THE FUSE IS LIT FOR A POTENTIAL AI EXPLOSION

On the short list of potential existential threats to humanity is an explosive increase in the power of artificial intelligence (AI). 

The people warning us about this argue that the first AI to reach a superhuman level of general intelligence--often referred to as artifical general intelligence or AGI--could rapidly create an even smarter AI, which in turn could create a still smarter AI, etc. This exponential, chain-reaction increase in machine intelligence could quickly leave humanity in the dust, with unpredictable but quite possibly devastating consequences. 

Image credit: TOPBOTS

Skeptics  say that super-smart AGI still lies far in the future, if it will ever be achieved. They also assert that human-positive values could be built into any such system, or that just as we're able to tell current computers and AI systems what to do, we will be able to set goals for and control any artificial general intelligence.

We can reserve a discussion of those issues for a different post.** Today's note is stimulated by the achievement of one of the steps often cited as a lynchpin of a potential artificial intelligence explosion--an AI system designing even smarter "offspring."

James Vincent, writing in The Verge, reports that Google is now using AI to create the "floor plans" for next-generation tensor processing units, or TPUs, chips that Google builds to, among other things, power its most powerful AI systems. 

Reportedly, a new and more potent TPU architecture that would have taken a team of human designers months of intense work to design can now be generated in as many hours by an AI trained to view chip creation as a kind of game. 

Vincent optimistically writes, "The virtuous cycle of AI designing chips for AI looks like it's only just getting started. 

A pessimist might point out that what we've just seen is a speed-up of an important part of AI progress--by an AI--by a factor of more than 700. That's precisely why those pesky AI worry-warts foresee us ever-so-slow humans sooner or later being left wondering what just happened.

REA

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** You can view some related posts via these links:

zerospinzone: Advanced Artificial Intelligence--Friend or Foe

Article: Google's AlphaZero is now scary smart | OpEdNews

Article: Self-aware artificial intelligence? Coming soon to a robot near you | OpEdNews

zerospinzone: FORGET MOORE'S LAW -- NEVEN'S LAW RULES NOW

FORGET MOORE'S LAW -- NEVEN'S LAW RULES NOW

Moore's law has had a pretty impressive run. For more than 40 years, Gordon Moore's prediction that the density of components in integrated circuits would double roughly every two years has held true. The result is that the microchips that run our digital world are 2-to-the-20th power, or several million times more powerful than anything that was available back then.

(In the late '60s, I wrote programs for the CDC 6600, then the most powerful supercomputer in the world. It churned out 3 million operations per second. The processor in a current iPhone performs more than 3 billion operations per second, and today's fastest supercomputer 122 quadrillion.)

By way of putting this exponential growth of computing power into perspective, imagine if you were a million times richer or a million times smarter than you were a few decades ago, and could expect to keep doubling your wealth or your smarts every two years. Not too shabby.

IBM Q Quantum Computer*

Credit: Lars Plougmann

But that's all so yesterday. Now, as the era of quantum computing surges into view, there's a new sheriff in town--Hartmut Neven--bringing us Neven's law.

Earlier this year, Neven, an economist, physicist and current head of Google's Quantum Artificial Intelligence lab, made the stunning observation that the power of quantum computers is growing not at an exponential rate, but at a doubly exponential rate. Rather than, for example, doubling ever two years, their power is doubling at a rate that itself doubles every two years.

That may not sound like a big difference. But to get a sense of what it means, check out the following table:

Step (n)       Exponential Growth               Doubly Exponential Growth
                    (2 to the n'th power)               (2 to the 2 to the n'th power)

    1                             2                                                         4
    2                             4                                                       16
    3                             8                                                     256
    4                           16                                                65,536
    5                           32                                    4,294,967,296
    6                           64                                       1.8  x 10^19 = 1,800,000,000,000,000,000

If Neven is right, the amount of progress that classical computing made over the last 40 years will be compressed into the next six years of quantum computing development. Or, as he describes it, "It looks like nothing is happening, nothing is happening, and then whoops, suddenly you're in a different world."

The tipping point that will notify us that we're in that different world will be quantum supremacy--the point at which a quantum computer can out-perform the most powerful classical computer. Since quantum computers are still in their infancy, you might think that will take a long time. Not so. Based on the explosive rate of progress in his lab and those of his competiors, Nevens thinks that will happen this year.**And, if progress in quantum computing does follow a doubly exponential curve as Nevens predicts, quantum computers will not just gradually outstrip classical computers; they will almost immediately leave them in the dust.

