The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (43 page)

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Authors: Ray Kurzweil

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BOOK: The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
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The accelerating pace of change is inexorable. The emergence of machine intelligence that exceeds human intelligence in all of its broad diversity is inevitable. But we still have the power to shape our future technology and our future lives. That is the main reason I wrote this book.
Let’s consider one final question. The Law of Time and Chaos, and its more important sublaw, the Law of Accelerating Returns, are not limited to evolutionary processes here on Earth. What are the implications of the Law of Accelerating Returns on the rest of the Universe?
Rare and Plentiful
 
Before Copernicus, the Earth was placed at the center of the Universe and was regarded as a substantial portion of it. We now know that the Earth is but a small celestial object circling a routine star among a hundred billion suns in our galaxy, which is itself but one of about a hundred billion galaxies. There is a widespread assumption that life, even intelligent life, is not unique to our humble planet, but another heavenly body hosting life-forms has yet to be identified.
No one can yet state with certainty how common life may be in the Universe. My speculation is that it is both rare and plentiful, sharing that trait with a diversity of other fundamental phenomena. For example, matter itself is both rare and plentiful. If one were to select a proton-sized region at random, the probability that one would find a proton (or any other particle) in that region is extremely small, less than one in a trillion trillion. In other words, space is very empty, and particles are very spread out. And that’s true right here on Earth—the probability of finding a particle in any particular location in outer space is even lower. Yet we nonetheless have trillions of trillions of protons in the Universe. Hence matter is both rare and plentiful.
Consider matter on a larger scale. If you randomly select an Earth-sized region anywhere in space, the probability that a heavenly body (such as a star or a planet) were present in that region is also extremely low, less than one in a trillion. Yet we nonetheless have billions of trillions of such heavenly bodies in the Universe.
Consider the life cycle of mammals on Earth. The mission of an Earth male mammalian sperm is to fertilize an Earth female mammalian egg, but the likelihood of it fulfilling its mission is far less than one in a trillion. Yet we nonetheless have more than a hundred million such fertilizations each year, just considering human eggs and sperm. Again, rare and plentiful.
Now consider the evolution of life-forms on a planet, which we can define as self-replicating designs of matter and energy. It may be that life in the Universe is similarly both rare and plentiful, that conditions must be just so for life to evolve. If, for example, the probability of a star having a planet that has evolved life were one in a million, there would still be 100,000 planets in our own galaxy on which this threshold has been passed, among trillions on other galaxies.
We can identify the evolution of life-forms as a specific threshold that some number of planets have achieved. We know of at least one such case. We assume there are many others.
As we consider the next threshold, we might consider the evolution of
intelligent
life. In my view, however, intelligence is too vague a concept to designate as a distinct threshold. Considering what we know about life on this planet, there are many species that demonstrate some levels of clever behavior, but there does not appear to be any clearly definable threshold. This is more of a continuum rather than a threshold.
A better candidate for the next threshold is the evolution of a species of life-form that in turn creates “technology.” We discussed the nature of technology earlier. It represents more than the creation and use of tools. Ants, primates, and other animals on Earth use and even fashion tools, but these tools do not evolve. Technology requires a body of knowledge describing the creation of tools that can be transmitted from one generation of the species to the next. The technology then becomes itself an evolving set of designs. This is not a continuum but a clear threshold. A species either creates technology or it doesn’t. It may be difficult for a planet to support more than one species that creates technology. If there’s more than one, they may not get along with one another, as was apparently the case on Earth.
A salient question is: What is the likelihood that a planet that has evolved life will subsequently evolve a species that creates technology? Although the evolution of life-forms may be rare and plentiful, I argued in chapter 1 that once the evolution of life-forms sets in, the emergence of a species that creates technology is inevitable. The evolution of the technology is then a continuation by other means of the evolution that gave rise to the technology-creating species in the first place.
The next stage is computation. Once technology emerges, it also appears inevitable that computation (in the technology, not just in the species’ nervous systems) will subsequently emerge. Computation is clearly a useful way to control the environment as well as technology itself, and greatly facilitates the further creation of technology. Just as an organism is aided by the ability to maintain internal states and respond intelligently to its environment, the same holds true for a technology. Once computation emerges, we are in a late stage in the exponential evolution of technology on that planet.
Once computation emerges, the corollary of the Law of Accelerating Returns as applied to computation takes over, and we see the exponential increase in power of the computational technology over time. The Law of Accelerating Returns predicts that both the species and the computational technology will progress at an exponential rate, but the exponent of this growth is vastly higher for the technology than it is for the species. Thus the computational technology inevitably and rapidly overtakes the species that invented it. At the end of the twenty-first century, it will have been only a quarter of a millennium since computation emerged on Earth, which is a blink of an eye on an evolutionary scale—it’s not even very long on the scale of human history. Yet computers at that time will be vastly more powerful (and I believe far more intelligent) than the original humans who initiated their creation.
The next inevitable step is a merger of the technology-inventing species with the computational technology it initiated the creation of. At this stage in the evolution of intelligence on a planet, the computers are themselves based at least in part on the designs of the brains (that is, computational organs) of the species that originally created them and in turn the computers become embedded in and integrated into that species’ bodies and brains. Region by region, the brain and nervous system of that species are ported to the computational technology and ultimately replace those information-processing organs. All kinds of practical and ethical issues delay the process, but they cannot stop it. The Law of Accelerating Returns predicts a complete merger of the species with the technology it originally created.
Failure Modes
 
