AI Machines, Emotion and the Singularity

 

In the following essay it will be assumed that there will be some kind of (technological) singularity in the future. Of course, this is much debated. However, that debate won’t matter too much within the following context of the relevance of emotions when it comes to AI machines and a possible singularity.

Image from Wiki Commons. Source here.

Ultraintelligent and Docile Machines?

The Singularity is “the proposed point in time at which machines become more intelligent than humans”.

According to many people, the true significance of the Singularity was captured by the British mathematician Irving John Good way back in 1965. He wrote:

“The first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make [ ].”

Is this a positive or negative proclamation on Good’s part?

It depends on your values and beliefs.

Does it follow that even if we were to create ultraintelligent machines, that man need never invent anything again? Not really. Of course, Jack Good might well have meant that men need not invent anything after this event. However, even this isn’t clear because it depends on what Good believed were the concrete consequences of the existence of ultraintelligent machines. After all, one positive consequence may be that despite the designation “ultraintelligent”, such machines still (as it were) feel the need to work with human beings. A negative consequence may be that machines actually stop human beings from inventing anything.

In any case, I purposely left out the final clause from the Good quotation above. The full quote is the following:

“The first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make — *provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us to keep it under control*.”

It’s the content of that last clause which worries so many people.

Firstly, it needs to asked here why Good used the word “machine” in the singular? Why didn’t he refer to “machines” in the plural? It’s odd to believe that a single machine, even if ultraintelligent, could make human invention redundant. It’s a lot less odd if Good were talking about machines in the plural. So perhaps he simply meant that once we have a single ultraintelligent machine, then soon after that we’d have many more ultraintelligent machines too. And that certainly follows.

After all, one important factor in this debate is the ability of intelligent systems to copy themselves. That really does open the floodgates. That’s because if machines can copy themselves, then they can improve themselves too. Thus, these systems no longer need to rely on human beings when it comes to such improvements. (This is already the case in certain instances.) Does this mean that the improvements will come faster? Many believe that it does.

Some sceptics, as well as some AI evangelists, may argue that the juxtaposition of docility and ultraintelligence is (almost?) a contradiction in terms. How can anything that’s ultraintelligent be docile too? (There are many intelligent human beings who are docile.)

Some may conclude, as Good himself did, that this ultraintelligent machine must be programmed to be docile. This raises an obvious question: Why would a ultraintelligent machine abide by such programming in all circumstances? It can be supposed that, ultimately, this is a technical question. It’s certainly a hard question to answer.

Intelligence?

One small problem here is that firstly we need to define the word “intelligence”. That said, however we define that word, the possibility of the Singularity is still with us. It can be supposed that if “emotional intelligence” is part of the package of intelligence, then there may be problems. (See later section.) Yet I doubt that would make much of an impact on the Singularity either.

In any case, AI machines are already more intelligent than humans in various respects. In which respects?… Yes, it’s here that we must manoeuvre back to the question of defining the word “intelligence” again. So let’s completely forget about defining “intelligence”…

AIs have direct access to more data than human beings. They often have quicker reasoning skills. They’re often better and quicker at constructing sentences. They can solve mathematical problems quicker than most human beings. Etc.

Indeed, many of these realities hint at the Singularity too.

AI Machines, Emotion and the Singularity

Earlier on “emotional intelligence” was mentioned. Many would argue that so far artificial intelligence has been “all about logicality”, not emotional or social intelligence. It’s hard to shoehorn in a discussion on emotional intelligence here. However, even without emotional intelligence, the Singularity may still occur. So it can be asked if the Singularity occurs without AI machines instantiating emotional intelligence, then would that automatically be a bad thing?

The thing is, aren’t human beings emotional in many different — sometimes contradictory — ways? Aren’t there varying degrees of human emotional intelligence? Added to that is the fact that emotion is often fused with belief and values. It rarely comes free. The basic upshot, then, is that when it comes to human beings, emotion isn’t always a good thing. So why would it automatically be a bad thing if AI machines didn’t have emotional intelligence or even emotions pure and simple?

One could even argue that a lack of emotion in AI machines is a positive in that it’s doubtful that without emotion, such machines would feel the need to wipe out human kind. It’s certainly the case that all human examples of genocide, mass murder, torture, etc. have been at least largely the result of human emotion. So rather than emotion curtailing such things, they often actually “encourage” them. All that said, who’s to say that annihilation can’t be a purely rational choice?

