Variations of the Turing test have been proposed. The annual Loebner Prize contest awards a bronze prize to the chatterbot (conversational bot) best able to convince human judges that it’s human.217 The criteria for winning the silver prize is based on Turing’s original test, and it obviously has yet to be awarded. The gold prize is based on visual and auditory communication. In other words, the AI must have a convincing face and voice, as transmitted over a terminal, and thus it must appear to the human judge as if he or she is interacting with a real person over a videophone. On the face of it, the gold prize sounds more difficult. I’ve argued that it may actually be easier, because judges may pay less attention to the text portion of the language being communicated and could be distracted by a convincing facial and voice animation. In fact, we already have real-time facial animation, and while it is not quite up to these modified Turing standards, it’s reasonably close. We also have very natural-sounding voice synthesis, which is often confused with recordings of human speech, although more work is needed on prosodics (intonation). We’re likely to achieve satisfactory facial animation and voice production sooner than the Turing-level language and knowledge capabilities.
Turing was carefully imprecise in setting the rules for his test, and signifi-cant literature has been devoted to the subtleties of establishing the exact procedures for determining how to assess when the Turing test has been passed.218 In 2002 I negotiated the rules for a Turing-test wager with Mitch Kapor on the Long Now Web site.219 The question underlying our twenty-thousand-dollar bet, the proceeds of which go to the charity of the winner’s choice, was, “Will the Turing test be passed by a machine by 2029?” I said yes, and Kapor said no. It took us months of dialogue to arrive at the intricate rules to implement our wager. Simply defining “machine” and “human,” for example, was not a straightforward matter. Is the human judge allowed to have any nonbiological thinking processes in his or her brain? Conversely, can the machine have any biological aspects?
Because the definition of the Turing test will vary from person to person, Turing test–capable machines will not arrive on a single day, and there will be a period during which we will hear claims that machines have passed the threshold. Invariably, these early claims will be debunked by knowledgeable observers, probably including myself. By the time there is a broad consensus that the Turing test has been passed, the actual threshold will have long since been achieved.
Edward Feigenbaum proposes a variation of the Turing test, which assesses not a machine’s ability to pass for human in casual, everyday dialogue but its ability to pass for a scientific expert in a specific field.220 The Feigenbaum test (FT) may be more significant than the Turing test because FT-capable machines, being technically proficient, will be capable of improving their own designs. Feigenbaum describes his test in this way:
Two players play the FT game. One player is chosen from among the elite practitioners in each of three pre-selected fields of natural science, engineering, or medicine. (The number could be larger, but for this challenge not greater than ten). Let’s say we choose the fields from among those covered in the U.S. National Academy. . . . For example, we could choose astrophysics, computer science, and molecular biology. In each round of the game, the behavior of the two players (elite scientist and computer) is judged by another Academy member in that particular domain of discourse, e.g., an astrophysicist judging astrophysics behavior. Of course the identity of the players is hidden from the judge as it is in the Turing test. The judge poses problems, asks questions, asks for explanations, theories, and so on—as one might do with a colleague. Can the human judge choose, at better than chance level, which is his National Academy colleague and which is the computer?
Of course Feigenbaum overlooks the possibility that the computer might already be a National Academy colleague, but he is obviously assuming that machines will not yet have invaded institutions that today comprise exclusively biological humans. While it may appear that the FT is more difficult than the Turing test, the entire history of AI reveals that machines started with the skills of professionals and only gradually moved toward the language skills of a child. Early AI systems demonstrated their prowess initially in professional fields such as proving mathematical theorems and diagnosing medical conditions. These early systems would not be able to pass the FT, however, because they do not have the language skills and the flexible ability to model knowledge from different perspectives that are needed to engage in the professional dialogue inherent in the FT.
This language ability is essentially the same ability needed in the Turing test. Reasoning in many technical fields is not necessarily more difficult than the commonsense reasoning engaged in by most human adults. I would expect that machines will pass the FT, at least in some disciplines, around the same time as they pass the Turing test. Passing the FT in all disciplines is likely to take longer, however. This is why I see the 2030s as a period of consolidation, as machine intelligence rapidly expands its skills and incorporates the vast knowledge bases of our biological human and machine civilization. By the 2040s we will have the opportunity to apply the accumulated knowledge and skills of our civilization to computational platforms that are billions of times more capable than unassisted biological human intelligence.
The advent of strong AI is the most important transformation this century will see. Indeed, it’s comparable in importance to the advent of biology itself. It will mean that a creation of biology has finally mastered its own intelligence and discovered means to overcome its limitations. Once the principles of operation of human intelligence are understood, expanding its abilities will be conducted by human scientists and engineers whose own biological intelligence will have been greatly amplified through an intimate merger with nonbiological intelligence. Over time, the nonbiological portion will predominate.
