Adam Hibberd
I decided to attend Breakthrough Discuss this year.
But what could I bring to Breakthrough Discuss? It’s amazing how one’s delusions of grandeur are demolished wholesale when one encounters the truly BIG names in science. Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Roger Penrose, Martin Rees, etc, were all present and correct and that brought me down to Earth with a huge thud.
I guess a reality check is a big thing in a science conference of any kind, after all what can be more important to science than discovering the nature of reality?
But there is also a sanity check too and seeing two grown men arguing on stage over the latest topic in science, is always, ALWAYS an exceedingly tedious affair, especially in my experience when the issue is rather trivial. Fortunately, the organizers had left this to the end.
And can the nature of consciousness be expressed mathematically? Well, there was a whole presentation about mathematical consciousness. I’m afraid I found this particular talk hard to stomach. You see, to my knowledge there is no generally accepted scientific definition of what consciousness is exactly, and in my view this thing is so hard to pin down that it might be a red herring anyway.
On the contrary, there are loads of definitions of intelligence, all generally accepted, and this seems a much clearer line of enquiry to pursue than the arcane expression of consciousness. What’s more, the conclusion that any current AI software tool does not meet the requirement of consciousness seems to be a rather dubious claim. My opinion is like Turing’s test – in other words, if it waddles, swims and quacks like a duck then it is genuinely a duck, and this will be achieved in the very near future.
There was a lot of discussion about life in this Breakthrough Discuss and principally how it was created (biogenesis), how it can be identified (biosignatures) and what forms it might take (xenobiology). However, although interesting, there was no discussion of the PURPOSE of life (teleology).
That might sound a rather strange subject for a scientist to contemplate (and many of you might think it should be left to theologists), however I have found there is much to be gleaned by addressing the notion of life in this way.
So first ask yourself what is the ultimate goal of life? Does that concept have any meaning really? Stephen Jay Gould, among others, has warned of the dangers of conceiving life as a ladder of ascent, the notion that evolution creates things which are ‘better’ is a common misconception, and should be entirely rejected. It is all to do with adaptation into the current environment (whatever form that may take), which may change very rapidly with time, for example when a meteor strikes.
Yet on the other hand, if one looks at the human brain it is generally acknowledged as the most complex thing we know of in the Universe. Furthermore, what humanity is doing is creating even more sophisticated intellects than our own. True, Roger Penrose (who also talked at the conference) would claim these artificial things are not the same as us, yet as I have mentioned the nature of this irreconcilable difference he proposes, consciousness, may well be undefinable anyway.
So, what if the teleology of life is to produce super-intelligence? Why would it want to do that? And why would such a thing want to exist? In my view the answer to the first question is very much tied in with the second.
It seems to me that the reason intelligence exists is to know more about the Universe, since by knowing it can understand any dangers which may hurt it – and so avoid or counter them or, alternatively take advantage from any benefits. True – curiosity might kill the cat but nonetheless generally having this asset has greatly improved our lot. Whether it be agriculture, habitation, power generation, medical research, etc all this curiosity has been wonderful for humanity.
But what is the goal of all this acquisition of new knowledge? Is it the Fundamental Laws of Nature themselves? And would that be the reason why Artificial Intelligence would continue to exist and enquire?
I think I shall leave these questions unanswered for the moment as I feel I might have outstayed my welcome in a magazine quarterly to do with interstellar travel. However, this is what attending a conference, moreover, attending a science conference on the nature of life can do to you.