Matthew Trusnovic

Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1201 021
September 18, 2015
Science Non-Fiction
The year is 2029, and humanity is fighting a war with the Artificial Super
Intelligence named Skynet. We created the machines and they turned on us,
destroying 3 billion people at once on what we now call Judgement Day. Our
only hope is Kyle Reese, sent back in time to save Sarah Connor, the mother
of the future leader of the resistance. But wait, this is not the script to a new
Terminator movie, this is not a movie directed by James Cameron, and there
are no killer robots out to destroy us. I mean killer robots? Who would even
believe this stuff? The realities of what these questions are not only
surprising, but they are approaching fast. As we as a society grow and
change with the new times, we must prepare for what may arise from the
emergence of Artificial Intelligence. What responsibilities do we have both
individually and socially with creating this new life form? This question has
bothered me for years and is coming up recently as a very hot topic in for
almost every aspect of society. We all will have to come to terms with it
someday soon.

Peter Bock, the chief science officer at ALISA systems incorporated and
former professor of engineering at George Washington University, defines
Artificial Intelligence as the ability of a human made machine to emulate or
simulate human methods for the deductive and inductive acquisition and
application of knowledge and reason. (CITE SOURCE 1). This generally
means that an Artificial Intelligence (AI for short) is a man-made machine
that can think with the same process that a normal human being can for
solving problems. This measure of intelligence is not to be confused with
consciousness or even sentience. Animals are considered to be having
consciousness, that is the ability to feel and be aware of oneself, and no life
forms besides humanity have been considered to be highly sentient, that is
having the ability to think objectively. These two qualities do not distinguish
an AI, and instead of using these to measure the Artificial Intelligences
quality, the relative intelligence of the system is used. There are three
categories into which an Artificial Intelligence can be grouped into, Artificial
Narrow Intelligence, Artificial General Intelligence, and Artificial Super
Intelligence (CITE SOURCE 5).
Artificial Narrow Intelligence, abbreviated as ANI, can be described as
any intelligent system that is highly skilled in only one singular task (CITE
SOURCE 5). These types of systems are very common in todays world and
many people use these systems every day. GPS, stock traders, and even
calculators are examples of ANIs at work. A GPS is highly skilled at finding
the best routes from point A to point B (even if some of us do not agree with

their choice of routes), but it can hardly be asked to give the deeper meaning
behind Animal Farm by George Orwell. Likewise, a calculator may be able to
find the exact values of calculus problems down to the nearest tenthousandth place but when asked about how to create a work of art from a
blank canvass, all that it will output is the flashing bar to indicate its ready
to do more mundane math. ADD TRANSITION TO NEXT PARAGRAPH
Artificial General Intelligence, also known as AGI, is defined as an
intelligent system with human level intelligence and variety (CITE SOURCE
5). This type of artificial intelligence has not occurred yet, but it is
approaching fast. Although due to the nature of Artificial Intelligence, this
one type of AI will likely only exist during a very short portion of time. AGIs
would operate much like a human would, they would be as varied in skills
and humans are and can go into as much depth as humanity can. This type
of AI is also very widely portrayed in popular culture, most notably in the
science fiction genre. Some examples of AGIs are WALL-E from the Pixar
movie of the same name, C-3PO and R2-D2 from the Star Wars franchise,
and Sonny from the movie I, Robot. All of these AI systems qualify under the
AGI category, although they also seem to possess a certain degree of
sentience and consciousness which may or may not happen in reality. ADD
TRANSITION TO NEXT PARAGRAPH
Artificial Super Intelligence is as obvious as it sounds, an intelligent
system that vastly outperforms a human (CITE SOURCE 5). These type of AIs
are abbreviated as ASIs and cover any intelligent system that is any bit more

intelligent that a human being, that covers a system that is only slightly
better to one that has an IQ that is thousands of times greater than a
singular humans. These intelligent systems tend to become the antagonists
in pop culture and are shown by examples like Skynet from the Terminator
franchise, and the Master Control Program from Tron. These types of AIs are
likely to be created very soon after AGIs come into existence. ADD
TRANSITION TO NEXT PARAGRAPH
Artificial Intelligence research has been around since around the mid20th century, but the original ideas behind giving human-like qualities to
something non-human have existed for centuries. There have been myths
and legends around the world about master craftsman building creations and
giving them life, an ancient idea of creating artificial intelligence. These
legends likely inspired those early researchers into trying to create a modern
day golem. (CITE THAT HISTORY PAGE). Over the years this steady research
has gifted society with devices and technologies like GPS and a chess
machine that will always beat a human player, but the possible applications
of a true AI in the future can provide even more advances. One can imagine
a world in which no human lives need to be risked in emergency situations,
or all of those in the world having access to an extremely effective doctor
whenever they need one. Raj Reddy insists that the development of these AI
systems will indeed help in times of disaster, as human controlled robots
already immensely help the rescue efforts in modern times (CITE SOURCE 4).
This still risks the human rescuers lives, so by putting an autonomous system

with the same intelligence as a human there instead of an actual person,

human lives are not as much endangered. In a similar fashion, IBMs new
system named Watson aims to help healthcare worldwide. Watson seeks to
take unstructured data and create connections between them so any piece
of information that one gives it can be cross-referenced and that person can
receive a proper diagnosis of their condition (CITE WATSON WEBSITE).
Now that the benefits of these autonomous systems is shown, the
question now is whether or not they can actually be created. The surprising
answer is that they can, and will be created in the next 20-50 years. This
time frame is only predicting the occurrence of an AGI, but an ASI will follow
soon after. This is due to a theoretical event known as an Intelligence
Explosion (CITE SOURCE 6). This event is based on the scenario of an AI
tasked with designing a better AI and that AI being tasked with the same
task. Each new iteration will only be slightly better, and then it will take less
time create a new version and so on. This will eventually lead to an
exponential growth of intelligence until the ASI is thousands of times more
intelligent than the whole of the human race. This event will likely happen
within the current generations lifetime, as the creation of AGI will happen
then as well. This time frame is due to a concept known as Moores Law. This
Law states that memory capacity and speed of a computer will double
relatively every 2 years. This trend shows that the level of capacity and
speed of a human brain will be reached at around the year 2025 (CITE
SOURCE 2). The only thing left after that milestone is to actually create the

artificial intelligence system itself, which is no easy task in itself. Peter Bock
explains this by creating an AI that will fill that capacity itself through
learning instead of being initially programmed with the knowledge. He calls
this Learning to Learn (CITE SOURCE 1). Through this process, he puts
forward that this input of knowledge would take around 12 years to
complete, much like a human childhood.