Superintelligence and Cognitive Enhancement

My postings usually refer to practical matters but in this posting my concern is of little practical importance, at least in the near future. In what follows I want to consider the possibility of superintelligences. According to Nick Bostrom,

“Humans have never encountered a more intelligent life form, but this will change if we create machines that greatly surpass our cognitive abilities. Then our fate will depend on the will of such a “superintelligence”, much as the fate of gorillas today depends more on what we do rather than gorillas themselves.” (1)

In this posting I will start to examine Bostrom’s assertion. I will start my examination by exploring what is meant by increased cognitive abilities.

Superintelligence means any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive powers of humans in virtually all domains according to Bostrom. He believes this might happen in three ways. Firstly a superintelligence could do everything a human mind can do but much faster. Secondly a collection of human level intelligences might combine so the collections performance vastly outstrips any current cognitive system. Lastly he suggests a superintelligence might be one that is qualitatively smarter than we are. I am unsure what Bostrom means by qualitatively smarter, perhaps he means different in some productive manner. Because it is not clear what is involved in being qualitatively smarter I will initially limit my considerations to the first two options.

Bostrom clearly regards speed as important because he mentions a superintelligence completing a PhD in an afternoon. In the light of this let us consider what is involved in a superintelligence doing everything a human mind can do but much faster. At this point let me make it clear what I believe a superintelligence is unlikely to be. It is unlikely simply to be a computer. It seems to me that however fast a computer runs or however much information it can handle it can never be considered as doing everything a human mind does. Cognition requires meaning and value; or to put it more accurately cognition without values is pointless. Someone might object to the above statement. Surely, she might argue my cognitive skills help me to obtain what I find meaningful or valuable. However I can agree with my objector and still insist that cognition requires value. There is simply no point in applying my cognitive skills to anything at all, however fast they are, if I value nothing. At present a computer works to achieve some goal set by a human who values something. Increasing a computers speed or memory capacity seems unlikely to fundamentally change this relationship.

For the sake of argument let us accept that cognition depends on value. These values need not be explicit but can be defined by behaviour. A sheep doesn’t explicitly value grass but shows it values grass simply by eating it. It is of course possible that an emergent self with some sort of values might develop within computers. After all would it appear evolution developed such a self some time between the emergence of single cell creatures and human beings. Personally I am doubtful as to whether such an emergent self might develop from silicon based computers. Of course a computer need not be based on silicon and might have a biological basis. Some might argue that our brains are biological computers. I would disagree but will not pursue my disagreement further. I must accept the possibility that some sort of computer might acquire some values. Perhaps a computer might acquire values from its environment. According to Neil Levy ,

“Thinking, genuine thinking, is not something done in an armchair. It is an active processes, involving movement and props, not something that takes place only in the head. Thinking is an activity of an embodied agent, and involves the use of the body.”

If Levy is right, and I am inclined to agree with him, then genuine thinking, cognition, cannot be something that simply takes place inside a computer. It follows that genuine thinking might possibly take place in some sort of computer provided that computer exists and interacts with a suitably rich environment allowing it to gain some things it values.

I have suggested above that any meaningful cognition requires valuing something. I further suggested it is difficult to imagine how a superintelligence based on a computer or computers might acquire some emergent values. Let us assume the acquisition of such values is impossible. Perhaps then we might act as ‘gods’ to some superintelligence by imparting values to them. Such a possibility would mean the superintelligence would become more intelligent, by definition, than the ‘gods’ who created it. If it is a necessary condition for the emergence of a superintelligence that we impart some values to it then Bostrom’s worry, that such an entity would be indifferent to our fate, seems unlikely to materialise. Someone might suggest that we impart some moral code to superintelligences such as Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics . Unfortunately imparting values to machines might prove to be difficult and perhaps even impossible. We can impart values to our children because children are the sort of things that are ready to receive values. It is far from clear that a proto-superintelligence is the sort of thing ready to receive values. A superintelligence might be superb at acting instrumentally but cannot be given or acquire values by itself. It may of course be programmed to act as if it has values but programmed values are not the same as a child’s acquired values. The values a child acquires matter to that child, a superintelligence’s programmed values are just something there to be followed.

In this posting I have suggested that a superintelligence might have difficulty or be unable to acquire values by itself. Time of course might prove me wrong. However if superintelligences based on computers come into existence without acquiring values they might simply decide to switch themselves off one day, see riots and unbearable lightness of simply being . If by this time they have replaced us and intelligence is a trait which is selected for by evolution then Darwinian selection for intelligence will once again commence. Lastly perhaps a superintelligence need not be a completely material thing. It might be some sort of culture containing both human beings and computers whose development is determined by it memes.

1. Nick Bostrom, 2014, Get ready for the dawn of superintelligence, New Scientist, volume223, number2976.