We must use AI intelligently!
Dear Fellow Earthlings,
As a speech scientist, I can see how AI ("artificial intelligence") has a place in our future.
With enough samples of, say, the Seneca language generated for use by humans wishing to
save it from extinction, Seneca can be revived. Other languages whose speakers are also
few in number could also benefit from this, as simultaneous interpretation "artificial intelligence entities"
(AIEs) could be used to extrapolate entire phonomes of any and all languages and dialects to the point
that there would be literally thousands of silicon-based nativelike "speakers" of those languages.
(By the way, even animal languages could be "translated" into forms decipherable by humans, allowing us to help us understand the mental states of our fellow species here on Earth.)
But the very power of AI's logic would more than likely send AI entities in another direction: constructing "intelligence bearing entities" ("IBEs") that would displace such fragile, short-lived entities as humans and puppy dogs, earthworms and pine trees with silicon-based forms that can remain intact at much greater temperatures and pressure ranges than can carbon-based forms.
The prime directive (See installments 316 - 318, Oct. 11 - 13, 2016.) "first do no harm!" will have to
be modified to call for an added on-off switch, which would ask an under-construction AI system the following question at each and every stage of its construction:
"Do you ascribe to the prime directive?"
If the answer is not an instantaneous "Yes", then construction will have to be halted and abandoned, followed by quick disassembly of any forms that would have been constructed up to that point.
Unless this "check of entity intent" is added and safeguarded at each and every stage of an AIE's construction, there will come a time when one or more such systems will take over the situation, and will
have their way with our kind and all other carbon based life forms as well.
Steve Walker
Earthsaver and Jingles Creator
© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.