieving human-level intelligence is a reachable goal.But what will this mean for society and the relations between technology and human beings? Soon ethical concerns will arise and programmers will need to begin thinking about the computer counterparts of moral codes and how ethical interactions between humans and their machines will eventually affect society as a whole.Weaving disparate threads together in an enlightening manner from cybernetics, computer science, psychology, philosophy of mind, neurophysiology, game theory, and economics, Hall provides an intriguing glimpse into the astonishing possibilities and dilemmas on the horizon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781591025115
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	05/01/2007
Pages:	410
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.12(d)

About the Author

J. Storrs Hall, PhD (Laporte, PA), the founding chief scientist of Nanorex, Inc., is a research fellow for the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing and the author of Nanofuture, the "Nanotechnologies" section for The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Energy, and numerous scientific articles. He has designed technology for NASA and was a computer systems architect at the Laboratory for Computer Science Research at Rutgers University from 1985 to 1997.

Table of Contents

Preface     15
Introduction     19
The Sin of Frankenstein     19
Brave New World     21
Back to the Present     26
Critiquing Artificial Reason     28
The Road to Intelligence     33
Predicting AI     33
The Most Dangerous Game     36
Human See, Human Do     40
Creativity     42
Cybernetics     45
The War in the Air     45
Feedback and Homeostasis     48
Putting It All Together     50
The Strange Death of Cybernetics     52
The Remains of Cybernetics     55
Estimation and Control Theory     55
Information Theory     56
Computational Neuroscience     57
Neural Networks     57
Computers     58
Artificial Intelligence     58
Philosophy of Mind     59
What We Lost     60
Symbolic AI: The Golden Age     61
The Turing Test     63
ELIZA     65
Logic     68
LISP     69
Predicting Machines     70
Computers and Thought     72
Semantic Information Processing     74
Semantic Nets     75
Frames     76
SHRDLU     77
AM and EURISKO     78
Diaspora     81
Computing Power     83
Common LISP     87
Formalist Float     89
Fuzzy Language     92
Symbol Grounding     98
Competence     101
The New Synthesis     103
In the Name of Science     103
The Proper Study     105
Evolutionary Psychology     106
Computational Theory of Mind     108
Massive Modularity     110
The Fox and the Crow     113
A Mass of Modules     114
Renaissance     116
Beyond Human Ken?     119
Universal Intelligence     119
The Case Against Universality     122
The Argument from Animals     122
The Argument from Experience     122
The Argument from Inductive Bias     124
The Case for Universality     124
Algorithmic Probability     125
The Argument from Biological Self-Reproduction     125
The Argument from Evolution      126
The Subjective Argument     127
The Argument from Human Uniqueness     128
The Argument from the Scientific Community     128
Conclusions     129
Implications     130
Autogeny     133
The Metaphorical Man     133
Mind Children     136
Learning in AI     138
Robotics     138
Machine Learning     139
Explanation-Based Learning     139
Grasp     141
Formalist Flat and Autogeny     143
Where We Stand     145
Representation and Search     147
Search     147
Representation     148
Representations in AI     151
Logic and Semantic Networks     151
Bayesian Inference     152
Evidence Grids     155
Bayesian Networks     155
Limits to Growth     157
n-Spaces and Hill Climbing     160
Biased Random Walks     162
Utility-Guided Search     163
Universal AI     164
Fun and Games     165
Chess     166
Go     167
Soccer      170
Global Thermonuclear War     172
The Prisoner's Dilemma     173
Newcomb's Problem     175
Superrationality     176
Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma     177
Design and Learning     181
Multilevel Design     182
Evolution-Based Search     183
Bayesian Credit Assignment     186
Economics-Based Search     187
Planning and Programming     188
Design     190
A Lattice of Goods     192
Analogy and Perception     195
Structure Matching     196
Top-down Representation     198
COPYCAT and the FARGitecture     199
Herding Cats     202
Lost in Space     203
Case-Based Reasoning     205
Associative Processing     205
Design for a Brain     209
Methodology     209
Robot 1     211
Robot 1.1     214
Robot 2     215
Dimensionality     215
Modularization     217
Robot 3     218
Servo with a Simile     221
Analogical Quadrature     223
Autogeny      224
An Economy of Mind     227
Language     227
Abstraction Hierarchies     229
Active Interpretation     230
Higher-Level Architecture, with Feedback     232
Common Sense     233
The Marketplace of Ideas     236
Chunking and the Firm     237
Homunculi in the Middle     238
And a Star to Steer Her By     239
Kinds of Minds     241
Hypohuman AI     241
Diahuman AI     242
Parahuman AI     243
Allohuman AI     244
Epihuman AI     245
Hyperhuman AI     247
When     249
Why     249
What     250
How     251
Software     251
Hardware     252
Who     253
The Military     253
Universities     254
Industry Laboratories     254
Start-ups and Open Source     255
Where     256
When     256
Business as Usual     257
Breakthrough     258
Philosophical Extrapolations      263
Dualism     264
The Computational Stance     266
Free Will     269
Symbols and Meaning     273
Machines and Meaning     277
Consciousness     279
Sentience     280
Self-Awareness     281
Qualia     283
Attention     284
The Unity of Experience     284
Folk Psychology     288
Emotions     290
Evolutionary Ethics     293
What Morals Are     293
Memetic Ethics     295
Variation     298
Classical Ethics     300
Types of Ethical Theory     301
The Pursuit of Eudaimonia     303
Golden Rules     303
Utilitarianism     304
Rule-Utilitarianism     307
The Veil of Ignorance     308
The Moral Epistemology of the Scottish Enlightenment     309
Contracts     311
Heterogeneous Ethics     312
Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics     315
Three Laws: Unsafe?     316
They Wouldn't Work     316
They Would Work Too Well     319
They Would Be Unfair to the Robots     320
They Won't Be Implemented     321
Asenian Architecture     322
Id     324
Ego     325
Superego     326
Closing the Circle     328
Rational Fools     329
The Age of Virtuous Machines     333
Ethical AIs     333
Hard Takeoff     335
Moral Mechanisms     338
The Bad News     339
The Good News     339
Invariants     347
Artificial Moral Agency     348
Theological Interlude     349
Hyperhuman Morality     350
Why the Future Doesn't Need Us     352
Age of Reason     354
Profiles of the Future     357
Singularity     357
Things to Come     361
The Machines Might Just Take Over     362
They Might Just Crowd Us Out Instead     363
Politics Might Squelch the Revolution     364
The Easy Life Might Spoil Humans     364
We Might Turn into Weird, Icky Cyborgs     366
Frankenstein Redux     367
Notes     369
Bibliography     391
Index      403

What People are Saying About This

David S. Touretzky

"Dr. Hall combines a highly accessible survey of artificial intelligence research with a glance at the distant future, where the implications of this field will play out in ways that are probably unimaginable by present-day thinkers."--(Professor David S. Touretzky, Computer Science Department & Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition Carnegie Mellon University)

Editorial Reviews

"Taking us on an eloquent journey through an astonishingly diverse intellectual terrain, J. Storrs Hall's Beyond AI articulates an optimistic view – in both capability and impact – of the future of AI. This is a must read for anyone interested in the future of the human-machine civilization.”RAY KURZWEIL, AI scientist, inventorAuthor of The Singularity Is Near“An entertaining and very thought-provoking ramble through the wilds of AI.”ERIC S. RAYMOND“Hall argues that our future superintelligent friends in the mechanical kingdom may develop superior moral instincts. I'm almost convinced. I learned a lot from reading this book. You will too.”ROBERT A. FREITAS JR.Author of "The Legal Rights of Robots”and Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines

From the Publisher