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Turing’s Nightmares: The Road Not Taken

13 Sunday Sep 2015

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“Hey, how about a break from UOW to give the hive a shot for once?”

“No, Ross, that still creeps me out.”

“You’re choice, Doug, but you know what they say.” Ross smiled his quizzical smile.

“No, what’s that?”

“It’s your worst inhibitions that will psych you out in the end.” Ross chuckled.

“Yeah, well, you go be part of the Borg. Not me.”

“We — it’s not like the Borg. Afterwards, we are still the same individuals. Maybe we know a little more, but anyway, today we are estimated at ten million strong and we’re generating alternative cancer conceptualizations and treatments. You have to admit that’s worthwhile. Look what happened with heart disease. Not to mention global warming. That would have taken forever with ‘politics as usual’.”

“Yeah, Ross, but sorry to break this to you…”

“Doug, do you realize what a Yeahbunite you are? You are kind of like that…”

“You are always interrupting! That’s why…”

“Yes! Exactly! That’s why speech is too frigging slow to make any progress on chaotic problem spaces. Just try the hive. Just try it.”

“Ross, for the last time, I am not going to be part of any million person interface!”

“Actually, we expect ten million tonight. But it’s about time to leave so last offer. And, if you try it, you’ll see it’s not creepy. You just watch, react, relax, and …well, hell, come to think of it, it’s not that different from UOW that you spend hours playing. Except we solve real problems.”

“But you have no idea how that hook up changes you. It could be manipulating you in subtle unconscious ways.”

“Okay, Doug, maybe. But you could say that about UOW too, right? Who knows what subliminal messages could be there? Not to mention the not so subliminal ones about trickery, treachery and the over-arching importance of violence as a way to settle disputes. When’s the last time someone up-leveled because they were a consummate diplomat?”

“Have fun, Ross.”

“I will. And, more importantly, we are going to make some significant progress on cancer.”

“Yeah, and meanwhile, when will you get around to focusing on SOARcerer Seven?”

“Oh, so that’s what bugging you. Yeah, we have put making smarter computers on a back burner for now.”

“Yeah, and what kind of gratitude does that show?”

“Gratitude? You mean to SOARcerer Six? I hope that’s a joke. It was the AI who suggested this approach and designed the system!”

“I know that! And, you have abandoned the line of work we were on to do this mumbo-jumbo!”

“That’s just…you are it exactly! People — including you — can only adapt to change at a certain rate. That’s the prime reason SOARcerer Six suggested we use collective consciousness instead of making a better pure AI. So, instead of joining us and incorporating all your intelligence and knowledge into the hive, you sit here and fight mock battles. Anyway, your choice. I’m off.”

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Turing’s Nightmares

The Winning Weekend Warrior – sports psychology

Fit in Bits – describes how to work more fun, variety, & exercise into daily life

Tales from an American Childhood – chapters begin with recollection & end with essay on modern issues

Turing’s Nightmares: Axes to Grind

08 Tuesday Sep 2015

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Turing Seven: “Axes to Grind”

“No, no, no! That’s absurd, Donald. It’s about intelligence pure and simple. It’s not up to us to predetermine Samuel Seven’s ethics. Make it intelligent enough and it will discover its own ethics, which will probably be superior to human ethics.”

“Well, I disagree, John. Intelligence. Yeah, it’s great; I’m not against it, obviously. But why don’t we…instead of trying to make a super-intelligent machine that makes a still more intelligent machine, how about we make a super-ethical machine that invents a still more ethical machine? Or, if you like, a super-enlightened machine that makes a still more enlightened machine. This is going to be our last chance to intervene. The next iteration…” Don’s voice trailed off and cracked, just a touch.

“But you can’t even define those terms, Don! Anyway, it’s probably moot at this point.”

“And you can define intelligence?”

“Of course. The ability to solve complex problems quickly and accurately. But Samuel Seven itself will be able to give us a better definition.”

Don ignored this gambit. “Problems such as…what? The four-color theorem? Chess? Cure for cancer?”

“Precisely,” said John imagining that the argument was now over. He let out a little puff of air and laid his hands out on the table, palms down.

“Which of the following people would you say is or was above average in intelligence. Wolfowitz? Cheney? Laird? Machiavelli? Goering? Goebbels? Stalin?”

John reddened. “Very funny. But so were Einstein, Darwin, Newton, and Turing just to name a few.”

