Abuddhas memes pointed me to this essay by Prof. Hugo de Garis (director of the Starbrain artificial brain project in Brussels) which was solicited for but not used by The New York Times as an op-ed piece. Building Gods or Building Our Potential Exterminators:
‘Robot artificial intelligence is evolving a million times faster than human intelligence. This is a consequence of Moore’s law which states that the electronic
performance of chips is doubling every year or so, whereas it took a million years for our human brains to double their capacities… (I)t is not surprising that someone like me is preoccupied with the prospect of
robot intelligence surpassing the human intelligence level… (N)ot only do I believe that artificial brains could become smarter than human
beings, I believe that the potential intelligence of these massively intelligent machines (which I call “artilects” (artificial intellects) could be truly trillions of trillions
of trillions of times greater… These artilects could
potentially be truly god like, immortal, have virtually unlimited memory capacities, and vast humanly incomprehensible intelligence levels.I foresee humanity splitting into two major ideological, bitterly opposed groups over the “species dominance” issue, i.e. should humanity build artilects or not… As the planet’s pioneering brain builder, I feel a terrible burden of responsibility towards the survival of the human species and the creation of godlike
artilects, because I am part of the problem. I am quite schizophrenic on this point. I would love to be remembered after I’m gone as the “father of the
artificial brain”, but I certainly don’t want to be seen in future historical terms as the “father of gigadeath”… The decision to build artilects or not will be the toughest decision that humanity will ever have to make. Personally, I’m glad to be alive now. As I said in a
recent European Discovery Channel documentary on my work and ideas, “I fear for my grandchildren. They will see the horror, and they will be destroyed
by it”.’
His presentation of his ideas is abit too intertwined with his narcissism — understandable that the NYT killed the piece — but provocative.
