Babel and Beyond: Can humanity unite? by Mark Avrum Gubrud

Mark,

I am truly sorry if I have misrepresented your views. This was unintentional. I suppose it just goes to show that there is always some sort of information mismatch between what one person says, and what another person apprehends. It's not easy.

However, I don't have a clear picture of exactly how I've misrepresented your views. How would you define a machine?

Cheers,

Lorraine

But Mark,

to me, this definition/understanding of what is really going on in the 2 categories (living reality and machines), underneath the surface appearance and behaviour of things, is the essence of the question of whether machines are about to become conscious (and take over the world according to some people).

I hope you don't mind if I bow out of this discussion.

Best wishes,

Lorraine

Dear Dr. Gubrud,

Your essay was superbly written and I do hope that it does well in the competition. I do have one minor quibble about it that I hope you will not mind me mentioning.

Reality is unique, once. Language is not unique.

The IBM Watson machine that won the most amount in one session of Jeopardy ought to have alternated between being programmed to ask the questions besides only being programmed to providing the answers.

Regards,

Joe Fisher

Not at all, it only means the rating system itself is worth precisely "4.2". Seriously, it's flawed. But I expect your score to improve, as I think many people (like myself) hold off voting till near the end. If it doesn't improve (and dramatically), then I hope someone will explain why it deserves such a middling score, because I can't. - Mike

Dear Mark,

You warmed us on the AI weapon system early on. The SAI system that is also control our war machine is putting the fate of humanity in the hands of unknown species that we would create. I agree that if we must debate this SAI extensively. No doubt SAI is both good and bad. However the self-aware and self autonomous being that control the weapon of mass destruction should be banned. If we are not careful, this SAI would take control eventually if we are careless. I am not against Self-aware AI, but we should not give it the logic to kill humans whatever good cause it might be. As you wrote : "The time to stop is now, when nations are beginning to contemplate the use of autonomous weapon systems and are debating whether to ban or restrict them (Gubrud 2014). Human control, responsibility, dignity and sovereignty are clear principles, and autonomous machine decision in the use of violent force is a clear red line. All humanity can recognize, and all nations can agree to respect these principles." I endorse this view. I rate your essay a ten(10).

Good Luck!

Best wishes,

Leo KoGuan

Marc,

Watson was one of the three contestants that only answered the questions. Watson had billions of pieces of information packed into its electronic memory banks, any one of which it could retrieve almost immediately. If Watson had had to ask the questions, it would have been a different matter. Watson would have only been able to ask a question that had already been asked on the show. Watson would have been unable to ask trick questions. Jennings and the other guy would have stood a better chance of answering the straight forward questions Watson was forced to ask.

Joe

Dear Leo KoGuan,

Thank you so much for your kind comments. I understand that you are a very successful businessman, and your own essay shows that you are a very broad and humane thinker.

I am very encouraged by your expression of support for the goal of banning machine control of the instruments of conflict and violence. There is a lot of resistance to thinking about this in the context of self-aware and willful artificial intelligence, which people scorn as "science fiction" even though it is increasingly well grounded in science fact.

Instead, most of the opposition to killer robots is framed in terms of their stupidity and consequent inability to fulfill the requirements of international law. This is certainly valid for the time being, but as time progresses people are less inclined to be certain that it will always be true. Hence there is an urgent need to address the issue also from the perspective that you express.

I like to say: Stupid robots are dangerous, and smart ones even more dangerous. Probably the most dangerous of all are the ones that are right in between stupid and smart.

A lot of people worry about what a superintelligent machine might do. I like to say, if you are worried about that, let's not start by arming them!

Thank you so much for the high rating. Since you may be able to help with the effort to stop killer robots, I hope that we will be in touch.

best reasonable wishes,

Mark

Mark,

Thank you for a very interesting essay.

I think you raise a lot of important points:

1. That if humanity is made of many communities with conflicting interests, it becomes very difficult to identify global future goals that humanity should steer towards.

2. That a lot of the evil in the world could arise through the pursuit of good, instead of purposeful evil action.

3. That, in any debate, reaching certainty and "closure" is a sign that you have become a "partisan", which is counterproductive.

4. That, for a debate to be fruitful, the receiver of the message must do some work, must take the time to receive the information and to understand it... which is, unfortunately, not often the case.

5. That ordinary citizens sometimes argue passionately about scientific issues (GMOs, energy policy), but that they often preselect the sources of their information through their personal motives and prejudices (even when they are not aware of the fact).

To address, among other things, the "problems" no. 4 and 5, I proposed in my essay that we try to identify collectively the most important basic knowledge that is useful to have a debate about the future, and that we refocus education (formal and lifelong) to ensure that the greatest number of citizens are made to participate in a worldwide "conversation" about the future: I call this endeavour the "Futurocentric Education Initiative".

The Futurocentric Education Initiative is a possible way to address the "Babel Problem": we could call it an "Augmented Intelligence" approach, which could complement the "Artificial Intelligence" approach that you tentatively suggest. While we wait for truly general artificial intelligence to appear (some people believe it is imminent, some think that it can never happen), maybe we can pool our human natural intelligence resources, augmented and coordinated through the Internet, to steer education, in order to eventually steer the future!

Your essay is one of the most on-topic that I have read, and I hope that it does well in the competition. Several essays in this contest emphasize that better communication and education is essential if we want humanity to successfully steer the future, and I hope your essay makes it to the finals so this point of view can be represented. (I have nothing against the unification of quantum mechanics and general relativity, but I think that this year's question deserves other approaches than just "let's unify QM and GR so we can save the world"!)

Marc

Dear Mark,

Your Babel and Beyond article is fantastic and held my interest through out. I wish you an astounding reward in this competition.

I am particular happy for a new concept which allow fresh ideas. I will also employ you to read my article STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND ECOSYSTEM For easy access considering the enormous entries it is here. http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2020

Your comments and rating will be appreciated.

However before I leave your wall, I wish to draw your attention to your end note where you make a reference to yourself as being an atheist. Are you not contradicting yourself because your great idea of babel was taken from the Bible as you rightly quoted? Expecting your reply here and on my article.

Regards

Gbenga

Dear Mark,

An excellent thesis, persuasively argued. Only at the conclusion...hopeful. And I think of itself inadequate. Consider already the problem of net neutrality.

Humanity has a common interest to preserve its habitat, this earth. Its survival, and comfort. Yet each person has a divisive reason to exploit it as much as he can. His own survival, and comfort. As you said, it is interest which divides.

I think this can be overcome only by leading by example, by living humbly and taking action against the degradation of the earth. Deeds speak louder than words, and deeds might have the power to overcome Babel. I believe it is only through the communication of and enabling of deeds that information technology may serve as you hope.

Living humbly yet in the comfort to which we have become accustomed may require a reorganization of our society into more efficient economic units.

Good luck in the competition.

Charles

Hi Mark,

I really enjoyed your essay from beginning to end. I think it is very intelligent and well crafted. I like the way you have taken the simple observation that people often fail to understand each other and built it into a consideration of the vast array of problems facing mankind, and disagreements about them, including AI and automated weapons systems. If I have a criticism it is that when you talk about Russia and the Ukraine you are giving a particular perspective which of course others will disagree with, the occupying Russians and the ethnic Russians who want Crimea to be a part of Russia again. I also wonder whether the peaceful occupation of Crimea has prevented a larger civil war in the region that would have left many dead. I suppose it highlights how easy it is to disagree about something even when one is trying to be open minded and tolerant.

Good luck, Georgina