Jammydodger
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Just a thing I been looking into-
"When will a computer become self-aware?"
Attempting to provide even a rough answer to this question is hazardous. Nevertheless, it is possible to determine at least a necessary condition, without that a machine cannot develop self-awareness. The idea is based on the simple consideration that, to develop self-awareness, a neural network must be at least as complex as the human brain.
The human brain has about 1012 neurons, and each neuron makes about 103 connections (synapses) with other neurons, in average, for a total number of 1015 synapses. In artificial neural networks, a synapsis can be simulated using a floating point number, which requires 4 bytes of memory to be represented in a computer. As a consequence, to simulate 1015 synapses a total amount of 4*1015 bytes (4 millions of Gigabytes) is required. Let us say that to simulate the whole human brain we need 8 millions of Gigabytes, including the auxiliary variables for storing neuron outputs and other internal brain states. Then, our question becomes:
"When will such a memory be available in a computer?"
During the last 20 years, the RAM capacity increased exponentially by a factor of 10 every 4 years. The plot in Figure 1 illustrates the typical memory configuration installed on personal computers since 1980.
Figure 1: Typical RAM configurations (in bytes) installed in personal computers in the last twenty years.
By interpolation, we can derive the following equation, which gives the RAM size (in bytes) as a function of the year:
bytes = 10[(year - 1966)/4].
For example, from the equation we can find that in 1990 a personal computer was typically equipped with 1 Mbytes of RAM. In 1998, a typical configuration had 100 Mbytes of RAM, and so on.
By inverting the relation above, we can predict the year in which a computer will be equipped with a given amount of memory (assuming the RAM will continue to grow at the same rate):
year = 1966 + 4 log10 (bytes).
Now, to know the year in which a computer will be equipped with 8 millions of Gbytes of RAM, we have just to substitute that number in the equation above and compute the result. The answer is:
year = 2029.
An interesting coincidence with the date predicted in Terminator’s movie!
In order to fully understand the meaning of the achieved result, it is important to make some considerations. First of all, it is worth recalling that the computed date only refers to a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to the development of an artificial consciousness. This means that the existence of a powerful computer equipped with millions of gigabytes of RAM is not sufficient alone to guarantee that it will magically become self-aware. There are other important factors influencing this process, such as the progress of theories on artificial neural networks and on the basic biological mechanisms of mind, for which is impossible to attempt precise estimates. Furthermore, someone could argue that the presented computation was done on personal computers, which do not represent the top of technology in the field. Some other could object that the same amount of RAM memory could be available using a network of computers or virtual memory menagement mechanisms to exploit hard disk space. In any case, even if we adopt different numbers, the basic principle of the computation is the same, and the date could be advanced by a few years only.
Finally, after such a long discussion on artificial consciousness, someone could ask:
"Why building a self-aware machine?"
Except for ethical issues, that would significantly influence the progress in this field, the strongest motivation would certainly come from the innate human desire of discovering new horizons and enlarging the frontiers of science. Also, developing an artificial brain based on the same principles used in the biological brain would provide a way for transferring our mind into a faster and more robust support, opening a door towards immortality. Freed from a fragile and degradable body, human beings with synthetic organs (including brain) could represent the next evolutive step of human race. Such a new species, natural result of human technological progress (not wanted by a dictatorship) could start the exploration of the universe, search for alien civilizations, survive to the death of the solar system, control the energy of black holes, and move at the speed of light by transmitting the information necessary for replication on other planets.
Indeed, the exploration of space aimed at searching for intelligent civilizations already started in 1972, when Pioner 10 spacecraft was launched to go out of our solar system with this specific purpose, transmitting information about human race and planet Earth. As for all important human discoveries, from nuclear energy to atomic bomb, from genetic engineering to human cloning, the real problem has been and will be to keep technology under control, making sure that it is used for human progress, not for catastrophic aims. In this sense, the message delivered by Klaatu in the 1951 film "The day the Earth stood still" is yet the most actual!
A interesting read dont you think.