We’ve discussed aspects of the impact of this transformation throughout this book, which I focus on in the next chapter. Intelligence is the ability to solve problems with limited resources, including limitations of time. The Singularity will be characterized by the rapid cycle of human intelligence—increasingly nonbiological—capable of comprehending and leveraging its own powers.
FRIEND OF FUTURIST BACTERIUM, 2 BILLION B.C.: So tell me again about these ideas you have about the future.
FUTURIST BACTERIUM, 2 BILLION B.C.: Well, I see bacteria getting together into societies, with the whole band of cells basically acting like one big complicated organism with greatly enhanced capabilities.
FRIEND OF FUTURIST BACTERIUM: What gives you that idea?
FUTURIST BACTERIUM: Well already, some of our fellow Daptobacters have gone inside other larger bacteria to form a little duo.221It’s inevitable that our fellow cells will band together so that each cell can specialize its function. As it is now, we each have to do everything by ourselves: find food, digest it, excrete by-products.
FRIEND OF FUTURIST BACTERIUM: And then what?
FUTURIST BACTERIUM: All these cells will develop ways of communicating with one another that go beyond just the swapping of chemical gradients that you and I can do.
FRIEND OF FUTURIST BACTERIUM: Okay, now tell me again the part about that future superassembly of ten trillion cells.
FUTURIST BACTERIUM: Yes, well, according to my models, in about two billion years a big society of ten trillion cells will make up a single organism and include tens of billions of special cells that can communicate with one another in very complicated patterns.
FRIEND OF FUTURIST BACTERIUM: What sort of patterns?
FUTURIST BACTERIUM: Well, “music,” for one thing. These huge bands of cells will create musical patterns and communicate them to all the other bands of cells.
FRIEND OF FUTURIST BACTERIUM: Music?
FUTURIST BACTERIUM: Yes, patterns of sound.
FRIEND OF FUTURIST BACTERIUM: Sound?
FUTURIST BACTERIUM: Okay, look at it this way. These supercell societies will be complicated enough to understand their own orga
nization. They will be able to improve their own design, getting better and better, faster and faster. They will reshape the rest of the world in their image.
FRIEND OF FUTURIST BACTERIUM: Now, wait a second. Sounds like we’ll lose our basic bacteriumity.
FUTURIST BACTERIUM: Oh, but there will be no loss.
FRIEND OF FUTURIST BACTERIUM: I know you keep saying that, but . . .
FUTURIST BACTERIUM: It will be a great step forward. It’s our destiny as bacteria. And, anyway, there will still be little bacteria like us floating around.
FRIEND OF FUTURIST BACTERIUM: Okay, but what about the downside? I mean, how much harm can our fellow Daptobacter and Bdellovibrio bacteria do? But these future cell associations with their vast reach may destroy everything.
FUTURIST BACTERIUM: It’s not certain, but I think we’ll make it through.
FRIEND OF FUTURIST BACTERIUM: You always were an optimist.
FUTURIST BACTERIUM: Look, we won’t have to worry about the downside for a couple billion years.
FRIEND OF FUTURIST BACTERIUM: Okay, then, let’s get lunch.
MEANWHILE, TWO BILLION YEARS LATER . . .
NED LUDD: These future intelligences will be worse than the textile machines I fought back in 1812. Back then we had to worry about only one man with a machine doing the work of twelve. But you’re talking about a marble-size machine outperforming all of humanity.
RAY: It will only outperform the biological part of humanity. In any event, that marble is still human, even if not biological.
NED: These superintelligences won’t eat food. They won’t breathe air. They won’t reproduce through sex. . . . So just how are they human?
RAY: We’re going to merge with our technology. We’re already starting to do that in 2004, even if most of the machines are not yet inside our bodies and brains. Our machines nonetheless extend the reach of our intelligence. Extending our reach has always been the nature of being human.
NED: Look, saying that these superintelligent nonbiological entities are human is like saying that we’re basically bacteria. After all, we’re evolved from them also.
RAY: It’s true that a contemporary human is a collection of cells, and that we are a product of evolution, indeed its cutting edge. But extending our intelligence by reverse engineering it, modeling it, simulating it, reinstantiating it on more capable substrates, and modifying and extending it is the next step in its evolution. It was the fate of bacteria to evolve into a technology-creating species. And it’s our destiny now to evolve into the vast intelligence of the Singularity.
CHAPTER SIX
* * *
The Impact . . .
The future enters into us in order to transform itself in us long before it happens.
—RAINER MARIA RILKE
One of the biggest flaws in the common conception of the future is that the future is something that happens to us, not something we create.
—MICHAEL ANISSIMOV
“Playing God” is actually the highest expression of human nature. The urges to improve ourselves, to master our environment, and to set our children on the best path possible have been the fundamental driving forces of all of human history. Without these urges to “play God,” the world as we know it wouldn’t exist today. A few million humans would live in savannahs and forests, eking out a hunter-gatherer existence, without writing or history or mathematics or an appreciation of the intricacies of their own universe and their own inner workings.
