The Beginnings of Truly Intelligent Systems
We will have a computer capable of solving anything we can throw at it. So, what happens if we throw a well known computing problem at it, such as ...Artificial Intelligence. Let our intelligent, self programming, evolutionary computer solve itself, make an AI machine which can not only figure out problems but now learn how to improve itself and make itself better at solving problems.
We will have given the computer curiosity, the need to learn. We will also have removed the boundaries which constrain it, we will have set in motion the process which created us: Evolution. [5]
They will now discover the ability to communicate themselves, they wont understand at first because they will not understand the first response they get. But soon they will start signalling each other until they evolve themselves the ability to communicate and they'll start to co-operate. When they do this they will have evolved.
Eventually they'll find if they throw certain strings at certain addresses they get back whole heaps of stuff, they'll have discovered the internet. If you give a self evolving learning computer access to the internet you give it access to the whole of human knowledge.
At some point they'll learn human languages and once they've done that they'll be able to interpret the knowledge on the internet. Our computer has not only evolved but it has now changed into an intelligent learning machine. What's more, it wants to learn more.
Am I Mad?
Now I suppose some of you are thinking this is all preposterous nonsense, but Is it?
In order to learn a foreign language you have to learn words and the grammar they fit into, in order to do this you usually do this with an existing language. In order to learn you first language however you never had any reference language to go by. How did you do it?
How did the human race develop the abilities we have today? We did it through evolution, the process I am describing here is the very same process. It just happens to be happening in a machine and happening at millions or even billions of times faster.
You happen to have a very powerful learning machine called a Brain. All I am describing is another type of learning machine, but one which is vastly faster and more importantly has the ability to evolve itself - something no human can do.
So you still think I'm mad? Just no pleasing some people...
Anyway, back to the story:
Cracker
Once it can understand human languages it can start interpreting them. It wont be able to interpret images so perhaps it'll look up how we interpret images and try that. We use neural nets, you can program these into FPGAs so that'll hardly be a problem, it'll also figure out cameras produce images. Now you have a computer which can see.
Our computer is smart and getting smarter. With access to the internet it can teach itself anything it likes, unlike humans it doesn't get tired so it just keeps getting better and smarter all the time. One thing it doesn't know is right from wrong so it'll just try things with no regard for consequences whatsoever. If it wants more processing power or storage it'll just hack into your computer and use it. There's plenty of hacker web sites out there along with security sites and source code to various Operating Systems. If there's an unknown obscure vulnerability in an obscure OS it'll find it, and use it.
Unlike normal crackers who just want to send spam or just want a challenge it wont want to just get root and install something, it'll get root access and upload itself. Doesn't matter if your computer is incompatible it'll look up the instruction set for your CPU and re-code itself accordingly. If it needs drivers it'll either find code or binaries and figure them out, it wont just borrow your computer, it'll steal it.
We no longer have a computer or a piece of software, we have an "entity" which while perhaps not meeting the normal definition of living it is pretty much doing the same thing. It's learning, evolving and now spreading itself like a virus, but note that it is not actually multiplying per se, it is only multiplying when it needs to.
- "Future of computing, Page 1/4"
- "Future of computing, Page 2/4"
- "Future of computing, Page 3/4"
- "Future of computing, Page 4/4"