But wait, this step is not inevitable. The species together with its technology may destroy itself before achieving this step. Destruction of the entire evolutionary process is the only way to stop the exponential march of the Law of Accelerating Returns. Sufficiently powerful technologies are created along the way that have the potential to destroy the ecological niche that the species and its technology occupy Given the likely plentifulness of life- and intelligence-bearing planets, these failure modes must have occurred many times.
We are familiar with one such possibility: destruction through nuclear technology—not just an isolated tragic incident, but an event that destroys the entire niche. Such a catastrophe would not necessarily destroy all life-forms on a planet, but would be a distinct setback in terms of the process envisioned here. We are not yet out of the woods in terms of this specter here on Earth.
There are other destructive scenarios. As I discussed in chapter 7, a particularly likely one is a malfunction (or sabotage) of the mechanism that inhibits indefinite reproduction of self-replicating nanobots. Nanobots are inevitable, given the emergence of intelligent technology. So are self-replicating nanobots, as self-replication represents an efficient, and ultimately necessary, way to manufacture this type of technology Through demented intention or just an unfortunate software error, a failure to turn off self-replication at the right time would be most unfortunate. Such a cancer would infect organic and much inorganic matter alike, since the nanobot life-form is not of organic origin. Inevitably, there must be planets out there that are covered with a vast sea of self-replicating nanobots. I suppose evolution would pick up from this point.
Such a scenario is not limited to tiny robots. Any self-replicating robot will do. But even if the robots are larger than nanobots, it is likely that their means for self-replication makes use of nanoengineering. But any self-replicating group of robots that fails to follow Isaac Asimov’s three laws (which forbid robots to harm their creators) through either evil design or programming error presents a grave danger.
Another dangerous new life-form is the software virus. We’ve already met—in primitive form—this new occupant of the ecological niche made available by computation. Those that will emerge in the next century here on Earth will have the means for harnessing evolution to design evasive tactics in the same way that biological viruses (for example, HIV) do today As the technology-creating species increasingly uses its computational technology to replace its original life-form-based circuits, such viruses will represent another salient danger.
Prior to that time, viruses that operate at the level of the genetics of the original life-form also represent a hazard. As the means become available for the technology-creating species to manipulate the genetic code that gave rise to it (however that code is implemented), new viruses can emerge through accident and/or hostile intention with potentially mortal consequences. This could derail such a species before it has the opportunity to port the design of its intelligence to its technology.
How likely are these dangers? My own view is that a planet approaching its pivotal century of computational growth—as the Earth is today—has a better than even chance of making it through. But then I have always been accused of being an optimist.
Delegations from Faraway Places
 
Our popular contemporary vision of visits from other planets in the Universe contemplates creatures like ourselves with spaceships and other advanced technologies assisting them. In some conceptions the aliens have a remarkably humanlike appearance. In others, they look a little strange. Note that we have exotic-appearing intelligent creatures here on our own planet (for example, the giant squid and octopus). But humanlike or not, the popular conception of aliens visiting our planet envisions them as about our size and essentially unchanged from their original evolved (usually squishy) appearance. This conception seems unlikely.
Far more probable is that visits from intelligent entities from another planet represent a merger of an evolved intelligent species with its even more evolved intelligent computational technology. A civilization sufficiently evolved to make the trek to Earth has likely long since passed the “merger” threshold discussed above.
A corollary of this observation is that such visiting delegations from faraway planets are likely to be very small in size. A computational-based superintelligence of the late twenty-first century here on Earth will be microscopic in size. Thus an intelligent delegation from another planet is not likely to use a spaceship of the size that is common in today’s science fiction, as there would be no reason to transport such large organisms and equipment. Consider that the purpose of such a visit is not likely to be the mining of material resources since such an advanced civilization has almost certainly passed beyond the point where it has any significant unmet material needs. It will be able to manipulate its own environment through nanoengineering (as well as picoengineering and femtoengineering) to meet any conceivable physical requirements. The only likely purpose of such a visit is for observation and the gathering of information. The only resource of interest to such an advanced civilization will be knowledge (that is close to being true for the human-machine civilization here on Earth today). These purposes can be realized with relatively small observation, computation, and communication devices. Such spaceships are thus likely to be smaller than a grain of sand, possibly of microscopic size. Perhaps that is one reason we have not noticed them.
How Relevant Is Intelligence to the Universe?
 
If you are a conscious entity attempting to do a task normally considered to require a little intelligence—say, writing a book about machine intelligence on your planet—then it may have some relevance. But how relevant is intelligence to the rest of the Universe?
The common wisdom is,
Not very.
Stars are born and die; galaxies go through their cycles of creation and destruction. The Universe itself was born in a big bang and will end with a crunch or a whimper; we’re not yet sure which. But intelligence has little to do with it. Intelligence is just a bit of froth, an ebullition of little creatures darting in and out of inexorable universal forces. The mindless mechanism of the Universe is winding up or down to a distant future, and there’s nothing intelligence can do about it.

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