scholarly journals How organisms come to know the world: fundamental limits on artificial general intelligence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Roli ◽  
Johannes Jaeger ◽  
Stuart Kauffman

Artificial intelligence has made tremendous advances since its inception about seventy years ago. Self-driving cars, programs beating experts at complex games, and smart robots capable of assisting people that need care are just some among the successful examples of machine intelligence. This kind of progress might entice us to envision a society populated by autonomous robots capable of performing the same tasks humans do in the near future. This prospect seems limited only by the power and complexity of current computational devices, which is improving fast. However, there are several significant obstacles on this path. General intelligence involves situational reasoning, taking perspectives, choosing goals, and an ability to deal with ambiguous information. We observe that all of these characteristics are connected to the ability of identifying and exploiting new affordances—opportunities (or impediments) on the path of an agent to achieve its goals. A general example of an affordance is the use of an object in the hands of an agent. We show that it is impossible to predefine a list of such uses. Therefore, they cannot be treated algorithmically. This means that “AI agents” and organisms differ in their ability to leverage new affordances. Only organisms can do this. This implies that true AGI is not achievable in the current algorithmic frame of AI research. It also has important consequences for the theory of evolution. We argue that organismic agency is strictly required for truly open-ended evolution through radical emergence. We discuss the diverse ramifications of this argument, not only in AI research and evolution, but also for the philosophy of science.

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 65-76
Author(s):  
Manuel Alfonseca ◽  
Manuel Cebrian ◽  
Antonio Fernandez Anta ◽  
Lorenzo Coviello ◽  
Andrés Abeliuk ◽  
...  

Superintelligence is a hypothetical agent that possesses intelligence far surpassing that of the brightest and most gifted human minds. In light of recent advances in machine intelligence, a number of scientists, philosophers and technologists have revived the discussion about the potentially catastrophic risks entailed by such an entity. In this article, we trace the origins and development of the neo-fear of superintelligence, and some of the major proposals for its containment. We argue that total containment is, in principle, impossible, due to fundamental limits inherent to computing itself. Assuming that a superintelligence will contain a program that includes all the programs that can be executed by a universal Turing machine on input potentially as complex as the state of the world, strict containment requires simulations of such a program, something theoretically (and practically) impossible. This article is part of the special track on AI and Society.


Author(s):  
João Guerreiro

Although Artificial Intelligence (AI) is based on research from the 20th century, computation and new algorithms have only recently allowed AI to gain momentum and practical applications in society. Examples of such uses include self-driving cars and autonomous robots that are changing society and how we interact. Despite these advances, the discussion about the social transformations and ethical implications of this new reality remains scarce. This chapter reviews the current stance of ethical and social transformation discussions on AI and presents a framework for future developments. The main contributions of the chapter allow researchers to understand the major gaps in research that may be explored further in this topic and allow practitioners to gain a better picture of how AI may change society in the near future and how society should prepare for those changes.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Rana Sağıroğlu

Margaret Atwood, one of the most spectacular authors of postmodern movement, achieved to unite debatable and in demand critical points of 21st century such as science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism in the novel The Year of The Flood written in 2009. The novel could be regarded as an ecocritical manifesto and a dystopic mirror against today’s degenerated world, tending to a superficial base to keep the already order in use, by moving away from the fundamental solution of all humanity: nature. Although Atwood does not want her works to be called science fiction, it is obvious that science fiction plays an introductory role and gives the novel a ground explaining all ‘why’ questions of the novel. However, Atwood is not unjust while claiming that her works are not science fiction because of the inevitable rapid change of 21st century world becoming addicted to technology, especially Internet. It is easily observed by the reader that what she fictionalises throughout the novel is quite close to possibility, and the world may witness in the near future what she creates in the novel as science fiction. Additionally, postmodernism serves to the novel as the answerer of ‘how’ questions: How the world embraces pluralities, how heterogeneous social order is needed, and how impossible to run the world by dichotomies of patriarchal social order anymore. And lastly, ecocriticism gives the answers of ‘why’ questions of the novel: Why humanity is in chaos, why humanity has organized the world according to its own needs as if there were no living creatures apart from humanity. Therefore, The Year of The Flood meets the reader as a compact embodiment of science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism not only with its theme, but also with its narrative techniques.


Author(s):  
Dr. Jianfei Yang

COVID-19 has made a bad influence on economic and society including cultural and tourism industry in China,2020.The industry has received a huge loss in the first quarter of the year and the situation is getting worse in the near future. It is believed that there will be a long impact for the country even the world. In order to recover the industry, Chinese government has published series of policies to support the enterprises and clusters to reduce the bad influence of COVID-19. This paper mainly uses filed survey and documentary research to map the real situation of the industry. It tries to find the policy demand of the industries and then analyze the policies published by government to conquer COVID-19. Meanwhile it will focus on whether the supply meet the demand and give suggestions on how to promote the policy efficiency in the post period of COVID-19 in China. Keywords: Evaluation; Cultural Industries; Policy; Park; Pandemic


Author(s):  
Mahesh K. Joshi ◽  
J.R. Klein

The world of work has been impacted by technology. Work is different than it was in the past due to digital innovation. Labor market opportunities are becoming polarized between high-end and low-end skilled jobs. Migration and its effects on employment have become a sensitive political issue. From Buffalo to Beijing public debates are raging about the future of work. Developments like artificial intelligence and machine intelligence are contributing to productivity, efficiency, safety, and convenience but are also having an impact on jobs, skills, wages, and the nature of work. The “undiscovered country” of the workplace today is the combination of the changing landscape of work itself and the availability of ill-fitting tools, platforms, and knowledge to train for the requirements, skills, and structure of this new age.