And it may not only be classical computers that are left wondering what just happened. As those of you who have been following developments in artificial intelligence (AI) know, some very smart people have been warning us about the risks of runaway AI--the emergence of a superhuman artificial intelligence (AGI) that could quickly build an even more intelligent system that could build a still more intelligent system etc. The result could be the emergence of an immensely powerful machine-or internet-based intelligence that might well not have our interests at heart.

Those dire warnings didn't take into account quantum AI which, as you recall, is the raisin d'etre of Neven's lab. If the exponential growth of AI based in classical computers presents us with a looming existential threat, what about the doubly exponential growth of quantum AI?

Remember that sequence: 4, 16, 256, 65536, 4294967296 . . .

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*To help keep track of the pace of progress in quantum computing, here's a milestone as of September, 2019, IBM's soon-to-be-available 53-qubit quantum computer:
https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/18/ibm-will-soon-launch-a-53-qubit-quantum-computer/ 

**And just to emphasize the rate of change Neven predicted, in mid-September, 2019, well before the end of the year, his lab has published a paper demonstrating quantum supremacy. A 54-qubit quantum computer in their lab took just 200 seconds to solve a problem that would take a supercomputer 10,000 years to do. You can read about it here.

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Robert Adler

SELF AWARE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE? COMING SOON TO A ROBOT NEAR YOU

"Open the pod bay doors, HAL."
"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

This classic exchange from Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, epitomizes the risks of a self-aware artificial intelligence.

 Looking through the eye of HAL 9000

a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey

Credit: Wikimedia

 People who tell us not to worry about the existential threat of super-smart artificial intelligence or Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) often argue that however brilliant AI agents--such as deep learning programs or autonomous robots--become at specific tasks, they'll inevitably lack the general, all-purpose kind of intelligence  humans have. Without that high-level understanding of oneself, the world, and one's place in it, those soothing voices say, AI is and will remain a safe and helpful technology; just another tool like a laptop or a smartphone.

I'd like to believe in the lovely AI-enhanced future AI enthusiasts envision, but I keep coming across flaws in their shiny picture. One, that just came to my attention today, is that robots are becoming self aware. That brings them one step closer to becoming truly autonomous agents, not just eager-to-please tools with a Swiss-Army-knife-full of potentially superhuman skills, but entities with minds and goals of their own, like HAL.

 Robot arm with developing self image overlay

Credit: Robert Kwiatkowski/Columbia Engineering

The latest research along this line comes from Hod Lipson, director of the Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University and graduate student Robert Kwiatkowski. They built an articulated robot arm with four degrees of freedom, allowing it to rotate, bend and grasp in a huge number of different ways. The arm was controlled by a deep-learning computer network. Deep learning networks mimic the human brain in being able to learn from experience, and are the basis of many of today's most powerful AI applications, such as Google's AlphaZero, which in the course of just one day of "play" became the world champion in chess, Shogi and Go.

Initially the arm's deep learning network--in effect its brain--had no idea of the size, shape or structure of the arm, nor of the ways it could move. However, much like a baby babbling as it learns to speak, the system made thousands of random motions from which it gradually created an accurate internal model of itself. What looks like a distorted shadow in the picture above is an overlay of the arm's model of itself early in its learning process. After 35 hours of practice, the system developed a very accurate self model. In the picture below, you can see how closely the shadowy overlay tracks the actual arm.

Robot arm with nearly perfect self image

Credit Kwiatkowski et al.

 You can watch a video of the robot "babbling" in order to create its self image at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHisJi3ZBeo.

Once the robot arm's brain had an accurate self image, it could very quickly learn how to perform any number of specific tasks. In the video above, you can watch the arm pick up balls and place them in a container, and also print words.

And, much like a person learning to perform a familiar task under unusual circumstances, for example eating with one arm in a cast, the robot rapidly modified its self image when the experimenters substituted a longer, bent piece for one segment of the arm.

Until now, the authors explain, human programmers had to spell out a robot's size, shape, and potential movements in order for it to function. “But if we want robots to become independent, to adapt quickly to scenarios unforeseen by their creators," says Lipson, "then it’s essential that they learn to simulate themselves."

The researchers also suspect that having a self image able to plan and execute a multiplicity of tasks may represent a crucial step in human development. "We believe that this separation of self and task may also have been the origin of self awareness in humans," they write.

It may seem like a long way from a robot arm generating an accurate self image to a high-functioning, seemingly self aware AI like HAL. However, the pace of development in AI is dazzlingly fast and only getting faster. It may not take many iterations before Siri or your Google Assistant isn't just a chatty interface with an amazing collection of knowledge and skills, but a self aware entity, potentially with a mind of its own.

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You can read the paper by Lipson and Kwiatkowsky  here.

For a more in-depth assessment of the risks of AI, here's a recent report.

And for an earlier zerospinzone commentary on the subject, click here.

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