Xerox PARC Forum: AI and Robotics at an Inflection Point
On September 18, 2014 Steve Omohundro gave the Xerox PARC Forum on “AI and Robotics at an Inflection Point”. Here’s a PDF file of the slides.
AI and Robotics at an Inflection Point
PARC Forum
18 September 2014
5:00-6:30pm (5:00-6:00 presentation and Q&A, followed by networking until 6:30)
George E. Pake Auditorium, PARC
description
Google, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Baidu, Foxconn, and others have recently made multi-billion dollar investments in artificial intelligence and robotics. Some of these investments are aimed at increasing productivity and enhancing coordination and cooperation. Others are aimed at creating strategic gains in competitive interactions. This is creating “arms races” in high-frequency trading, cyber warfare, drone warfare, stealth technology, surveillance systems, and missile warfare. Recently, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and others have issued strong cautionary statements about the safety of intelligent technologies. We describe the potentially antisocial “rational drives” of self-preservation, resource acquisition, replication, and self-improvement that uncontrolled autonomous systems naturally exhibit. We describe the “Safe-AI Scaffolding Strategy” for developing these systems with a high confidence of safety based on the insight that even superintelligences are constrained by mathematical proof and cryptographic complexity. It appears that we are at an inflection point in the development of intelligent technologies and that the choices we make today will have a dramatic impact on the future of humanity.
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presenter(s)
Steve Omohundro has been a scientist, professor, author, software architect, and entrepreneur doing research that explores the interface between mind and matter. He has degrees in Physics and Mathematics from Stanford and a Ph.D. in Physics from U.C. Berkeley. He was a computer science professor at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and cofounded the Center for Complex Systems Research. He published the book “Geometric Perturbation Theory in Physics”, designed the programming languages StarLisp and Sather, wrote the 3D graphics system for Mathematica, and built systems which learn to read lips, control robots, and induce grammars. He is president of Possibility Research devoted to creating innovative technologies and Self-Aware Systems, a think tank working to ensure that intelligent technologies have a positive impact. His work on positive intelligent technologies was featured in James Barrat’s book “Our Final Invention” and has been generating international interest.
The Whole Universe Can’t Search 500 Bits
Seth Lloyd analyzed the computational capacity of physical systems in his 2000 Nature paper “Ultimate physical limits to computation” and in his 2006 book “Programming the Universe”. Using the very general Margolus-Levitin theorem, he showed that a 1 kilogram, 1 liter “ultimate laptop” can perform at most 10^51 operations per second and store 10^31 bits.
The entire visible universe since the big bang is capable of having performed 10^122 operations and of storing 10^92 bits. While these are large numbers, they are still quite finite. 10^122 is roughly 2^406, so the entire universe used as a massive quantum computer is still not capable of searching through all combinations of 500 bits.
This limitation is good news for our ability to design infrastructure today that will still constrain future superintelligences. Cryptographic systems that require brute force searching for a 500 bit key will remain secure even in the face of the most powerful superintelligence. In Base64, the following key:
kdlIW5Ljlspn/zV4DIlsw3Kasdjh0kdfuKR4+Q3KofOr83LfLJ8Eidie83ldhgLEe0GlsiwcdO90SknlLsDd
would stymie the entire universe doing a brute force search.
Society International Talk: The Impact of AI and Robotics
On September 6, 2014, Steve Omohundro spoke to the Society International about the impact of AI and Robotics. Here are the slides as a PDF file.
The Impact of AI and Robotics
Google, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Baidu, Foxconn, and others have recently made multi-billion dollar investments in artificial intelligence and robotics. More than $450 billion is expected to be invested into robotics by 2025. All of this investment makes sense because AI and Robotics are likely to create $50 to $100 trillion dollars of value between now and 2025! This is of the same order as the current GDP of the entire world. Much of this value will be in ideas. Currently, intangible assets represent 79% of the market value of US companies and intellectual property represents 44%. But automation of physical labor will also be significant. Foxconn, the world’s largest contract manufacturer, aims to replace 1 million of its 1.3 million employees by robots in the next few years. An Oxford study concluded that 47% of jobs will be automated in “a decade or two”. Automation is also creating arms races in high-frequency trading, cyber warfare, drone warfare, stealth technology, surveillance systems, and missile warfare. Recently, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and others have issued strong cautionary statements about the safety of intelligent technologies. We describe the potentially antisocial “rational drives” of self-preservation, resource acquisition, replication, and self-improvement that uncontrolled autonomous systems naturally exhibit. We describe the “Safe-AI Scaffolding Strategy” for developing these systems with a high confidence of safety based on the insight that even superintelligences are constrained by mathematical proof and cryptographic complexity. It appears that we are at an inflection point in the development of intelligent technologies and that the choices we make today will have a dramatic impact on the future of humanity.
Self-Aware Systems 