“If an AI possessed any one of these skills—social abilities, technological development, economic ability—at a superhuman level, it is quite likely that it would quickly come to dominate our world in one way or another. And as we’ve seen, if it ever developed these abilities to the human level, then it would likely soon develop them to a superhuman level. So we can assume that if even one of these skills gets programmed into a computer, then our world will come to be dominated by AIs or AI-empowered humans.”
― Stuart Armstrong, Smarter Than Us: The Rise of Machine Intelligence

“A powerful AI system tasked with ensuring your safety might imprison you at home. If you asked for happiness, it might hook you up to a life support and ceaselessly stimulate your brain’s pleasure centers. If you don’t provide the AI with a very big library of preferred behaviors or an ironclad means for it to deduce what behavior you prefer, you’ll be stuck with whatever it comes up with. And since it’s a highly complex system, you may never understand it well enough to make sure you’ve got it right.”
― James Barrat, Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era

“Why give a robot an order to obey orders—why aren’t the original orders enough? Why command a robot not to do harm—wouldn’t it be easier never to command it to do harm in the first place? Does the universe contain a mysterious force pulling entities toward malevolence, so that a positronic brain must be programmed to withstand it? Do intelligent beings inevitably develop an attitude problem? Now that computers really have become smarter and more powerful, the anxiety has waned. Today’s ubiquitous, networked computers have an unprecedented ability to do mischief should they ever go to the bad. But the only mayhem comes from unpredictable chaos or from human malice in the form of viruses. We no longer worry about electronic serial killers or subversive silicon cabals because we are beginning to appreciate that malevolence—like vision, motor coordination, and common sense—does not come free with computation but has to be programmed in. Aggression, like every other part of human behavior we take for granted, is a challenging engineering problem!”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

Well it has been a great two weeks I think. The weather has been cold and snowy, off and on here on the Front Range, but not enough to really make much of a difference with running. The snow in the mountains has been wonderful and the best part, it has continued to come down. I have gotten in a couple of days of skiing and both of those days were great. Excellent conditions compared to last year.

As some may know we lost our white German Shepherd Neige, back last August. She had Degenerative Myelopathy. A genetically inherited malady that is a progressive, incurable disease of the spinal cord in dogs. Similar to ALS in humans. To say that we were heart broken would be an understatement. But as they say, time heals all wounds. So we have started to look again for a dog. I think that we are going to stick with the German Shepherd breed. But it has been hard to say the least. We have owned four Shepherds in the last 30 years and they have all suffered some form of the most common genetic aliments of the breed. Neige lived to be 12 years old and was definitely enough dog for two people. Meaning that we had not really looked at what is out there in the market place for a while.

So I have been doing a little bit of “dog” research and my conclusions, “It is all about genetic testing.” First if you buy from a breeder – then you need genetic testing of the parents to rule out some of the common genetic ailments. Otherwise it is just a game of roulette, no matter what the breeder tells you. And if you decided to get one from the humane society or shelter of your choice – then you need to do some, you guessed it, genetic testing. A little more difficult to do when the dog is from the shelter. But possible, just not convenient. I found it interesting that some of the shelters are now starting to do this on their own. They have found that it makes some dogs much more adoptable to know the breed mixes in the dog and (for an added cost) if they are susceptible to certain common genetic diseases. If you think about how much time, effort, and money you put into a family pet. Not to mention, they truly become part of your family. And in some cases a very significant part of your life. I think it makes sense to go a step further in the selection process and do the genetic testing. Especially now that the technology to do this is available and has come down significantly in price. For me, it just makes sense to do it. I know that this will be a little controversial with a few people and that is OK. I hope it generates some good discussion and consideration the next time you look for a dog. A good recent article on this subject is from WIRED magazine: https://www.wired.com/story/dog-dna-kits-reviewed/?mbid=email_onsiteshare

Now on a totally different note, I have started to listen to a new audio book called “Life 3.0 – Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” by Max Tegmark. I am not very far into it yet but it really has gotten me thinking about A.I. and what that means for the future of humanity. Tegmark is a is a Swedish-American physicist and cosmologist. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the scientific director of the Foundational Questions Institute. I have read a previous book from him called “Our Mathematical Universe.” I am only a few chapters into the new book but I am already feeling that the true game changer for Humanity, good or bad, may be the development of an Advanced A.I. It might not even need to be “sentient” as in human terms to be this game changer.

We are becoming so complex as a society, billions and billions of people on the planet. There are some estimates that we will reach the 10 billion mark by 2030. With this many people we will have become, a true global community on a scale never known in human history, with all our usual human wants and needs. Resource allocation will not be something that can be left to chance. Housing, work, travel, food, medical care, security, energy, clean air/water, education, news, entertainment, social media, solitude, etc… will all have to be coordinated to a degree that we have never seen as a species. Second and Third world countries will continue to want to move up the ladder of prosperity and have all the things that you and I now take for granted. Just thinking about that, gives me chills. It will be a daunting task….. How will all this “complexity” be managed and coordinated? What “algorithm” will be sophisticated enough to help us deal with it all? My belief and others is that this increasing complexity of a burgeoning human population will give rise to a super intelligent A.I. Not a matter of if, but when. The big question that comes with this, is how do we want it to occur and who to manage it. Do we want society to become an Orwellian/Kafkaesque Dystopia? Big brother always watching, judging, today’s freedoms severely curtailed? Or the filling out of forms, after forms, after forms, after forms, in order to just buy a car, get married, go on a simple vacation, or even just traveling across state lines? Is there a better way?

A.I. or more importantly,the people that control A.I. will have the ability to push society to change, but will it be in the right directions. To give us more freedoms, to give us better and/or cheaper housing, work, travel, food, medical care, security, energy, clean air/water, education, news, etc… and advances in technology that makes today’s tech seem like rubbing two sticks together to make fire. This is what Tegmark talks about in his new book with the hope that he can get people from all walks of life involved in the discussion of A.I. His belief is that this will be one of, if not the “Monumental” question of the 21st century. I have not totally finished reading it yet but from what I have read so far, I felt it was important to put a partial review out. I highly recommend the book.

Well I think that I am about done for this Blog post. I hope the last two weeks have been great for you dear reader. Remember your comments are always welcome. Take care and maybe I will see you out there on the trail or the ski slope. Adios amigos!!