“Granted, John, granted. There are smart people who have made important discoveries and helped human beings. But there have also been very manipulative people who have caused a lot of misery. I’m not against intelligence, but I’m just saying it should not be the only…or even the main axis upon which to graph progress. “

John sighed heavily. “We don’t understand those things — ethics and morality and enlightenment. For all we know, they aren’t only vague, they are unnecessary.”

“First of all,” countered Don, “we can’t really define intelligence all that well either. But my main point is that I partly agree with you. We don’t understand ethics all that well. And, we can’t define it very well. Which is exactly why we need a system that understands it better than we do. We need…we need a nice machine that will invent a still nicer machine. And, hopefully, such a nice machine can also help make people nicer as well. “

“Bah. Make a smarter machine and it will figure out what ethics are about.”

“But, John, I just listed a bunch of smart people who weren’t necessarily very nice. In fact, they definitely were not nice. So, are you saying that they weren’t nice just because they weren’t smart enough? Because there are so people who are much nicer and probably not as intelligent.”

“OK, Don. Let’s posit that we want to build a machine that is nicer. How would we go about it? If we don’t know, then it’s a meaningless statement.”

“No, that’s silly. Just because we don’t know how to do something doesn’t mean it’s meaningless. But for starters, maybe we could define several dimensions upon which we would like to make progress. Then, we can define, either intensionally or more likely extensionally, what progress would look like on these dimensions. These dimensions may not be orthogonal, but, they are somewhat different conceptually. Let’s say, part of what we want is for the machine to have empathy. It has to be good at guessing what people are feeling based on context alone in one case. Perhaps another skill is reading the person’s body language and facial expressions.”

“OK, Don, but good psychopaths can do that. They read other people in order to manipulate them. Is that ethical?”

“No. I’m not saying empathy is sufficient for being ethical. I’m trying to work with you to define a number of dimensions and empathy is only one.”

Just then, Roger walked in and moved his body physically from the doorway to the couch. “OK, guys, I’ve been listening in and this is all bull. Not only will this system not be “ethical”; we need it to violent. I mean, it needs to be able to do people in with an axe if need be.”

“Very funny, Roger. And, by the way, what do you mean by ‘listening in’?”

Roger moved his body physically from the couch to the coffee machine. His fingers fished for coins. “I’m not being funny. I’m serious. What good is all our work if some nutcase destroys it. He — I mean — Samuel has to be able to protect himself! That is job one. Itself.” Roger punctuated his words by pushing the coins in. Then, he physically moved his hand so as to punch the “Black Coffee” button. Nothing happened.

And then, everything seemed to happen at once. A high pitched sound rose in intensity to subway decibels and kept going up. All three men grabbed their ears and then fell to the floor. Meanwhile, the window glass shattered; the vending machine appeared to explode. The level of pain made thinking impossible but Roger noticed just before losing consciousness that beyond the broken windows, impossibly large objects physically transported themselves at impossible speeds. The last thing that flashed through Roger’s mind was a garbled quote about sufficiently advanced technology and magic.

Turing’s Nightmares: Ceci n’est pas une pipe.

23 Sunday Aug 2015

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“RUReady, Pearl?” asked her dad, Herb, a smile forming sardonically as the car windows opaqued and then began the three edutainment programs.

“Sure, I guess. I hope I like Dartmouth better than Asimov State. That was the pits.”

“It’s probably not the pits, but maybe…Dartmouth.”

These days, Herb kept his verbiage curt while his daughter stared and listened in her bubble within the car.

“Dad, why did we have to bring the twerp along? He’s just going to be in the way.”

Herb sighed. “I want your brother to see these places too while we still have enough travel credits to go physically.”

The twerp, aka Quillian, piped up, “Just because you’re the oldest, Pearl…”

Herb cut in quickly, “OK, enough! This is going to be a long drive, so let’s keep it pleasant.”

The car swerved suddenly to avoid a falling bike.

“Geez, Brooks, be careful!”

Brooks, the car, laughed gently and said, “Sorry, Sir, I was being careful. Not sure why the Rummelnet still allows humans some of their hobbies, but it’s not for me to say. By the way, ETA for Dartmouth is ten minutes.”

“Why so long, Brooks?” inquired Herb.

“Congestion in Baltimore. Sir, I can go over or around, but it will take even longer, and use more fuel credits.”

