Advantages of computer programs over humans, which some might call, “why we use computers at all”:
More design freedom, including ease of modification and duplication; the capability to debug, re-boot, backup and attempt numerous designs.
The ability to perform complex tasks without making human-type mistakes, such as mistakes caused by lack of focus, energy, attention or memory.
The ability to perform extended tasks at greater serial speeds than conscious human thought or neurons, which perform approx. 200 calculations per second. Computing chips (~2 GHz) presently have a 10 million to one speed advantage over our neurons.
The in principle capacity to function 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
The human brain cannot be duplicated or “re-booted,” and has already achieved “optimization” through design by evolution, making it difficult to further improve.
The human brain does not physically integrate well, externally or internally, with contemporary hardware and software.
The non-existence of “boredom” when performing repetitive tasks.Advantages of human brains over hypothetical AIs:
Present AIs lack human general intelligence and multiple years of real-world experience.
The computational capacity of the human brain is estimated at 2 * 10^16, or 20 million billion calculations per second, which is twenty times greater than the supercomputer Blue Gene’s predicted achievement of 10^15, or 1 million billion calculations per second, by 2005. However, the human brain may not have a computational advantage over computers for much longer. Ray Kurzweil, for example, predicts that the computational capacity of the human brain will be accomplished on supercomputers, or clustered systems, by 2010, followed on personal computers by 2020.
The human brain has already achieved a high-level of complexity and “optimization” through design by evolution, and thus has proven functionality.
Advantages of minds-in-general (AIs) over the human brain:
(The following are not advantages of specific AI approaches, but rather advantages of minds-in-general over the human brain.)
An increased ability to acquire, retrieve, store and use information on the Internet, which contains most human knowledge.
Lack of human failings that result from complex functional adaptations, such as observer-biased beliefs or rationalization.
Lack of neurobiological features that limit human control over functionality.
Lack of complexity that we have acquired from evolutionary design, e.g., unnecessary autonomic processes and sexual reproduction.
The ability to advance on the design of evolution, which is continually constrained by lack of foresight, the requirement to maintain preexisting design, and a weakness with simultaneous dependencies.
The ability to add more computational power to a particular feature or problem. This may result in moderate or substantial improvements to preexisting intelligence. (AI does not have an upper limit on computational capacity; we do.) Note that the speed of computational power is predicted to continually increase exponentially, and decrease exponentially in cost, every 12-24 months, in accordance with Moore’s Law.
The ability to analyze and modify every design level and feature.
The ability to combine autonomic and deliberative processes.
The ability to communicate and share information (abilities, concepts, memories, thoughts) at a greater rate and at a greater level of complexity than us.
The ability to control what is and what is not learned or remembered.
The ability to create new modalities that we lack, such as a modality for code, which may improve the AI’s programming ability-by making the AI inherently native to programming - far beyond our own (a modality for code may allow the AI to perceive its hardware machine code, i.e. the language used to write the AI, and other abilities).
The ability to learn new information very rapidly.
The ability to consciously create, analyze, modify, and improve abilities, concepts, or memories.
The ability to operate on computer hardware that has powerful advantages over human neurons, such as the ability to perform billions of sequential steps per second.
The capacity to self-observe and understand on a fine-grained level that is impossible for us. AIs may have an improved capacity for introspection and manipulation, such as the ability to introspect and manipulate code, which would be the functional level comparable to human neurons, which we can’t think about or manipulate.
The most important and powerful capacity of minds-in-general over the human brain is the ability to recursively self-encapsulate and self-improve its intelligence. As a mind becomes smarter, the mind can use its intelligence to improve its design, thereby improving its intelligence, which may allow further improvements to its design, thus allowing further improvements to its intelligence. It is unknown when open-ended self-improvement may begin.
Think about the differences and what they mean. The items on the above lists are not controversial - they’re either known facts or follow directly from the nature of the hardware. It’s the policy consequences that are controversial. But take the time to ignore the policy implications (if any), and by ignoring I mean not commenting on, and leaving this post just as a place to meditate about known differences between human brains, computer programs, and hypothetical AIs.
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