This is a good time to bring up Star Trek’s Spock, who was half human and half Vulcan.

Vulcans are often deemed to be “purely logical” beings, whereas humans are creatures of emotion. Yet it’s clear, according to the writers and “experts”, that Vulcans aren’t purely logical at all. Instead, they’re deemed to control or even “supress” their emotions.

AI Machines, Vulcans and Mass Murder

In a conversation with a chatbot, Spock’s adherence to the Vulcan quasi-utilitarian precept that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” was mentioned. I raised the possibility that “purely logical” Vulcans could become mass murderers. The chatbot agreed when it stated the following:

“Unlike humans, who might hesitate due to empathy or moral qualms, a fully logical Vulcan lacks emotional barriers to extreme actions. If mass murder aligns with their calculated optimal outcome (e.g., preventing a war or resource depletion), they could pursue it without guilt.”

There is some agreement with this position on utilitarianism and mass murder. For example, Laurie Calhoun (in her article ‘KILLING, LETTING DIE, AND THE ALLEGED NECESSITY OF MILITARY INTERVENTION’) wrote:

“Consistent utilitarians are ready and willing even to kill innocent people, if necessary. [ ] If more people will die if one does nothing than if one goes to war, then, in this view, one is morally obliged to go to war.”

To state what should be obvious, moral qualms and even empathy haven’t necessarily got in the way of extreme actions when it comes to human beings. Indeed, moral qualms can actually lead to extreme actions. As for human empathy, isn’t it often very selective?

Thus, perhaps the limitations placed on AI machines and Vulcans by logic and rationality are stronger than the limitations placed on human beings by their moral qualms and empathy.

As for Vulcans or AI machines logically concluding that exterminating a hostile species is preferable to prolonged conflict, then how many times in human history have (emotional) human beings exterminated hostile forces, cultures and communities on the pretext that the alternatives to doing so were even worse? Although in these cases utilitarianism was never mentioned, there was still a kind of utilitarian logic that at least partially underlined such exterminations.

If we return to the chatbot. It went into scary (as well as rather predictable) self-referential territory when it (as it were) admitted that an AI machine

“might similarly justify extreme actions if its algorithm calculates that killing many saves more (e.g., a hypothetical AI managing resources during a crisis)”.

Again, the obvious point here is that human rationality, logic and emotion have led to mass murder and many other extreme actions too.

The Physics of a Creative Cosmos?

 

The following is an essay on what’s called the “creative cosmos”, as it’s seen through the eyes of the physicist and writer Paul Davies. The notion of a creative cosmos goes back over 3,000 years. Davies himself attempts to give it a justification via physics and scientific (i.e., physical) cosmology, particularly (in this essay at least) in terms of stochasticity (“randomness within rules”) and quantum mechanics.

Image by ChatGPT, under the writer’s prompts.

There is no doubt at all that Paul Davies is religious: he’s just not a Christian, Muslim or Jew. To use Davies’s own words, the God he believes in doesn’t

“bear [ ] much relation to the personal God of religion, still less to the God of the bible or the Koran”.

Davies’s creative cosmos clashes with classical theology in that his God isn’t omnipotent: he’s “persuasive”. Davies’s God didn’t create the universe and all its laws ex nihilo. Instead, he shapes eternal matter and the laws emerge. In addition, Davies’s God isn’t transcendent and static: he’s relational and changeable.

Davies believes in what he calls a “creative cosmos”. Indeed, he says that he’s “committed to the notion”. As for the precise words “creative cosmos”, Davies will have drawn inspiration from the early 20th-century philosopher Alfred North Whitehead’s concept of a “creative advance into novelty”. This, in turn, has been connected to the Hindu goddess Shakti, who is deemed to be the creative power of nature (prakriti). (In physics-speak, she’s the embodiment of energy.)

All these aspects of Davies’s God and cosmology are given expression in the physics which he concentrates upon.

What role does God play in Davies’s scheme?

Davies on a Necessary Being and Brute Facts

Paul Davies. Image from Wiki Commons. Source here.

Davies tells his readers that in his

“own mind I have no doubts at all that the arguments for a necessary world are far shakier than the arguments for a necessary being, so my personal inclination is to opt for the latter”.

