The Essential Humanity of AI

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses the growing international concern over the threat of artificial intelligence (AI) and explores the objective, "scientific" account of AI to determine whether it can lead to a clear understanding of the issue.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Objective Understanding of AI

1. What is the author's view on the current understanding of AI? The author argues that we lack a fundamental understanding of AI, which thwarts our attempt to coordinate an adequate response. The author likens our situation to "knights confronting a shapeshifting wizard who baffles and dazzles us until we stagger around disoriented."

2. What does the author propose to reach an objective view of AI? The author proposes to go back to objective fundamentals and move systematically forward from there, in order to build an understanding free from subjectivity and superstition. The first step is to have an objective understanding of intelligence itself.

3. What is the definition of "Universal Intelligence" proposed by Legg & Hutter? According to Legg & Hutter, "Universal Intelligence" is defined as "an agent's ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments." This definition requires only three elements: the agent, the environments, and the goals.

4. What are the advantages of the "Universal Intelligence" definition according to the author? The author states that Universal Intelligence has several advantages, including being a formal measure with no room for interpretation, capturing the essence of what we generally define as "intelligence," being objective and unbiased, and being applicable to any agent, however simple or complex.

[02] Limitations of the Objective Account of AI

1. What are the two significant problems with the claim that the objective account of AI makes no reference to human intelligence? The first problem is that the objective account of AI leaves vital questions unconsidered, such as whether the AI is conscious, has emotions, feels pain, or thinks. The second problem is that the objective account of AI retains, at its core, some fundamentally human elements, such as the idea of achieving goals, which are likely to be initially provided by humans.

2. What is the author's concern about the tendency to ignore the philosophical questions surrounding AI? The author argues that treating the philosophical questions surrounding AI as a quaint sideshow is a huge gamble. The author suggests that we need to tackle these questions seriously and determinedly, and that if this requires reallocating resources from engineering to critical reflection, that is probably no bad thing.