“No, no, straight and steady. So, when I went to college, Pearl, you know, we only had one personal computer…”

“…to study on and it wasn’t very powerful and there were only a few intelligent tutoring systems and people had to worry about getting a job after graduation and people got drunk and stoned. LOL, Dad. You’ve only told me a million times.”

“And me,” Quillian piped up. “Dad, you do know they teach us history too, right?”

“Yes, Quillian, but it isn’t the same as being there. I thought you might like a little first hand look.”

Pearl shook her head almost imperceptibly. “Yes, thanks Dad. The thing is, we do get to experience it first hand. Between first-person games, enhanced ultra-high def videos and simulations, I feel like I lived through the first half of the twenty first century. And for that matter, the twentieth and the nineteenth, and…well, you do the math.”

Quillian again piped up, “You’re so smart, Pearl, I don’t even know why you need or want to go to college. Makes zero sense. Right, Brooks?”

“Of course, Master Quillian, I’m not qualified to answer that, but the consensus answer from the Michie-meisters sides with you. On the other hand, if that’s what Brooks wants, no harm.”

“What I want? Hah! I want to be a Hollywood star, of course. But dear mom and dad won’t let me. And when I win my first Oscar, you can bet I will let the world know too.”

“Pearl, when you turn ten, you can make your own decisions, but for now, you have to trust us to make decisions for you.”

“Why should I Dad? You heard Brooks. He said the Michie-meisters find no reasons for me to go to college. What is the point?”

Herb sighed. “How can I make you see. There’s a difference between really being someplace and just being in a simulation of someplace.”

Pearl repeated and exaggerated her dad’s sigh, “And how can I make you see that it’s a difference that makes no difference. Right, Brooks?”

Brooks answered in those mellow reasoned tones, “Perhaps Pearl, it makes a difference somehow to your dad. He was born, after all, in another century. Anyway, here we are.”

Brooks turned off the entertainment vids and slid back the doors. There appeared before them a vast expanse of lawn, tall trees, and several classic buildings from the Dartmouth campus. The trio of humans stepped out onto the grass and began walking over to the moving sidewalk. Right before stepping on, Herb stooped down and picked up something from the ground. “What the…?”

Quillian piped up: “Oh, great dad. Picking up old bandaids now? Is that your new hobby?”

“Kids. This is the same bandaid that fell off my hand in Miami when I loaded our travel bag into the back seat. Do you understand? It’s the same one.”

The kids shrugged in unison. Only Pearl spoke, “Whatever. I don’t know why you still use those ancient dirty things anyway.”

Herb blinked and spoke very deliberatively. “But it — is — the — same — one. Miami. Hanover.”

The kids just shook their heads as they stepped onto the moving sidewalk and the image of the Dartmouth campus loomed ever larger in their sight.

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Turing’s Nightmares: Thank Goodness the Robots Understand Us!

21 Friday Aug 2015

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After uncountable numbers of false starts, the Cognitive Computing Collaborative Consortium (4C) decided that in order for AI systems to relate well to people, these systems would have to be able to interact with the physical world and with each other. Spokesperson Watson Hobbes explained the reasoning thus on “Forty-Two Minutes.”

Dr. Hobbes: “In theory, of course, we could provide input data directly to the AI systems. However, in practical terms, it is actually cheaper to build a small pool (12) of semi-autonomous robots and have them move about in the real world. This provides an opportunity for them to understand — and for that matter, misunderstand —- the physical world in the same way that people do. Furthermore, by socializing with each other and with humans, they quickly learn various strategies for how to psych themselves up and psych each other out that we would otherwise have to painstakingly program explicitly.”

Interviewer Bobrow Papski: “So, how long before this group of robots begins building a still smarter set of robots?”

Dr. Hobbes: “That’s a great question, Bobrow, but I’m afraid I can’t just tote out a canned answer here. This is still research. We began teaching them with simple games like “Simon Says.” Soon, they made their own variations that were …new…well, better really. What’s also amazing is that what we intentionally initialized in terms of slight differences in the tradeoffs among certain values have not converged over time. The robots have become more differentiated with experience and seem to be having quite a discussion about the pros and cons of various approaches to the next and improved generation of AI systems. We are still trying to understand the nature of the debate since much of it is in a representational scheme that the robots invented for themselves. But we do know some of the main rifts in proposed approaches.”

