Intelligence, Knowledge, Data, Information, AGI, Superintelligence And Responsible AI

As human beings, we need information in one form or another for our survival. Imagine a human baby, it doesn’t know about the consequences of getting into the fire until it goes near it. The moment the baby receives the information that the fire can burn him that’s the moment he realizes that he should be away from the fire and the baby keeps this information in his memory forever. This is actually how we learn or most of the time our caretakers teach us based on their experiences or learnings received from their ancestors but just know that this is not the only way we learn.

As we grow up we come across different types of information and we are shaped by the kind of information we consume from books, movies, newspapers, ideologies, teachings, learnings, social media, people around us, and our experiences. The kind of person we become is the result of the kind of information we consume that’s why successful people tell you to choose your friends carefully. Information is vital for not only human beings but other natural species as well for their survival. It is very important because it is the foundation of our society, years of advancements, and most importantly our survival. In one way or another what we are trying to achieve or develop, I mean “AI” is in some sense a reflection of our own nature or structure. What makes us different from other species is our ability to use complex information to make rational decisions, create knowledge and choose what is good and bad for us, and the capability of subjective experiences, and I believe somewhere lies the definition of intelligence.

Although, it’s not like other species are not capable of using the information. However, they are not capable of solving the level of complex problems or able to produce complex knowledge as human beings. The level of intelligence varies in different species but some are not intelligent at all as some species only have hardcoded information in their DNA for them to survive and they can’t collect/update new information like human beings. The building block of information is the data (the sound, smell, numbers, text, touch, feel, etc) and information with the help of the level of intelligence creates the level of knowledge. This is the reason why data and information are important even for machines to solve complex problems. You can say just like atoms (or quarks) are the building block of the physical body data is the building block of knowledge. Everything has a foundational basis and sometimes we are not aware of how far we can go both above and below the level or on both sides. Presently, we don’t have machines capable of doing things like human beings because we are far more complex and hardly understand a lot of things about ourselves like our consciousness, etc.

We are creative, capable of producing new knowledge, capable of making rational decisions, capable of observing and making decisions based on the preferences of others, capable of making babies, capable of empathy and love, and a lot of other things. What you see today as “AIs” are some examples of the primitive form of the technology that we are trying to build and they are limited to our screens only but this doesn’t mean they haven’t created significant differences in our lives or society already. They don’t have the intelligence yet, the kind of intelligence we want. The fact that we are capable of building such systems is one way of comparing how intelligent we are as compared to such basic ‘AIs’ so if you are wondering whether you will be replaced by these basic ‘AIs’ you need to re-consider what you are capable of as a human being.

All you need to do is keep updating your knowledge and skills with time and pushing your limits to achieve the finest of your capabilities but this also doesn’t mean we will always be better than AIs. Machines do have one advantage over humans and it is their hardware. They are capable of processing information and calculations faster. Their capabilities can be improved further by improving their physical body or hardware. Human beings are limited by evolution and we can’t improve our physical systems by adding more memory or processing power other than a few changes like adding new teeth, mechanical legs, etc.

Intelligent machines in the future will be capable of updating their hardware because they are not limited by evolution and thus they can be far more intelligent and capable than human beings we call them super intelligent but it’s a matter of time whether it is actually possible to create intelligent machines capable of subjective experience like human beings. However, if we can create human-level intelligent machines called Artificial General Intelligence then the chances are higher for superintelligence as well.

Basic AIs In Our Lives

Now let’s see how basic ‘AIs” have affected our lives and why we should be prepared for the future. AIs today are mostly used in face recognition, fraud transaction detection, email spam detection, personal assistants, search engines, social media post recommendations, etc.

Most of the use cases have helped us a lot and made our lives easier but if we consider the social media recommender systems they have affected our lives and society more than any other use case of basic AIs. Social media thrives on the user being active and interacting on their platforms most of the time. The recommender systems are designed to increase the interaction rate and to keep users active for as long as possible. They suggest or recommend to you the content that you are most likely to interact with or you can say that they are capable of shaping or changing your behaviour by feeding you certain kinds of information or even your real-world habits, views, and performance, etc.

There are various ways in which social media has affected human lives mostly in a negative manner. It’s good at creating polarization, creating political and social turmoil, individual insecurities, and playing with your real emotions thus changing your reality. You must have observed this in your day-to-day life and you know how bad it is. This brings us to the conclusion of why we need to consider the importance of responsible AI for the future of humanity as we can already see the capability of a small basic AI system like social media recommender systems.

There is no doubt future AIs can solve various problems in our society, improve our lives and economy drastically, and maybe solve poverty as well but this does not mean that this technology can not have any repercussions on human society especially when it is intelligent. It’s important to be responsible and figure out the consequences and solutions by coming together and with a collective approach. If AIs in the future get out of our control or turn out to be a nightmare then I believe that the only thing that we can blame is the greed of a few human beings and chances are higher because everyone is trying to get ahead than others in the competition of building AIs rather than coming together to understand the importance of responsible AIs.