Greek version
The article below is written, not for the danger of intelligent machines attempting to obliterate humanity, but for the way realer danger of a massive rise of unemployment following the production of the first intelligent robots. Nothing would prevent the states and corporations from ignoring the existence of humans and stopping economically supporting the unemployed ones. After all, humanism is nothing more than an investment. The research must stop as soon as possible.
This is one of my first articles written in English. It's not my mother tongue so, please, excuse me for any syntax or grammar mistakes, or improper use of words and expressions.
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Introduction
Generally speaking, scientific research has positive results. Even though the progress in science has rather harmed some professions (and, according to many, the environment), its' impact on our way of life and society is advantageous. More or less, all of the everyday appliances of the 21st century owe their existence to the discovery of a group of physicists or chemists, and we owe our easy, compared to previous eras, living, almost exclusively to them.
One can find hundreds of scientific theories and achievements involved in everyday-use technologies. When it comes to the internet, for instance, (which's story begins when some scientists of CERN developed a protocol that would enable them to access the data of a particular computer of their network using the others), where wireless technology and satellite communication is used, one can say that it owes its' advance to a large degree to the comprehension of electromagnetism via Maxwell's theory.
One other example is the processors of our computers. These processors are the "brains" of our PCs, consisting of transistors instead of neurons, and they wouldn't exist if there weren't scientists experimenting with the doping of Germanium and Pyridium to create the semi-conductors with which the diods that form the transistors would be created. Without progress on semi-conductor physics and chemistry involved in doping, you wouldn't be online now.
One can find numerous examples of technological applications based on scientific discoveries. Our society owes much to scientists, indeed. But everything on this world has its' negative aspect along with the positive one. In particular, many of the scientific discoveries to which we owe our everyday appliances have been exploited for uses of doubtful morality.
The infrared radiation detectors may be used for detecting surviving people under ruins after an earthquake, but they are also being used for the detection of bombing targets, which in many cases are mere civilians. The progress of nuclear physics may have led to the -much more efficient and friendlier to the environment- use of nuclear power for the generation of electricity, but it also led to nuclear weapons.
Many scientists out there lack morals and humanism. When, during the 1st world war, some German and British scientists were requested to develop chemical weapons, no moral, not even the fear that those weapons could be found and be used by the enemy against their own children, prevented them from recommending the use of chlorine, yperite and phosgene against the enemy.
Humans have proved that, not only they are not mature enough to use, but they may not even deserve scientific advancements at all. Nevertheless, generally speaking, the scientific progress has improved the quality of our lives. Nowadays, however, it has been reached a point where one can ask... until when will science be improving our lives? Could we have reached a point to some scientific fields, where further research will do more harm than good? Let me elaborate.
When one talks about "science" doesn't necessarily mean physics and chemistry. When most people hear about "scientists", they imagine glasses-wearing people working with test tubes or solving abstract mathematics. There are branches that don't involve test tubes. However, what can one call a scientific field, depends on what one considers the definition of science to be. One can claim that a lawyer is a scientist as well, since he has to keep in his brain much knowledge related to his field and is supposed to solve problems. My "definition" for science, is whatever field includes experiments as well as theoretical knowledge.
But no matter what one calls a science, all fields related to the understanding of the human brain belong to them for sure. One extend of those fields is the one related to artificial intelligence and neural networks. And the research being done in that field is intense, for many problems demand the existence of machines combining the intelligence of a human with the computing power of a computer in order to be solved. One has to be able to discern the difference between computing power and intelligence, and to grasp what neural networks are and what makes their development so difficult and potentially useful, to be able to understand the dangers of such a scientific breakthrough. Let's have a brief description of what they are and the difficulties of developing them.
Computers and intelligence
These are the questions we will be concerned with in this part the article. We are not going to write about them as much as we should -this is not the purpose of this publication- but they are worth replying. As we previously mentioned, one has to understand some basic principles of this field in order to understand the dangers of artificial intelligence.
The question regarding the definition of intelligence is a rather philosophical one (as philosophical as "what is life?"), so we will reply the others first. A rough definition of intelligence will be given after the readers will have understood the difference between human cognition and computing power. Let's start by examining how does a computer "understand" something (whether a file is legal or not, for instance) and "think" or take a decision, and what happens in our brains before they carry out the same tasks.
Is a computer "intelligent"? This question sounds childish. Whoever is aware of some basic principles of informatics, may laugh at someone asking this question in earnest. Not everyone is aware of how computers work, though; furthermore, many people don't really know what being "intelligent" is and what's its' difference from being computationally precise. This kind of ignorance often leads people to have several absurd beliefs.
Many people out there believe that the computing systems belonging to large corporations (google, for instance), "spy" on them. These systems collect and process a vast amount of personal information, indeed, but that is not exactly "spying". A computer scanning your e-mails is way different than a real human reading them, for the simple reason that a computer does not understand what is your e-mail about. Let me elaborate.
When one sends an e-mail to somebody, there is a large possibility (since most e-mail services do so) that the e-mail will be scanned by the e-mail service's computers. By the word "scanned" we definitely don't mean that some employee of the service is going to read your e-mails and write down his conclusions about you, before giving them to some security agency. Though there is some information about such "scanning" taking place frequently and without a search warrant, it has absolutely nothing to do with what scanning is.