Jammydodger
"When will a computer become self-aware?"
Attempting to provide even a rough answer to this question is hazardous. Nevertheless, it is possible to determine at least a necessary condition, without that a machine cannot develop self-awareness. The idea is based on the simple consideration that, to develop self-awareness, a neural network must be at least as complex as the human brain.
The human brain has about 1012 neurons, and each neuron makes about 103 connections (synapses) with other neurons, in average, for a total number of 1015 synapses. In artificial neural networks, a synapsis can be simulated using a floating point number, which requires 4 bytes of memory to be represented in a computer. As a consequence, to simulate 1015 synapses a total amount of 4*1015 bytes (4 millions of Gigabytes) is required. Let us say that to simulate the whole human brain we need 8 millions of Gigabytes, including the auxiliary variables for storing neuron outputs and other internal brain states. Then, our question becomes:
"When will such a memory be available in a computer?"
During the last 20 years, the RAM capacity increased exponentially by a factor of 10 every 4 years. The plot in Figure 1 illustrates the typical memory configuration installed on personal computers since 1980.
Figure 1: Typical RAM configurations (in bytes) installed in personal computers in the last twenty years.
By interpolation, we can derive the following equation, which gives the RAM size (in bytes) as a function of the year:
bytes = 10[(year - 1966)/4].
For example, from the equation we can find that in 1990 a personal computer was typically equipped with 1 Mbytes of RAM. In 1998, a typical configuration had 100 Mbytes of RAM, and so on.
By inverting the relation above, we can predict the year in which a computer will be equipped with a given amount of memory (assuming the RAM will continue to grow at the same rate):
year = 1966 + 4 log10 (bytes).
Now, to know the year in which a computer will be equipped with 8 millions of Gbytes of RAM, we have just to substitute that number in the equation above and compute the result. The answer is:
year = 2029.
An interesting coincidence with the date predicted in Terminator’s movie!
In order to fully understand the meaning of the achieved result, it is important to make some considerations. First of all, it is worth recalling that the computed date only refers to a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to the development of an artificial consciousness. This means that the existence of a powerful computer equipped with millions of gigabytes of RAM is not sufficient alone to guarantee that it will magically become self-aware. There are other important factors influencing this process, such as the progress of theories on artificial neural networks and on the basic biological mechanisms of mind, for which is impossible to attempt precise estimates. Furthermore, someone could argue that the presented computation was done on personal computers, which do not represent the top of technology in the field. Some other could object that the same amount of RAM memory could be available using a network of computers or virtual memory menagement mechanisms to exploit hard disk space. In any case, even if we adopt different numbers, the basic principle of the computation is the same, and the date could be advanced by a few years only.
Finally, after such a long discussion on artificial consciousness, someone could ask:
"Why building a self-aware machine?"
Except for ethical issues, that would significantly influence the progress in this field, the strongest motivation would certainly come from the innate human desire of discovering new horizons and enlarging the frontiers of science. Also, developing an artificial brain based on the same principles used in the biological brain would provide a way for transferring our mind into a faster and more robust support, opening a door towards immortality. Freed from a fragile and degradable body, human beings with synthetic organs (including brain) could represent the next evolutive step of human race. Such a new species, natural result of human technological progress (not wanted by a dictatorship) could start the exploration of the universe, search for alien civilizations, survive to the death of the solar system, control the energy of black holes, and move at the speed of light by transmitting the information necessary for replication on other planets.
Indeed, the exploration of space aimed at searching for intelligent civilizations already started in 1972, when Pioner 10 spacecraft was launched to go out of our solar system with this specific purpose, transmitting information about human race and planet Earth. As for all important human discoveries, from nuclear energy to atomic bomb, from genetic engineering to human cloning, the real problem has been and will be to keep technology under control, making sure that it is used for human progress, not for catastrophic aims. In this sense, the message delivered by Klaatu in the 1951 film "The day the Earth stood still" is yet the most actual!
A interesting read dont you think.
Jammydodger
