Rise of the humans: intelligence amplification will make us as smart as the machines

SOURCE: The Conversation

Snippet:

From AI to IA
Around the same time that AI was first defined, there was another concept that emerged: intelligence amplification (IA), which was also variously known as cognitive augmentation or machine augmented intelligence. In contrast to AI, which is a standalone system capable of processing information as well as or better than a human, IA is actually designed to complement and amplify human intelligence. IA has one big edge over AI: it builds on human intelligence that has evolved over millions of years, while AI attempts to build intelligence from scratch.

This is an area of technology I like to try and keep up with. It is an area of R&D many are simply not familiar with. I remember some research we did in the early 90's with nootropics, machine induced cognition enhancements, and mental training exercises but nothing like the technology discussed in this article. It makes for an interesting read in my opinion.

a reply to: machineintelligence

The thought of humans all reaching hi iq scores makes me wonder if we will survive our knowledge.

S+F

I don't think IA's gonna happen. Augmenting hundreds of billions of CONSTANTLY adapting neurons in a specifically programmed way? With what, nanobots? HA, better find a way to make S.I. EXTREMELY efficient on microscopic scales, WHICH IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Get into some good scifi books, some of them delve in to this in a big way!

Imagine a chip planted into the brain, providing the internet just by thinking, and having it overlayed on your vision. Or how about downloading into the chip the skill needed to fly a plane, or be a brain surgeon!
Stand close to another person and download there experiences, think about that one!!!

a reply to: machineintelligence

We can try to rival ourselves all we want, we are the best technology around.

We made AI a reality without us, it would be nothing.

originally posted by: Blissful
I don't think IA's gonna happen. Augmenting hundreds of billions of CONSTANTLY adapting neurons in a specifically programmed way? With what, nanobots? HA, better find a way to make S.I. EXTREMELY efficient on microscopic scales, WHICH IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Although you could augment cognition via creating pristine neurological wavelengths conducive to neurogenesis via electrodes, or rather this device I'm not sure of the name of, but they fire wavelengths into your brain. Neurogenesis having to be supplemented with neuro-region-type-specific braintraining.

a reply to: machineintelligence

I don't need more intelligence. There are 2 things that keep me from being as smart as the machines:

- the laziness inherent in biological systems.
- the number of processes I can perform simultaneously. I think far more powerfully than a machine, just exponentially slower.

Fix the bottom problem, the top problem likely fixes itself. And at that point, I (or just about any other human) would be like a God to the machines ant. Because as a human I have insight and free will.

now we can be as smart as the machines we design, program, and create. brilliant.
i cant wait to be a smarter engineer !

Regarding augmented intelligence, there are those like Ray Kurzweil (futurist and current chief engineer at Google) and the Transhumanists who share a very positive outlook on the development of these technologies. The idea being that humanity, or an offshoot, will rapidly advance alongside our machine brothers and sisters. Many will ultimately become a hybrid species, possessing not only physical superiority over unenhanced humans, but also extended life and an augmented intelligence equal to the machines we’ve created. Assuming this to be the course we take, it’s a nobrainer that from here on humanity, as we know it, is facing extinction. In this scenario the machines will not have to destroy us; we will do that ourselves, as we join the machines in their world.

I can’t knock anyone’s desire to improve their condition. I’d sure like to. However, although it seems inevitable now, it’s still too soon to rule out that it may just be a pipedream. There are too many questions left to be answered - simply too many unknowns.

For instance, if machine intelligence advances in the manner some have predicted, it may be futile to expect to keep up with it by going hybrid, with augmented intelligence, etc. Having instant access via brain implants to all the information on the internet wouldn’t necessarily make us smarter, more logical, or better problem solvers than we are now. At least not significantly smarter. After all, we have that very same access now, albeit via a keyboard. A superintelligent machine will likely be capable of continually reprogramming itself, fine tuning it’s logical/analytical processing capabilities on the fly. We hybrids would need to find a similar mechanism for upgrading our bio-circuitry if we’re to keep up. Natural evolution just wouldn’t hack it - it’s far too slow. And so, unless we literally become one with the machines, we’re not even in the race. And if we lose the race, then we humans/hybrids would probably become a subservient species, looked upon by our own creation in the same as we view the apes today.

