TED Talk and PJW Comment

TED Talk and PJW Comment

TED talk of possible interest:

http://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_can_t_control_what_our_intelligent_machines_are_learning?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2016-10-22&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=talk_of_the_week_swipe

Comment I posted there:
Here is an interdisciplinary “moon-shot” suggestion that we should at least start talking about, now, before it is too late. Let’s massively collaborate to develop a very mission-specific AI system to help us figure out, using emerging genetic editing technologies (e.g., CRISPR, etc.), ideally how to tweak (most likely) species-typical genes currently constraining our capacities for prosociality, biophilia, and compassion, so that we can intentionally evolve into a sustainable species. This is something that natural selection, our past and current psycho-eugenicist, will never do (it cannot), and something that our current genetic endowment will never allow cultural processes / social engineering approaches to adequately transform us. Purposed-designed AI systems feeding off of growing databases of intra-genomic dynamics and gene-environment interactions could greatly speed our understanding of how to make these genetic adjustments to ourselves, the only hope for our survival, in a morally optimal (i.e., fewest mistakes due to unexpected gene-gene and gene-regulatory (exome) and epigenetic interactions; fewest onerous side-effects) as well as in a maximally effective and efficient way. Come together, teams of AI scientists and geneticists! We need to grab our collective pan-cultural intrapsychic fate away from the dark hands of natural selection, and AI can probably help. END

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

2 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Mark H

Learning to govern our own ‘evolution’ appears to be the only viable path to a future worth being part of. I look forward to viewing the video and discussing this further. Thanks for posting!

Mark H

Excellent talk. The current situation (likely to persist for years) is that we usually are blind to the inner logic of AI algorithms. She points to evidence of poor-performing algorithms’ outputs being used in highly consequential decision scenarios, including judicial sentencing. Even when they perform well, we don’t know why. (But we can, presumably, tell whether they work well–at least in many areas.) “Purposed-designed AI systems feeding off of growing databases … could greatly speed our understanding of how to make these genetic adjustments to ourselves, the only hope for our survival…” I agree human long-term survival in any state… Read more »

2
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x