At this juncture, Davies doesn’t tell us why a necessary being wins out here. The notion of a necessary being is a huge historical and philosophical subject which can’t be tackled here. In any case, Davies would argue that the “arguments for a necessary world” are equally complex, if not as historical in nature.

Davies also tells his readers that he has

“no doubts at all as to the rationality of nature, I am also committed to the notion of a creative cosmos”.

Davies’s very use of the word “rational” gives the game away. Isn’t it at least possible that the world is neither rational nor irrational (except to human minds)? That said, if one does believe that the world is rational, then one must also believe that it could have been — or actually is — irrational or “absurd”.

What about Davies’s rejection of brute facts (at least in these respects)?

Here’s the thing. If we don’t “accept the existence and features of the world as brute facts that could have been otherwise”, then what if the features were (or had been) otherwise? Wouldn’t these alternative possible features face the same questions? In other words, wouldn’t they need to be taken to be brute facts too? Alternatively, wouldn’t they need to be explained? Davies may assume that alternative features could be explained, or that they are self-explainers. If they could be explained, then why would that be? (Bear in mind here that, according to Davies, the actual features of universe can’t be — or haven’t been — explained.) How does Davies get out of this bind?

The problem with brute facts is that some are rejected by scientists and philosophers, yet others are embraced by the very same people. For example, take the philosopher David Chalmers. He accepts brute facts in various areas of science, philosophy and logic, but not when it comes to consciousness. Chalmers tells us that physics “does not tell us why there is [matter] in the first place”. Consequently, it may not be able to tell us why many properties in physics “have their nature”. Such things are deemed to be — to use Chalmers’ preferred term— “primitive”. In other words, they can’t be “deduced from more basic principles”.

Davies may say here that physics doesn’t answer these questions, but religion and philosophy can. Indeed, perhaps Chalmers will agree with him. After all, Chalmers says that physics does not tell us various things. Thus, in physics, they’re taken as brute…

Davies on Stochasticity

Through physics alone, how do we arrive at Davies’s creative cosmos? Davies does so through what he calls “stochastic systems” and quantum mechanics. Indeed, stochastics can be tied to quantum mechanics, as Davies does in the following:

“A stochastic system is, roughly speaking, one which is subject to unpredictable and random fluctuations. In modern physics, stochasticity enters in a fundamental way in quantum mechanics. It is also inevitably present when we deal with open systems subject to chaotic external perturbations.”

In Davies’s scheme, we enter a grey area between deterministic laws and what he calls “laws of organisation”. What explains the nature of this grey area? To Davies, stochasticity does. He refers to stochasticity as an “efficient device through which divine intentions can be carried out”. (It’s odd to call stochasticity a “device”, let alone a device which the “divine” somehow uses or employs.)

What’s important to Davies is that all this leads to a situation in which

“there is no need for such a God to interfere directly with the course of evolution [of the universe] by ‘loading the dice’”.

Here again Davies is arguing against the God of Christianity, Islam and Judaism: a God who does interfere directly with the course of the evolution of the universe by loading the dice. Indeed, Davies mentions Albert Einstein’s famous statement “God does not play dice in the universe!” here. Unlike Einstein, Davies does want his God to play dice.

There’s a problem with relying on stochastics when it comes to defending the existence of a creative cosmos. How can any process be both creative and stochastic if the latter notion implies what Davies himself calls “anarchy”? The answer is that Davies believes that “there is a difference between stochasticity and anarchy”.

Davies goes into detail about his creative - not anarchistic — cosmos in the following passage:

“The development of new forms and systems is subject to general principles of organisation that guide and encourage, rather than compel, matter and energy to develop along certain predetermined pathways of evolution.”

This is a problematic passage, and it is so for many reasons.

Firstly, it’s odd that elsewhere Davies is keen to point out that the word “law” in physics is taken from Christian theology. He also tells us that most scientists forget this. Yet here Davies tells us about “general principles of organisation that guide and encourage, rather than compel”. This position is no less God-centred or anthropomorphic. It doesn’t stop being so simply because these general principles of organisation guide rather than enforce, encourage rather than demand. And that’s in spite of working out what exactly the words “guide” and “encourage” mean in terms of physics.