2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Padmalochan Hembram

Abstract Background Coronavirus disease 19 is a viral infection caused by a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. It was first notified in Wuhan, China, is now spread into numerous part of the world. Thus, the world needs urgent support and encouragement to develop a vaccine or antiviral treatments to combat the atrocious outbreak. Main body of the abstract The origin of this virus is yet unknown; however, rapid transmission from human-to-human “Anthroponosis” has widely confirmed. The world is witnessing a continuous hike in SARS-CoV-2 infection. In light of the outbreak of coronavirus disease 19, we have aimed to highlight the basic and vital information about the novel coronavirus. We provide an overview of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, timeline and its pathophysiological properties which would be an aid for the development of therapeutic molecules and antiviral drugs. Immune system plays a crucial role in virus infection in order to control but may have dark side when becomes uncontrollable. The host and SARS-CoV-2 interaction describe how the virus exploits host machinery and how overactive host immune response can cause disease severity also addressed in this review. Short conclusion Safe and effective vaccines may be the game-changing tools, but in the near future wearing mask, washing hands at regular intervals, avoiding crowed, maintaining physical distancing and hygienic surrounding, must be good practices to reduce and break the transmission chain. Still, research is ongoing not only on how vaccines protect against disease, but also against infection and transmission.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustav Peebles

Abstract Across the world, national currencies—public goods that emerged out of a previous era of currency proliferation—are now competing with private alternatives. As paper and coins fall into disuse, the seigniorage that helps to fund the circulation and regulation of currency diminishes, while their capacity to bind together states and citizens decreases in equal measure. The Swedish central bank’s response to these threats, which includes issuing the world’s first national digital currency, charts a course that all central banks must consider in the near future.


1994 ◽  
Vol 05 (05) ◽  
pp. 805-809 ◽  
Author(s):  
SALIM G. ANSARI ◽  
PAOLO GIOMMI ◽  
ALBERTO MICOL

On 3rd November, 1993, ESIS announced its Homepage on the World Wide Web (WWW) to the user community. Ever since then, ESIS has steadily increased its Web support to the astronomical community to include a bibliographic service, the ESIS catalogue documentation and the ESIS Data Browser. More functionality will be added in the near future. All these services share a common ESIS structure that is used by other ESIS user paradigms such as the ESIS Graphical User Interface (Giommi and Ansari, 1993), and the ESIS Command Line Interface. A forms-based paradigm, each ESIS-Web application interfaces to the hypertext transfer protocol (http) translating queries from/to the hypertext markup language (html) format understood by the NCSA Mosaic interface. In this paper, we discuss the ESIS system and show how each ESIS service works on the World Wide Web client.


1977 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Cloudsley-Thompson

The term ‘ecodisaster’ may be defined as ‘a global catastrophe of the human species’. Any ecodisasters occurring in the near future will, almost certainly, be caused, directly or indirectly, by the present overpopulation of the world, accompanied by unwise and irresponsible disregard of environmental deterioration.The suggestion is made here that Man's first and, it is to be hoped, last, ecodisaster may already have begun. Although not dramatic, it is taking the form of a steady decline in the standard of living nearly everywhere, coupled with massive pollution, and widespread malnutrition in the under-developed countries of the world. It will persist until world population eventually becomes adjusted to environmental resources.It is ironical that control of the pests and diseases which have inflicted so much misery on mankind in the past, should have helped to engender the present population explosion with all the hunger and privation that accompany it in the under-developed regions of the world.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-51
Author(s):  
Sabrina Magris

The paper addresses the importance of the role of women in Intelligence and National Security with the specific purpose to highlight the quality of female contribution in all different domains. The world is changing and in this change, Intelligence risks being left behind as never before. An epic evolution and change are underway that will upset ways of being and ways of thinking. All this not suddenly and all this without realizing it if not after the fact. The world is changing, women “are gain the upper hand” taking over also numerically and it is not realized that a change must happen in the field of Intelligence with a space left to women, not because they are women but because of their abilities. In all domains, from strategic to an operational one. Blindness to change that many Agencies are having. And those who are making changes often do so because they are obliged by the rules but not by evaluating the concrete capability of individuals. Two factors risk being explosive if no action is taken. The paper highlights the physiological and psychological contribution of the female component in the National Security and Intelligence work, and why diversity is scientifically important to successfully conduct operational and strategic tasks. It also describes the existing lack of models, how to enlarge the interest of young girls to join the Intelligence Community, and a look into the near future regarding the training and the recruitment processes with specific regards to women.


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