When Will AI Surpass Human Intelligence?

2007-08-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

When Will AI Surpass Human Intelligence?

A poll for this question might look like:

If Human-Level AI is defined as roughly equal to that embodied in Lt. Cmdr. Data or The Doctor in Star Trek, when can this be accomplished?

1. [2000-2010] Now, it's in a secret lab somewhere.
2. [2011-2020] Moore's law/Feynman predicted it.
3. [2021-2040] Conscience/consciousness takes time.
4. [2041-2XXX] A difficult problem, a very long time.
5. Never: Only God is able to make a human brain.
6. Never: Humanity will virtually or fully destroy itself first.

If you comment, please also include your answer to the poll, above. Thanks!

If we assume that the last two answers in the poll are not the correct ones, arriving at the correct answer can be very interesting. My thoughts follow. What do you think?

Providing that there be no major world war or other civilization disrupting catastrophic event, which I feel is a real possibility within this time-frame, I'll venture a guess what the answer might be and why. In the book Feynman Lectures on Computation by Richard Phillips Feynman, Robin W. Allen, Tony Hey, and Richard P. Feynman, it is predicted that based on Moore's Law and other assumptions regarding atomic scale semiconductors, regarding size, power and speed, that by about 2012 +/- 2 years or so, there could exist a device that would consume 1 W and well exceed the computing capacity of the human brain (X100 to X1000). I highly recommend this fascinating work.

In spite of Feynman's prediction, I believe that it will take some time to create a sufficiently parallel structure to achieve the type of holographic-spacial computing inherent to the human brain, however. Size, speed and power are mainly addressed in the prediction, not computational structures, programming or other issues necessary to make the "processing power greater than the human brain" function as an intelligent being.

In addition, the software to self-learn effectively within that framework will take time as well. This period is very difficult to predict, but these essential elements being developed are likely in the 10-30 year time-frame after the computing engine structure becomes minimally sufficient for the job (2012+10=2022). Therefore, I'd predict it could happen at the earliest in the 2020-2030* time period for the essential human-level surpassing intelligence to exist in a single machine. However, by a strict definition as stated above, to create someone as human-like as Lt. Cmdr. Data in Star Trek Next Generation or The Doctor in Star Trek Voyager, I believe it would be, at the earliest in the 2030-2050 time frame, or maybe much longer. It is hard to know how difficult it will be for this AI "creature" to perceive and understand language and vision the way people do.

The problem with this sort of prediction - based on a looser definition of what human level intelligence is - is to really determine when this will have actually happened. Once could argue that the Internet, with its connection of now literally billions of computers, is as a collection, NOW, today, a computer that has already well-surpassed human-level intelligence and I would have to agree with that statement. However it is difficult to see the Internet or most of the computers attached to it as having consciousness or as having true self-awareness. How can we define that for AI?

We do have robots that fetch newspapers and other tasks now from voice or other commands. Are they self-aware? They know what they can do, and where they are and that they can follow instructions, etc. What is self-awareness? Is that the main criterion?

Computers already beat humans in chess and any numerical/mathematical exercise. AI has been able to produce computers that can hold nearly normal conversations with people. So, for some definitions of surpassing human-level intelligence, we have already arrived.

For my time prediction (above), the computer must be able to recognize visual objects, perceive fully contextual meanings and subtile meanings in interactions with humans or animals, be small enough and low power enough to reside in an anthropomorphic physical framework (a human-like robot), form speech in any human language naturally so that it is not perceptible that it is a machine speaking and also that an unprogrammed unit would be able to go through the process that a human does to learn new material.

Clearly, this AI creature would, once it arrives at even close to this stage, be far more intelligent than humans in many areas. The question I would have would be whether it would know "right and wrong," integrity, morality, be self conscious, have a conscience? I think that those should also be requirements to fit the definition. So, you see, the time-frame for this prediction is highly dependent upon how you define AI surpassing human-level intelligence. With a simple question "When will AI surpass human intellignece." it would be really hard to determine what the results to this question would mean, that is, what would people actually be predicting?

It is a very interesting question, of course, but without at least a simple definition of what is meant, it is unclear and almost meaningless. An answer to this simpler question "When will AI surpass human intelligence?" might more likely bring out the unspoken implication of a person's own definition of the meaning, more than a prediction of how technology in AI will advance.

And, as you can see, by some definitions, we are already there. Others may think that only god can do this.

ScottsThoughts

When Will AI Surpass Human Intelligence?