Here we have an old problem when it comes to (possible) metaphors. Are the words “guide” and “encourage” (process theologians have used the word “persuade”) meant to be read metaphorically, or literally? Taking them metaphorically is fine, it’s just that we need to be clear that they are metaphors. And even if they are metaphors, we still need to work out why Davies uses these precise words.

In any case, if x (merely) guides y, then surely y can — metaphorically! — “ignore” or go against x. Similarly, if x (merely) encourages y, then y can ignore or go against that encouragement. Perhaps Davies allows all this in his creative cosmos.

Davies on Predestination vs Determinism

Whatever the case is, it’s clear that Davies is arguing against determinism, and arguing for what he calls “predestination”.

Now “predestination” is a controversial term. What does Davies mean by it? He writes:

“In The Cosmic Blueprint I used the word ‘predestination’ to refer to general tendencies, to distinguish it from ‘determinism’ (which is the sense in which Aquinas uses the term). For those, such as process theologians, who choose to see God’s guiding hand rather than genuine spontaneity in the way the universe develops creatively, then stochasticity can be regarded as an efficient device through which divine intentions can be carried out. And there is no need for such a God to interfere directly with the course of evolution by ‘loading the dice. [ ] Guidance can be through the (timeless) laws of organisation and information flow.”

From the word “predestination”, to the rejection of determinism and the words “God’s guiding hand”, this entire passage is infused with theology.

Clearly, only allowing God a “guiding hand” is still an acceptance of the importance of God within this scheme. What’s more, if God merely guides, then surely he can do much more than guide if he decided to.

Davies places limits on God through the physics of the creative cosmos. But is such a limited God actually God (with a capital ‘G’) at all? Moreover, what’s to stop Davies incorporating many gods into his scheme (as in Hinduism and other religions)?

As for “general tendencies” rather than fixed deterministic laws. What do these two words refer to? To the “laws of organization and information flow”, which Davies refers to at the end of the paragraph? Why aren’t these laws just as fixed and deterministic as the other laws of physics? (In fact, Davies argues that they are fixed, if not deterministic.)

Whatever the status of these laws of organisation is, they place limits on any “genuine spontaneity” from happening in the cosmos. Yet they’re still laws: laws which suggest “God’s guiding hand”.

Davies on Old Laws and New Laws

Here we move from the limitations Davies places on physical law to his stress on new laws. For example, he writes:

“The condition of total disorder or randomness — the ‘fairness’ of the quantum dice — is itself a law of a rather restrictive nature.”

How do we arrive at a physical law from total disorder or randomness? Davies continues:

“Although each individual quantum event may be genuinely unpredictable, a collection of such events conforms with the statistical predictions of quantum mechanics. One might say that there is order in disorder.”

To put it colloquially, it seems that Davies wants his cake and to eat it too. In other words, he wants a little bit of order and a little bit of disorder in his cosmos. Total order takes us to the cosmos of Christians, Muslims and Jews. A little bit of disorder takes us to Davies’s creative cosmos.

Can disorder exist alongside order?

Well, on Davies’s reading of quantum mechanics, it can. Not only that: the tiny examples of disorder at the level of quantum mechanics can lead to the bigger “systems” which Davies refers to. (One can imagine other related cases too, such as aleatory and stochastic music.)

Is Davies a Pantheist or a Panentheist?

Some readers may ask if this creative cosmos actually is God. Not in Davies’s scheme. That’s because Davies has already told us that God doesn’t interfere in the evolution of the universe. And he has already told us about God’s “guiding hand”. None of this suggests a literal identity (à la Spinoza) between the creative cosmos and God. The creative cosmos is as separate from God as the deterministic universe is. (One may as well throw in the winding up the universe and letting it run idea here.)

Despite the above, some commentators have labelled Davies’s worldview as pantheistic (God as the laws of nature themselves) or panentheistic, which itself apparently aligns (to various degrees) with texts and positions found in Advaita Vedanta.

Conclusion

Some readers may not find any of Davies’s interpretations and parallels with ancient religious views convincing. Moreover, he could still hold all his physical and cosmological positions without ever bringing them up. Of course, that would leave a lacuna in Davies’s eyes. In Davies’s own words:

“[T]heoretical physics became, in a sense, my religious quest, the best hope I had of making sense of the world and my place within it.”

So a purely scientific account of the cosmos would leave out “meaning”, “purpose”, and, perhaps more importantly, an emotionally and intellectually satisfying explanation of “the whole shebang”.