The Internet is smarter than you are,
and it might know that.
Hey there, I'm Jonathan Strickland with Fw:Thinking.
I'm in my writing room, and I was just thinking about artificial intelligence and why we find
it so fascinating.
I mean, just look at our science fiction. You've got HAL from 2001, you've got Samantha
from the upcoming Spike Jonze film 'Her.'
But where does science fiction leave off and science fact pick up?
Well, first of all, artificial intelligence isn't some sort of on/off switch, where you
either have it or you don't.
It's actually more like a spectrum. And on one end you have artificial intelligence elements
like being able to recognize natural language, or figuring out the laws of physics based
upon the movements of a pendulum.
And on the other end, you have the real goal. The idea of a self-aware, conscious, thinking
machine.
Now, Alan Turing, the father of computer science, proposed a Turing Test for machine intelligence.
You ask questions on a computer. The answers you get back might be from a person, or they
might be from a machine. And if you can't tell the difference between the two, the machine
was said to have passed the Turing Test. It appears intelligent. But is it conscious?
Well some people, like philosopher John Searle, said no. Computers don't understand what they're
doing, they're following a complex series of instructions. And they're really good at
it. But they don't know what's going on. And perhaps they never will.
But prepare to have your mind blown. You see, some people like the neuroscientist Christof
Koch have said, what about panpsychism - an idea where you have these complex systems
of information relay points that are communicating with each other. And from that consciousness
naturally arises.
So for us, our brains, they're just these complex systems of neural pathways, and that's
why we're conscious.
Well, if that's the case, what about an artificial system?
Lets say, the Internet. A system that's a network of networks, with millions of computers
with billions of transistors.
Could that one day become conscious?
Is it conscious already?
Now not everyone agrees with that. In fact, my gut feeling about consciousness is that
it's probably a little more complex than that. It may be that it's not just about how complex
our neural networks are, but also things like how our hormones can affect the way we feel
and think.
So maybe we just haven't nailed down what makes consciousness tick.
But it does lead me to my question for you. And this week it's a two parter.
Part One: Do you think it's a good idea for us to give machines intelligence, including
self-awareness and consciousness?
And Part Two: Explain your answer.
I mean this is THE conversation on artificial intelligence.
And it's one that gets better with the more people who join in. So make sure you share
this video with your friends.
And if you're really interested in this subject, check out our podcast, because we talk about
it in much greater detail.
And once you're done with all of that hard work, give yourself a break and watch some
of these!