Digital Minds by Jorge

Digital Minds by Jorge - June 2014 Scholarship Essay

Flipping through the pages of an aging copy of science fiction writer David Brin’s "Earth," I cannot help but feel a deep appreciation for the modest-looking paperback. It is, in many ways, a manuscript that charts the advances of technology to take place in the 50 years after its publication in 1990. A large majority of the novel’s predictions have held steadfast—widespread internet use, vanishing privacy, and glasses with heads-up-displays are now part of contemporary society. Examining the works of earlier writers, this pattern of prediction and realization seems to hold true, with the exception of one long-sought goal—the creation of strong Artificial Intelligence.

Strong AI, in its simplest interpretation, is a computer which is conscious. Creating one such computer would tell us a great deal about the brain—about what it is to be conscious, to have mental states, or what it means to be able to reason and think as human beings. It will perhaps be the greatest technological feat we have ever accomplished, and it promises to revolutionize computation, science, and provide the next step in our evolutionary process. Because of this, I believe that artificial intelligence holds some of the most fertile ground for writing and scientific research in our age.

Though research has been ongoing since 1956, achieving strong AI is still a lofty goal. There is much we don’t currently understand, both about the mind and intelligence itself. These questions extend from psychology and neuroscience to philosophy, physics and computer science. Indeed, creating intelligent, thinking machines requires a collective effort from a wide swath of fields, and I’d argue that they pose some of the most intriguing problems of today, largely in part to their interdisciplinary nature.

The issue of intelligence, for example, though situated rather firmly within the field of psychology and philosophy, is important in understanding what artificial intelligence is, and whether it is feasible. How do we define intelligence? Can a machine that is capable of beating multiple world chess champions be called intelligent? What of one that is able to recognize human emotional expressions better than a human being? Is a calculator intelligent? It seems that the problem of intelligence is chiefly a problem of definition, for what constitutes as a program that exhibits intelligence is largely disputed.

Often, while reading Isaac Asimov’s short stories, I’m struck by the kind of intelligence his androids and robots display. Much like ourselves, his machines are aware of their actions, and are able to react to unforeseen changes in their environment. This conception of strong AI, formalized by the great writers of science fiction—Asimov, Pohl, Clarke—describes robots whose sentience is incredibly similar to ours. If we suppose that such a thing is possible, we come across a rather intriguing problem.

A consciousness seated in silicon, rather than living neurons is likely to follow deterministic laws—it is, after all, still a machine. Would it be too far of a stretch, therefore, to consider our own brains as acting under the same kinds of deterministic laws? Are they merely biological computers, acting under a set of algorithms that govern our decision-making processes, thoughts and feelings? The implications of creating strong AI are tremendous, and range from answering questions about free will to the nature of consciousness. I hope to enter scientific research, and examine these questions myself.

It seems like studying artificial intelligence raises more questions than answers; yet haven’t our greatest stories been posed around the greatest questions? Science fiction will continue to be one of the greatest vehicles for scientific exploration and prediction, and I hope to take part in it—hope to make my own contribution, and Artificial Intelligence is fertile ground from which to draw inspiration.