Artifical Intelligence and How it Applies to UsPosted by simon on December 18th, 2007
Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is a phrase people might think they understand but few spend the time to understand it. The modern definition of artificial intelligence (or AI) is “the study and design of intelligent agents” where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions which maximize its chances of success. There are 5 major parts here: the Agent, the Environment, the Actions, the Success, and the Observer.
By definition, the Agent is a construct created by some design of the Observer; the Observer creates the Agent with a range of Actions that will allow the Agent to Succeed in its Environment. The definition of Success is defined by the Observer and is met if and only if the Agents meets the goals of the Observer. The idea is that the Agent will win against the Environment; the unspoken part being that the Agent will presumably succeed within the limited range of Actions allowed it. Not only that, but one must assume that the Observer-permitted Environment is designed to allow some form of Success.
You should be asking “How does this apply to us?” by now. If we assume that there is a “God” and the human race was created by her, it would seem an awful lot like we are in fact a form of Artificial Intelligence, God being the Observer and us being the Agent. Does that make us any less valid than the created Intelligence? No: although throughout varied cultures there is a consistent overtone of disapproval regarding creators / controllers. Does that mean we can create? Maybe. Who knows? We live in a Universe where human perception can only pick up less then 1% of reality. We live on a small, backwater, planet in a small, hick Galaxy plopped in the infinite space of the Universe. We can barely make it to our own moon, much less out of our Galaxy. Even scarier then that – we are still VERY unsure how our own bodies work. They are so many system and subsystems that exist in our bodies that its amazing doctors are even able to cure us of anything. The common cold still beats all accumulated medical knowledge, so I doubt we are quite up to overthrowing our creator(s).
If we assume there is no God, then we are one heck of a random creation, and even then one could easily believe that the random forces are nothing more then something outside our understanding. When dealing with predicting anything I find it’s best to consider Arthur C. Clarke’s following three “laws” of Prediction:
- When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
- The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
With all that said, it leaves us with a few things. We really have no idea why we were created. We don’t understand ourselves, much less the range of Actions we are fully capable of. Our minds and bodies are as mysterious to us as is the Observer that created us. And our Environment provides all we need to survive, yet we know as much about it as we do about ourselves and our Observer (very little).
Addendum: 12/19/2007
There is an important thing to be noted: the Observer gives the Agent freedom to use his Actions however he deems necessary to survive in the Environment. This is drastically different then forcing the Agent to do a task; this grants the Agent freedom to explore all capabilities and possibly even do the unexpected from the standpoint of the Observer. For ingenuity to flourish it is essential that freedom be allowed, as any interference by the Observer may stymie the creativity of the Agent. It should be noted that virtually every living organism able to communicate creates a social doctrine that is used to aid survivability, but as a result generally stymies creativity. Survivability becomes a concern for Agents, as a dead Agent does no one any good.