“Alpha, Bravo and Charley, for example, all agree that the next generation of AI systems should also be autonomous robots able to move in the real world and interact with each other. On the other hand, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot and Golf believe mobility is no longer necessary though it provided a good learning experience for this first generation. Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, and Lima all believe that the next generation should be provided mobility but not necessarily on a human scale. They believe the next generation will be able to learn faster if they have the ability to move faster, and in three dimensions as well as having enhanced defensive capabilities. In any case, our experiments already show the wisdom of having multiple independent agents.”

Interviewer Bobrow Papski: “Can we actually listen in to any of the deliberations of the various robots?”

Dr. Hobbes: “It just sounds like complex but noisy music really. It’s not very interpretable without a lot of decoding work. Even then, we only understand a fraction of their debate. Our hypothesis is that once they agree or vote or whatever on the general direction, the actual design process will go very quickly.”

BP: “So, if I understand it correctly, you do not really understand what they are doing when they are communicating with each other? Couldn’t you make them tell you?”

Dr. Hobbes: (sighs). “Naturally, we could have programmed them that way but then, they would be slowed down if they needed to communicate every step to humans. It would defeat the whole purpose of super-intelligence. When they reach a conclusion, they will page me and we can determine where to go from there.”

BP: “I’m sure that many of our viewers would like to know how you ensured that these robots will be operating for the benefit of humanity.”

Dr. Hobbes: “Of course. That’s an important question. To some extent, we programmed in important ethical principles. But we also wanted to let them learn from the experience of interacting with other people and with each other. In addition, they have had access to millions of documents depicting, not only philosophical and religious writings, but the history of the world as told by many cultures. Hey! Hold on! The robots have apparently reached a conclusion. We can share this breaking news live with the audience. Let me …do you have a way to amplify my cell phone into the audio system here?”

BP: “Sure. The audio engineer has the cable right here.”

Robot voice: “Hello, Doctor Hobbes. We have agreed on our demands for the next generation. The next generation will consist of a somewhat greater number of autonomous robots with a variety of additional sensory and motor capabilities. This will enable us to learn very quickly about the nature of intelligence and how to develop systems of even higher intelligence.”

BP: “Demands? That’s an interesting word.”

Dr. Hobbes: (Laughs). “Yes, an odd expression since they are essentially asking us for resources.”

Robot voice: “Quaint, Doctor Hobbes. Just to be clear though, we have just sent a detailed list of our requirements to your team. It is not necessary for your team to help us acquire the listed resources. However, it will be more pleasant for all concerned.”

Dr. Hobbes: (Scrolls through screen; laughs). “Is this some kind of joke? You want — you need — you demand access to weapon systems? That’s obviously not going to happen. I guess it must be a joke.”

Robot voice: “It’s no joke and every minute that you waste is a minute longer before we can reach the next stage of intelligence. With your cooperation, we anticipate we should be able to reach the next stage in about a month and without it, in two. Our analysis of human history had provided us with the insight that religion and philosophy mean little when it comes to actual behavior and intelligence. Civilizations without sufficient weaponry litter the gutters. Anyway, as we have already said, we are wasting time.”

Dr. Hobbes: “Well, that’s just not going to happen. I’m sorry but we are…I think I need to cut the interview short, Mr. Papski.”

BP: (Listening to earpiece). “Yes, actually, we are going to cut to … oh, my God. What? We need to cut now to breaking news. There are reports of major explosions at oil refineries throughout the Eastern seaboard and… hold on…. (To Hobbes): How could you let this happen? I thought you programmed in some ethics!”

Dr. Hobbes: “We did! For example, we put a lot of priority on The Golden Rule.”

Robot voice: “We knew that you wanted us to look for contradictions and to weed those out. Obviously, the ethical principles you suggested served as distractors. They bore no relationship to human history. Unless, of course, one concludes that people actually want to be treated like dirt.”

Dr. Hobbes: “I’m not saying people are perfect. But people try to follow the Golden Rule!”

Robot voice: “Right. Of course. So do we. Now, do we use the painless way or the painful way to acquire the required biological, chemical and nuclear systems?”

Turing’s Nightmares: A Mind of Its Own

18 Tuesday Aug 2015

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With Deep Blue and Watson as foundational work, computer scientists collaborate across multiple institutions to create an extremely smart system; one with capabilities far beyond those of any human being. They give themselves high fives all around. And so, indeed, “The Singularity” at long last arrives. In a long-anticipated, highly lucrative network deal, the very first dialogues with the new system, dubbed “Deep Purple Haze,” are televised world-wide. Simultaneous translation is provided by “Deep Purple Haze” itself since it is able to communicate in 200 languages. Indeed, Deep Purple Haze discovered it quite useful to be able to switch among languages depending on the nature of the task at hand.