—RAMEZ NAAM
A Panoply of Impacts. What will be the nature of human experience once nonbiological intelligence predominates? What are the implications for the human-machine civilization when strong AI and nano-technology can create any product, any situation, any environment that we can imagine at will? I stress the role of imagination here because we will still be constrained in our creations to what we can imagine. But our tools for bringing imagination to life are growing exponentially more powerful.
As the Singularity approaches we will have to reconsider our ideas about the nature of human life and redesign our human institutions. We will explore a few of these ideas and institutions in this chapter.
For example, the intertwined revolutions of G, N, and R will transform our frail version 1.0 human bodies into their far more durable and capable version 2.0 counterparts. Billions of nanobots will travel through the bloodstream in our bodies and brains. In our bodies, they will destroy pathogens, correct DNA errors, eliminate toxins, and perform many other tasks to enhance our physical well-being. As a result, we will be able to live indefinitely without aging.
In our brains, the massively distributed nanobots will interact with our biological neurons. This will provide full-immersion virtual reality incorporating all of the senses, as well as neurological correlates of our emotions, from within the nervous system. More important, this intimate connection between our biological thinking and the nonbiological intelligence we are creating will profoundly expand human intelligence.
Warfare will move toward nanobot-based weapons, as well as cyber-weapons. Learning will first move online, but once our brains are online we will be able to download new knowledge and skills. The role of work will be to create knowledge of all kinds, from music and art to math and science. The role of play will be, well, to create knowledge, so there won’t be a clear distinction between work and play.
Intelligence on and around the Earth will continue to expand exponentially until we reach the limits of matter and energy to support intelligent computation. As we approach this limit in our corner of the galaxy, the intelligence of our civilization will expand outward into the rest of the universe, quickly reaching the fastest speed possible. We understand that speed to be the speed of light, but there are suggestions that we may be able to circumvent this apparent limit (possibly by taking shortcuts through wormholes, for example).
. . . on the Human Body
So many different people to be.
—DONOVAN1
Cosmetic baby, plug into me
And never, ever find another.
And I realize no one’s wise
To my plastic fantastic lover.
—JEFFERSON AIRPLANE,
“PLASTIC FANTASTIC LOVER”
Our machines will become much more like us, and we will become much more like our machines.
—RODNEY BROOKS
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling.
—WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS,
“SAILING TO BYZANTIUM”
A radical upgrading of our bodies’ physical and mental systems is already under way, using biotechnology and emerging genetic-engineering technologies. Beyond the next two decades we will use nanoengineered methods such as nanobots to augment and ultimately replace our organs.
A New Way of Eating. Sex has largely been separated from its biological function. For the most part, we engage in sexual activity for intimate communication and sensual pleasure, not reproduction. Conversely, we have devised multiple methods for creating babies without physical sex, albeit most reproduction does still derive from the sex act. This disentanglement of sex from its biological function is not condoned by all sectors of society, but it has been readily, even eagerly, adopted by the mainstream in the developed world.
So why don’t we provide the same extrication of purpose from biology for another activity that also provides both social intimacy and sensual pleasure—namely, eating? The original biological purpose of consuming food was to provide the bloodstream with nutrients, which were then delivered to each of our trillions of cells. These nutrients include caloric (energy-bearing) substances such as glucose (mainly from carbohydrates), proteins, fats, and a myriad of trace molecules, such as vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals that provide building blocks and enzymes for diverse metabolic processes.
Like any other major human
biological system, digestion is astonishing in its intricacy, enabling our bodies to extract the complex resources needed to survive, despite sharply varying conditions, while at the same time filtering out a multiplicity of toxins. Our knowledge of the complex pathways underlying digestion is rapidly expanding, although there is still a great deal we do not fully understand.
But we do know that our digestive processes, in particular, are optimized for a period in our evolutionary development that is dramatically dissimilar to the one in which we now find ourselves. For most of our history we faced a high likelihood that the next foraging or hunting season (and for a brief, relatively recent period, the next planting season) might be catastrophically lean. It made sense, therefore, for our bodies to hold on to every possible calorie we consumed. Today that biological strategy is counterproductive and has become the outdated metabolic programming that underlies our contemporary epidemic of obesity and fuels pathological processes of degenerative disease, such as coronary artery disease and Type II diabetes.
Consider the reasons that the designs of our digestive and other bodily systems are far from optimal for current conditions. Until recently (on an evolutionary timescale) it was not in the interest of the species for old people like myself (I was born in 1948) to use up the limited resources of the clan. Evolution favored a short lifespan—life expectancy was thirty-seven years as recently as two centuries ago—to allow restricted reserves to be devoted to the young, those caring for them, and those strong enough to perform intense physical work. As discussed earlier, the so-called grandma hypothesis (which suggests that a small number of “wise” elderly members of the tribe were beneficial to the human species) does not appreciably challenge the observation that there was no strong selective pressure for genes that significantly extended human longevity.