When a computer scans an e-mail it, in the first place, looks for defined keywords. There are algorithms seeking for particular number-series consisting of "0" and "1" (all data in computers and on the internet is series of zeros and ones) that correspond to particular words. Such keywords are
The article below is written, not for the danger of intelligent machines attempting to obliterate humanity, but for the way realer danger of a massive rise of unemployment following the production of the first intelligent robots. Nothing would prevent the states and corporations from ignoring the existence of humans and stopping economically supporting the unemployed ones. After all, humanism is nothing more than an investment. The research must stop as soon as possible.
This is one of my first articles written in English. It's not my mother tongue so, please, excuse me for any syntax or grammar mistakes, or improper use of words and expressions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
Generally speaking, scientific research has positive results. Even though the progress in science has rather harmed some professions (and, according to many, the environment), its' impact on our way of life and society is advantageous. More or less, all of the everyday appliances of the 21st century owe their existence to the discovery of a group of physicists or chemists, and we owe our easy, compared to previous eras, living, almost exclusively to them.
One can find hundreds of scientific theories and achievements involved in everyday-use technologies. When it comes to the internet, for instance, (which's story begins when some scientists of CERN developed a protocol that would enable them to access the data of a particular computer of their network using the others), where wireless technology and satellite communication is used, one can say that it owes its' advance to a large degree to the comprehension of electromagnetism via Maxwell's theory.
How much do we owe to the
comprehension of electromagnetism?
(image from blog.agupieware.com)
One can find numerous examples of technological applications based on scientific discoveries. Our society owes much to scientists, indeed. But everything on this world has its' negative aspect along with the positive one. In particular, many of the scientific discoveries to which we owe our everyday appliances have been exploited for uses of doubtful morality.
The infrared radiation detectors may be used for detecting surviving people under ruins after an earthquake, but they are also being used for the detection of bombing targets, which in many cases are mere civilians. The progress of nuclear physics may have led to the -much more efficient and friendlier to the environment- use of nuclear power for the generation of electricity, but it also led to nuclear weapons.
Many scientists out there lack morals and humanism. When, during the 1st world war, some German and British scientists were requested to develop chemical weapons, no moral, not even the fear that those weapons could be found and be used by the enemy against their own children, prevented them from recommending the use of chlorine, yperite and phosgene against the enemy.
A scientific discovery may have
ruinous results too.
(image from genius.com)
Humans have proved that, not only they are not mature enough to use, but they may not even deserve scientific advancements at all. Nevertheless, generally speaking, the scientific progress has improved the quality of our lives. Nowadays, however, it has been reached a point where one can ask... until when will science be improving our lives? Could we have reached a point to some scientific fields, where further research will do more harm than good? Let me elaborate.
When one talks about "science" doesn't necessarily mean physics and chemistry. When most people hear about "scientists", they imagine glasses-wearing people working with test tubes or solving abstract mathematics. There are branches that don't involve test tubes. However, what can one call a scientific field, depends on what one considers the definition of science to be. One can claim that a lawyer is a scientist as well, since he has to keep in his brain much knowledge related to his field and is supposed to solve problems. My "definition" for science, is whatever field includes experiments as well as theoretical knowledge.
But no matter what one calls a science, all fields related to the understanding of the human brain belong to them for sure. One extend of those fields is the one related to artificial intelligence and neural networks. And the research being done in that field is intense, for many problems demand the existence of machines combining the intelligence of a human with the computing power of a computer in order to be solved. One has to be able to discern the difference between computing power and intelligence, and to grasp what neural networks are and what makes their development so difficult and potentially useful, to be able to understand the dangers of such a scientific breakthrough. Let's have a brief description of what they are and the difficulties of developing them.
Computers and intelligence
- What is intelligence?
- Why is a computer not intelligent?
- What makes the development of artificial neural networks and brains so difficult?
- Why are computers incapable of mimicking human cognition? What makes the human brain function so special?
- Will machines ever be able to think, feel, reason logically, understand and translate from one language to another?
These are the questions we will be concerned with in this part the article. We are not going to write about them as much as we should -this is not the purpose of this publication- but they are worth replying. As we previously mentioned, one has to understand some basic principles of this field in order to understand the dangers of artificial intelligence.
The question regarding the definition of intelligence is a rather philosophical one (as philosophical as "what is life?"), so we will reply the others first. A rough definition of intelligence will be given after the readers will have understood the difference between human cognition and computing power. Let's start by examining how does a computer "understand" something (whether a file is legal or not, for instance) and "think" or take a decision, and what happens in our brains before they carry out the same tasks.
Is a computer "intelligent"? This question sounds childish. Whoever is aware of some basic principles of informatics, may laugh at someone asking this question in earnest. Not everyone is aware of how computers work, though; furthermore, many people don't really know what being "intelligent" is and what's its' difference from being computationally precise. This kind of ignorance often leads people to have several absurd beliefs.
Many people out there believe that the computing systems belonging to large corporations (google, for instance), "spy" on them. These systems collect and process a vast amount of personal information, indeed, but that is not exactly "spying". A computer scanning your e-mails is way different than a real human reading them, for the simple reason that a computer does not understand what is your e-mail about. Let me elaborate.
Being spied by electronic systems is
(for the time being) way different than this.
(image found on techiecode.wordpress.com)
When a computer scans an e-mail it, in the first place, looks for defined keywords. There are algorithms seeking for particular number-series consisting of "0" and "1" (all data in computers and on the internet is series of zeros and ones) that correspond to particular words. Such keywords are
