About 12 boys aged between 11 and 17 had gone to explore the caves in Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Chiang Rai Province of Thailand. Sudden floods trapped them in those caves for more than 17 days. The rescue effort involved over 10,000 people, including over 100 divers.
These children survived not only because of valiant efforts of these brave men but also because they were, like every other human being, a survivor. In part also because we are social beings who protect, nurture and cherish our young.
This hard-wired capacity to survive and this complex social existence is impossible to replicate. Social existence is continuously changing and this change is random.
Yet, for long science fiction has been hinting at robots subjugating human beings. Remember ‘Matrix’? A world where robots have subjugated humans to use them to generate electricity. With growth in artificial intelligence it looks like a strong probability. Phones and Social media sites are crunching numbers, using them to predict the way humans behave, choose and act. The time when such machines will start acting and behaving like humans doesn’t look that far. But will this ever happen? Luckily, No.
The reasons are simple enough;
Had it not been the primordial instinct to live and survive, none of us would have even existed. As biological creature, we have the instinct to live and thrive hard-wired in us. This survival instinct involves other basic instincts of eating, resting, procreating and fear.
Like every other living being, humans have these instincts. But humans also exist socially in a society with a complex division of labour. That men and women need to eat, feel secure and have sex, and also live socially gives rise to morality. Morality warps these simple instincts in layers and layers of norms, customs, methods. The intelligence and ability to communicate further complicates these basis instincts.
For example, entire courting, marriage methods, dating and love is built upon the basic instinct to propagate. Taboos against incest, social customs of marriage which differ from place to place, social status of women and social hierarchy like caste have made this primordial instinct infinitely more complex.
Many beliefs, which many parts of the world share regarding marriage are irrational. Intercaste marriages, dowry, insistence on women’s virginity are a few of them. Faith is usually irrational but is always integral to human societies.
But, given our social and biological existence, irrational beliefs are as much a part of being human as is rational logic. These instincts, these beliefs, these customs and norms, they provide purpose to our actions. The beliefs serve as further motivation. They lead to purpose, which makes us human.
Having established what are quirks of being human lets delve into the definition of intelligence.
David Wechsler defined intelligence as: “Intelligence is the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally and to deal effectively with his environment.”
While thinking rationally is something that may be taught, purpose, akin to humans, is almost impossible to bring in an artificial being.
To bring a sense of purpose in a robot, some aim must be hard wired into it. This aim will, by the very nature of eventual binary existence of a computer, should be a question or statement capable of being deemed true or false. What would be its purpose? What is its motivation except the motivation defined by a pre-motivated human being? Will its every action be purposeful? Social existence is impossible to Hardwire; it can only be. While continuous social evolution has made us suited to understand the subtle changes in social indicators and change our purpose accordingly, there has been no such evolution for machines. The motivation to help each-other and be with each other comes with primal survival instinct to be the fittest. Why would every single machine, with different purposes hard-wired into it, will like to cooperate and coexist? Artificial intelligence is, therefore, bound to remain artificial.
Why will a machine feel the same pain of existence which is felt by a human ? Why would it have irrational beliefs just because others in society have it? Why would its view keep on changing with years it existed and with things it has seen?
Hence, it is a very ambitious prediction I make; no machine will ever pass Turing test.
Alan Turing, one of great mathematicians of the century, created Turing test as a way to test a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Imagine a game of three players having two humans and one computer, an interrogator (as human) is isolated from other two players. The interrogator’s job is to try to figure out which one is human and which one is computer by asking questions from them both. To make the things harder computer is trying to make the interrogator guess wrongly. In other words computer would try to be as indistinguishable from human as possible. The machine which passes this test is the machine which is sentient. Now, a machine can never have same purpose and same motivations as a human.
How long will it take for an intelligent interrogator to distinguish between machine and men? It will depend on questions. In case both the humans are from a culturally different background, the computer may be able to fool the interrogator. This may also prove to be the case if the interrogator does not know the questions he should ask. However, for the same cultural background, the chances of computer fooling the interrogator are minimal.
The nuances of social communication are infinite and are in flux. The computer will find it even more difficult to imitate men if it is required to answer them in speech. Differences of tone, accent will, lack of tone, etc. create such differences between humans that it is hard to imitate.
Artificial intelligence, to be even accepted as intelligence, needs another definition of intelligence. Being human, our definitions are always anthropocentric. We know no other definition. We have seen no other intelligence, we cannot imagine any other intelligence. We have merely named one of our qualities. as intelligence. Now we want that for a machine to be qualified as intelligent, it should be able to imitate us! This is biased. This is ridiculous. Given our definition of intelligence, no machine could ever imitate us. Imagine us asking, say Dolphins, to behave like us before we can call them intelligent. For Dolphins, it is easier to imitate us than robots. Dolphins need to eat, procreate and survive like us. Robots and machines don’t need either of it.
What if the ability to change purpose is hard-wired in a machine? Even then, the probability that it will have these exact purposes as humans is negligible. To have same purposes as men, a machine will have to have same inputs, same fallacies, same limitations and same senses as men. It must need to desire, and to desire it must need to feel. This may be workable, but never viable.
So if we go by Turing test, it is not possible that any machine would ever qualify.
But what if we change the definition? Imagine a world where machines have made survival their purpose and have started to perceive humans as a threat. Their purpose is to exist. But will they evolve? Men make tools to make their life easier and less painful. In course of making new tools new needs come up which require newer tools. This goes on and on. To do so, machines will need to feel pain and labour. They should desire conservation of energy and desire to spend least efforts. This is even less likely. And the chances that the machines will cooperate with each other is negligible. There is no reason for them to, unless this consciousness of survival dawns upon them at once.
What if there is one Super Computer which controls everything and it goes conscious and intelligent? This computer starts controlling other robots to kill men. Eventually, it establishes its hegemony over all races. Even that is unlikely. There is no reason for one supercomputer to control everything. Men don’t need such tools. It increases chances of error and failure. There is always some sensitive data which needs to be kept aloof from other computers. Not everyone will want their entire data online and control of their machines in the hand of some ‘super computer’. Why will all countries give in to accept such super duper computer? Men are naturally suspicious. Suspicion is another manifestation of survival instincts. Mistrust of strangers and trust of companions is built in our psyche. This super computer will not be trusted by all to be in a position to dominate every one. Thirdly, even for such intelligent supercomputer, to take charge of all things and to take charge so quickly that men have no chance to retaliate is negligible. And most importantly, since this super computer is all alone, its intelligence will not be like human intelligence
Again, It is far easier to imitate many things which men do without accepting the basic design on which men work. For a robot to walk, it doesn’t need two legs, it can always use wheels.
So artificial intelligence cannot be like human intelligence.
mohitmishr 