Topic 184

Processing requirements for AI by Isaku

Although artificial intelligence has been an area in which we have invested considerable amounts of research and resources, it seems that the day in which we humans will actually be able to create an AI with capabilities portrayed in science fiction films and novels. The primary reason for this is the processing limitations of the computers.

Our brains are often said to be more sophisticated than any other computer ever created. Since the objective of AI development is to make a multifunctional duplicate of the human brain, it can be said that the machinery which run the AI will need the same processing power as the human brain.

Considering that humans absorb and process abundant information in the forms of images, memory, smell, feelings, and time, we can see that it will take high processing power to create an equivalently powerful artificial mind. In order to actually know what the requirements would be for the AI, we first need to understand the concept of the AI. Computational intelligence involves iterative development or learning (e.g. parameter tuning e.g. in connectionist systems).

Learning is based on empirical data and is associated with non-symbolic AI, scruffy AI and soft computing. Methods mainly include: Neural networks: systems with very strong pattern recognition capabilities. Fuzzy systems: techniques for reasoning under uncertainty, have been widely used in modern industrial and consumer product control systems.

Evolutionary computation: applies biologically inspired concepts such as populations, mutation and survival of the fittest to generate increasingly better solutions to the problem. These methods most notably divide into evolutionary algorithms (e.g. genetic algorithms) and swarm intelligence (e.g. ant algorithms).

With hybrid intelligent systems attempts are made to combine these two groups. Expert inference rules can be generated through neural network or production rules from statistical learning such as in ACT-R. It is thought that the human brain uses multiple techniques to both formulate and cross-check results.

Thus, systems integration is seen as promising and perhaps necessary for true AI. In science fiction AI — almost always strong AI — is commonly portrayed as an upcoming power trying to overthrow human authority as in HAL 9000, Skynet, Colossus and The Matrix or as service humanoids like C-3PO, Marvin, Data, KITT from Knight Rider, the Bicentennial Man, the Mechas in A.I., Cortana from the Halo series, and Sonny in I, Robot.

A notable exception is Mike in Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress: a supercomputer that becomes aware and aids humans in a local revolution to overthrow the authority of other humans. A careful reading of Arthur C. Clarke's version of 2001 suggests that the HAL 9000 found himself/itself in a similar position of divided loyalties. On one hand, HAL needed to take care of the astronauts, on the other the humans who created HAL entrusted him with a secret to be withheld from the astronauts.

The inevitability of world domination by out-of-control AI is also argued by some writers like Kevin Warwick. In works such as the Japanese manga Ghost in the Shell, the existence of intelligent machines questions the definition of life as organisms rather than a broader category of autonomous entities, establishing a notional concept of systemic intelligence.

See list of fictional computers and list of fictional robots and androids. Some writers, such as Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil, have also speculated that the advent of strong AI is likely to cause abrupt and dramatic societal change. The period of abrupt change is sometimes referred to as "the Singularity".Author Frank Herbert explored the idea of a time when mankind might ban clever machines entirely. His Dune series makes mention of a rebellion called the Butlerian Jihad in which mankind defeats the smart machines of the future and then imposes a death penalty against any who would again create thinking machines.

Often quoted from the fictional Orange Catholic Bible, "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind." A similar idea is also explored in Battlestar Galactica, where artificial intelligence research is seen as controversial due to the mistake of creating the rebellious Cylons.

As we can see, there is much expected out of the AI, and therefore it must be matched up with a powerful processor to grant it with these functions.