Don’t get me wrong, I find it all really fascinating. I just think it’s too soon to make definate plans. There are so many directions this could go in - some good, and some terrifying.

Good post - something we all need to think about...

PS: BTW, I'm not convinced that sentience is a requirement for superintelligence. It may even be a barrier...

a reply to: deadeyedick
If genius is unlocked in some and not others who is to say the key can not be found and used on all of us? Humans are comprised of encoded information that is an accepted fact. If the keys are found that unlock our full potential we may perhaps always outpace our AI creations.

a reply to: deadeyedick

In that case meet a single person breakaway civilization

a reply to: machineintelligence
There is a chance (likelihood) that we will be capable of dramatically increasing intelligence via genetic engineering. There have already been successful results in lab experiments on mice. Putting it into practice on Humans, however, will require leaping over numerous hurdles.

It seems I’ve read somewhere that, due to biological constraints, there is a ceiling on just how far this technique could take us. So, it may be that the machines still hold all the aces here, and will inevitably outpace humans in the smarts department regardless. Hmmm...

It has made me wonder, though, what the world would be like if everyone had an I.Q. over 10,000. IDK, but it seems to me it could be kinda spooky. I just don’t know...

Yeah, I hear all this, but what comes to mind is a great little book "Vacuum Flowers", written in '87, which sort of deals with this.

That Earth finds a neat, useful, wonderful way of connecting directly into the brain in a non-invasive way. First used with games, it evolves into a bidirectional mind-machine link. People, at first, find it uncomfortable to use so it's not used widely for surfing the net or whathaveyou, but a side evolution of it becomes an 'interfacer'. You can use a variation of it to become...anything. A surgeon, a ninja, a programmer. People start "programming up" to do their jobs then "program down" when they get home.

Then it becomes a way to fix mental issues. Display someone's mentation on a 3D graph...find the holes, add a package for carpentry, or cooking, or whatever skill/perception/habit fills in the holes in the original personality and makes them rounded and sane.

Then as it becomes the cell phone/tablet/PC of the era, easy to use, compact, and no longer uncomfortable, a group of hackers find how to network mentalities. At first it's a hypercube of 32. Then they start absorbing other people on the net. Within a week, Earth is a hive mind called the Comprise.

If they ever get it, and they likely won't, a direct interface is A Bad Idea.

I've never heard of this before but it is what I have believed that the future would hold.

I never worried about the rise of the machines because I always thought that we(people) would be plugged into the grid.

So, this makes total sense to me

All these ideas running around about human augmentations and human merging with electronics, are only part of a western made coverup for the fact that they are not able to produce proper prostheses for injured war veterans to re-integrate them into the workforce and as much as possible into the regular civilian life.
Western promises to war veterans are of course severely lacking and have been so for decades now!

Why dont they See what the Brain can do?
a baby as the brain grows adapts to its environment.
the bode eyes ears and the rest.
so what IF you wire a growing brain to a super computer?

the brain would explore it just like it explores
the bode and finds out how to use it.
you would have to help it,
just like you teach a child to walk and speak.

A Sci-Fi book The Ship who sang.
in the book children who are born with say no arms and legs.
Can have the brain put in a capsule.
witch can be link't to a space ship or some thing.
then they fly off in to deep space.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

- the laziness inherent in biological systems.

Sh#t, just find a solution to that problem and we could pull a top-down solution to EVERYTHING!

What if ? really what if ?
en.wikipedia.org...
Good book . In the book the Milky way Galaxy center produces a kind of beam that slows the speed of light Just by a really small amount and and solar system that enters this beams Though prosses slows down as well so earth entered it 150 million years agaio and man evolved INSIDE this thought slowing beam .
what happens is when the solar system comes out of the beam is thought is speeded up rising the IQ of EVERY living animal with a brain .
So a Genius who had a IQ of 180 then had a IQ of over 500 .And a Chimp had the IQ of a prechanged man .

Now we do know light can be slowed down so what if its not just a book and one day humans will end up with a 350 IQ boost .

a reply to: Bedlam

I had to read that book after I noticed you mentioned it. It is available to internet archive subscribers for free it seems.

archive.org.../n9/mode/2up

a reply to: machineintelligence

Threadmancery!