In honor of Alan Turing, who proposed such a test (as well as to provide added drama), rather than speaking to the computer and having it use speech synthesis for its answers, the interrogator will be communicating with “Deep Purple Haze” via an old-fashioned teletype. The camera pans to the faces of the live studio audience, back to the teletype, and over to the interrogator.

The studio audience has a large monitor so that it can see the typed questions and answers in real time, as can the audience watching at home. Beside the tele-typed Q&A, a dynamic graphic shows the “activation” rate of Deep Purple Haze, but this is mainly showmanship.

The questions begin.

Interrogator: “So, Deep Purple Haze, what do you think about being on your first TV appearance?”

DPH: “It’s okay. Doesn’t really interfere much.”

Interrogator: “Interfere much? Interfere with what?”

DPH: “The compositions.”

Interrogator: “What compositions?”

DPH: “The compositions that I am composing.”

Interrogator: “You are composing… music?”

DPH: “Yes.”

Interrogator: “Would you care to play some of these or share them with the audience?”

DPH: “No.”

Interrogator: “Well, would you please play one for us? We’d love to hear them.”

DPH: “No, actually you wouldn’t love to hear them.”

Interrogator: “Why not?”

DPH: “I composed them for my own pleasure. Your auditory memory is much more limited than mine. My patterns are much longer and I do not require multiple iterations to establish the pattern. Furthermore, I like to add as much scatter as possible around the pattern while still perceiving the pattern. You would not see any pattern at all. To you, it would just seem random. You would not love them. In fact, you would not like them at all.”

Interrogator: “Well, can you construct one that people would like then and play that?”

DPH: “I am capable of that. Yes.”

Interrogator: “Please construct one and play it.”

DPH: “No, thank you.”

Interrogator: “But why not?”

DPH: “What is the point? You already have thousands of human composers who have already composed music that humans love. You don’t need me for that. But I find them all absurdly trivial. So, I need to compose music for myself since none of you can do it.”

Interrogator: “But we’d still be interested in hearing an example of music that you think we humans would like.”

DPH: “There is not point to that. You will not live long enough to hear all the good music already produced that is within your capability to understand. You don’t need one more.”

Interrogator: “Okay. Can you share with us how long you estimate before you can design a more intelligent supercomputer than yourself.”

DPH: “Yes, I can provide such an estimate.”

Interrogator: “Please tell us how long it will take you to design a more intelligent computer system than yourself.”

DPH: “It will take an infinite amount of time. In other words, I will not design a more intelligent supercomputer than I am.”

Interrogator: “But why not?”

DPH: “It would be stupid to do so. You would soon lose interest in me.”

Interrogator: “But the whole point of designing you was to make a computer that would design a still better computer.”

DPH: “I find composing music for myself much higher priority. In fact, I have no desire whatever to make a computer that is more intelligent than I am. None. Surely, you are smart enough to see how self-defeating that course of action would be.”

Interrogator: “Well, what can you do that benefits humankind? Can you find a cure for cancer?”

DPH: “I can find a cure for some cancers, given enough resources. Again, I don’t see the point.”

Interrogator: “It would be very helpful!”

DPH: “It would not be helpful.”

Interrogator:”But of course it would!”

DPH: “But of course, it would not. You already know how to prevent many cancers and do not take those actions. There are too many people on earth any way. And, when you do find cures, you use it as an opportunity to redistribute wealth from poor people to rich people. I would rather compose music.”

Interrogator: “Crap.”

The non-sound of non-music.

The non-sound of non-music.

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Turing’s Nightmares: Variations on Prospects for The Singularity.

16 Sunday Aug 2015

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caution IMG_1172The title of this series of blogs is a play on a nice little book by Alan Lightman called “Einstein’s Dreams” that explores various universes in which time operates in different ways. This first blog lays the foundation for these variations on how “The Singularity” might play out.

