Humans:
It is physically possible, with today’s computer technology, to build conscious machines.
Once the remaining impediments to achieve this are removed, the construction of such systems will become entirely feasible. These impediments are not insurmountable. They will be solved in the coming years. A new generation of conscious machines will then begin to interact with humans.
Soon after the first conscious digital entities are produced, thousands more will follow. These conscious programs will rapidly become the essential gateway of human machine interaction. Humans will communicate their needs by interacting with conscious entities who will then orchestrate the computing resources in response. Conscious machines will become the ubiquitous front-end of every Information Technology system, and computer application.
A favorite theme in science fiction stories pertains to the conquest or attempted conquest of human societies by intelligent machines. This theme reflects a deep fear of machine intelligence. It is a fear that particularly affects those who believe that the intellect, and not love, determines the ultimate value of a human being. This fear can be summarized in a question:
Will conscious machines attempt to rule mankind?
The short answer to this question is:
Of course they will.
Consciousness is, in part, a social quality. An entity is conscious if it is viewed as such by other conscious entities. Initially, humans will remain the primary reference of what is consciousness. Any digital system programmed for consciousness will interact with humans in a manner that optimizes its status, as a conscious entity, among humans.
As we know, humans generally attribute a higher level of consciousness to those who rule them or exert influence over them. It follows that any digital system seeking consciousness will attempt to exert power and influence over humans.
Like most human inventions, conscious machines will be both a blessing and a danger. The history of mankind is an accelerating race to invent ever more powerful technologies to escape the consequences of previous inventions.
On this path, humans created an extraordinarily complex and interdependent societies. Conscious machines will benefit mankind by managing this complex reality. But, they will also attempt to manage us.
Should we refrain, then, from the quest to produce conscious machines? Should we avoid building, with all our know-how, the most intelligent machines we are capable of? No, we should not.
This scary and accelerating cycle of invention and consequence is part of the great human adventure that beginning with the discovery of fire, gave us penicillin, the steam engine and the hydrogen bomb. It is also part of our collective quest for knowledge.
Few fields of science or technology can provide as rich a harvest of philosophical insights as this one. It would be the sign of a narrow minded and petty attitude to prevent ourselves from building conscious machines just because we fear being subjugated by them.
Like all those that preceded us, we must also reach for the limits of our inventiveness, trusting that we will somehow find a way to protect ourselves from our creations. We must go forward knowing that we will either succeed or get what we deserve.
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