[extropy-chat] A quick AGI question

[Robert Bradbury]

On 11/10/06, A B <austriaaugust at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> It seems to me that the human brain as a physical object, can and does
> produce intelligence and consciousness without what is commonly understood
> to be software. "Software" is just an invented human noun, typically used to
> describe computer code that may be recorded in any number of ways (eg. on a
> hard drive, within a program, or scribbled with crayon on a piece of paper).
> IOW, the algorithms that produce human intelligence seem to be supplied
> solely by the physical arrangement of the hardware of the brain. So my
> question is: Is the premise behind AGI (or really any software program, I
> suppose) that the active (running) software *pre-specifies* the physical
> arrangement of the hardware (eg. by specifying which transistors are active
> at what time) - and that this newly pre-specified hardware arrangement is
> what then "produces" the mind, moment by moment? IOW, isn't it ultimately
> the *hardware* that produces the mind, even though it is the software which
> is dictating the physical arrangement of the hardware, moment by moment?

Jeffrey, here is how I think of it.  The genome is hardware which
codes for the hardware that supports the mind (neurons) [1].  The
dozens, or maybe, more different types of neurons in the brains, some
have which have very specific functions (say the pituitary or
hypothalamus) can be thought of as hardware as well.  The fine
patterning of the axons and dendrites and neurotransmitter weightings
at the synapses can be thought of as firmware, similar to FPGAs.
These are extremely plastic in young babies and become increasingly
static as one learns (imprints) the patterns until one reaches
adulthood.  These patterns and weightings for at least some neurons or
some parts of the brain can change on the timescale of days to weeks
(in part on their own and in part due to neuronal stem cell additions
to the configuration).  The electrical network of neurons firing
(releasing neurotransmitters) changes on a millisecond by millisecond
basis and can be viewed as the "active state" of ones computer.  For
example, right now my computer is running Linux and its system
processes, Apache, Firefox, Epiphany, Nvu, RealPlayer, and a number of
xterms.  Now most people are unaware of these "processes" in their
mind.  One might consider them "subconscious" thoughts.

Now, what I would probably consider the "software" of the brain (the
programs) is written in the underlying hardware of the genome that
determines the fundamental layout of the neurons into specific
patterns and to communicate using specific neurotransmitters.  There
are a fundamental set of these that neuroscientists have and are
continue to work out (which is why neuroscience textbooks are so
large).  Ray Kurzweil briefly discusses some of this in Chapter 4 of
TSIN.  Nature evolved these programs to solve specific types of
problems (just as computer programs do) using as a basis the
fundamental computational hardware of the neuron. The programs like
"remember where the food sources are", "remember how to mate", "the
fight or flight response", etc. are probably hundreds of millions of
years old but have been varied somewhat in all species.

Now, GI "program", seems to be a relatively recent development,
probably driven by the expansion of the human brain and the need for
humans to adapt to a very large variety of environments.  William
Calvin discusses some aspects of this and I'm sure there are other
that people might recommend.

I gave my view of what GI might be.  Yours may be different.  I am
sure people have tried to prune general summaries of the current
literature for things like "intelligence", "AI", "mind", etc. in
Wikipedia with references to more extended sources.

Robert

1. It is worth noting that this neurons are complex bionanotechnology.
 One of the important differences between bionanotech and robust
molecular nanotechnology is that because most of it is operating in
water and diffusion is controlling a significant fraction of what
molecules go where (though cells do have active transport processes)
there is somewhat of a more random nature to bionanotechnology.  In
computer chips the tansistors are controlling location of electrons
and holes to a much finer level than the small molecules in cells are
controlled.