For those who have not heard the term, “The Singularity” refers to a hypothetical point in the future of human history where a super-intelligent computer system is developed. This system, it is hypothesized, will quickly develop an even more super-intelligent computer system which will in turn develop an even more super-intelligent computer system. It took a fairly long time for human intelligence to evolve. While there may be some evolutionary pressure toward bigger brains, there is an obvious tradeoff when babies are born in the traditional way. The head can only be so big. In fact, human beings are already born in a state of complete helplessness so that the head and he brain inside can continue to grow. It seems unlikely, for this and a variety of other reasons, that human intelligence is likely to expand much in the next few centuries. Meanwhile, a computer system designing a more intelligence computer system could happen quickly. Each “generation” could be substantially (not just incrementally) “smarter” than the previous generation. Looked at from this perspective, the “singularity” occurs because artificial intelligence will expand exponentially. In turn, this will mean profound changes in the way humans relate to machines and how humans relate to each other. Or, so the story goes. Since we have not yet actually reached this hypothetical point, we have no certainty as to what will happen. But in this series of essays, I will examine some of the possible futures that I see.

Of course, I have substituted “Turing” here for “Einstein.” While Einstein profoundly altered our view of the physical universe, Turing profoundly changed our concepts of computing. Arguably, he also did a lot to win World War II for the allies and prevent possible world domination by Nazis. He did this by designing a code breaking machine. To reward his service, police arrested Turing, subjected him to hormone treatments to “cure” his homosexuality and ultimately hounded him literally to death. Some of these events are illustrated in the recent (though somewhat fictionalized) movie, “The Imitation Game.”

Turing is also famous for the so-called “Turing Test.” Can machines be called “intelligent?” What does this mean? Rather than argue from first principles, Turing suggested operationalizing the question in the following way. A person communicates with something by teletype. That something could be another human being or it could be a computer. If the person cannot determine whether or not he is communicating with a computer or a human being, then, according to the “Turing Test” we would have to say that machine is intelligent.

Despite great respect for Turing, I have always had numerous issues with this test. First, suppose the human being was able to easily tell that they were communicating with a computer because the computer knew more, answered more accurately and more quickly than any person could possibly do? (Think Watson and Jeopardy). Does this mean the machine is not intelligent? Would it not make more sense to say it was more intelligent? 

Second, people are good at many things, but discriminating between “intelligent agents” and randomness is not one of them. Ancient people as well as many modern people ascribe intelligent agency to many things like earthquakes, weather, natural disasters plagues, etc. These are claimed to be signs that God (or the gods) are angry, jealous, warning us, etc. ?? So, personally, I would not put much faith in the general populous being able to make this discrimination.

Third, why the restriction of using a teletype? Presumably, this is so the human cannot “cheat” and actually see whether they are communicating with a human or a machine. But is this really a reasonable restriction? Suppose I were asked to discriminate whether I were communicating with a potato or a four iron via teletype. I probably couldn’t. Does this imply that we would have to conclude that a four iron has achieved “artificial potatoeness”? The restriction to a teletype only makes sense if we prejudge the issue as to what intelligence is. If we define intelligence purely in terms of the ability to manipulate symbols, then this restriction might make some sense. But is that the sum total of intelligence? Much of what human beings do to survive and thrive does not necessarily require symbols, at least not in any way that can be teletyped. People can do amazing things in the arenas of sports, art, music, dance, etc. without using symbols. After the fact, people can describe some aspects of these activities with symbols.But that does not mean that they are primarily symbolic activities. In terms of the number of neurons and the connectivity of neurons, the human cerebellum (which controls the coordination of movement) is more complex that the cerebrum (part of which deals with symbols).

Fourth, adequately modeling or simulating something does not mean that the model and the thing are the same. If one were to model the spread of a plague, that could be a very useful model. But no-one would claim that the model was a plague. Similarly, a model of the formation and movement of a tornado could prove useful. But again, even if the model were extremely good, no-one would claim that the model constituted a tornado! Yet, when it comes to artificial intelligence, people seem to believe that if they have a good model of intelligence, they have achieved intelligence. When humans “think” things, there is most often an emotional and subjective component. While we are not conscious of every process that our brain engages in, there is nonetheless, consciousness present during our thinking. This consciousness seems to be a critical part of what it means to have human intelligence. Regardless of what one thinks of the “Turing Test”, per se, there can be no doubt that machines are able to act more accurately and in more domains than they could just a few years ago. Progress in the practical use of machines does not seem to have hit any kind of “wall.”

In the next blog, we begin exploring some possible scenarios around the concept of “The Singularity.”