Bottlenecks of Super Intelligence
The Environment, The Body, and The Mind.
For centuries, forward thinkers have question what the rise of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) would mean for humanity. Theories range from AGI killing us all, to a utopia where AGI has solved all of our problems.
This post is addressed to those who possess almost crippling fear of AI. I hope this will give you a bit more peace of mind and maybe even get you excited about the bright future AI positions us to have!
It is unlikely AI will reach will increase its “intelligence” at a rate too fast to be controlled by humans. The rational lies in the fact that there are bottlenecks that limits the rate of intelligence growth in every being. The bottlenecks are the mind, the body, and the environment.
I will define each bottleneck to illuminate why each limit the rate at which AGI could cause catastrophe to the world. In particular, the body and the environment are significant limiting factors for intelligence growth in AI.
First lets talk about the mind and its limits on intelligence.
The Mind
The mind is what processes and stores information. In a human this is our brain, in AI this is its code and compute.
We humans are severely limited in our ability to process and store all of the information we receive.
AI is not. AI can store almost all of the information in the world. And with enough compute and enough time, it can process all of that information.
Because AI is not really limited by its “mind”, people fear AI will reach a certain level of intelligence that is unimaginable and will end up destroying humanity! But the mind is just 1 factor that determines intelligence.
The Environment
Now let’s turn our attention to the environment as a bottleneck. The environment is defined as all of the elements an agent can interact with or observe.
AI and humans can only learn about information it can sense in its environment. We are both limited in ability to be intelligent about what exactly exists in galaxies light-years away. The notion that AGI might develop a boundless level of intelligence neglects the reality of environmental boundaries.
The Body
The body is another limit that both AI and humans face to reaching higher levels of intelligence. The body is a generic term used to describe any sensory or motor component of an agent. In humans, our body senses with our eyes, ears, nose, skin and mouth, and moves with our neurons and muscles. Most AI systems currently are limited to sensing text and image data.
The body limits the level of intelligence that can be reached by an agent because 1) an agent can not learn about something that it cannot sense and 2) an agent can only demonstrate intelligence through skills its body allows for.
While there is a lot of damage that could be done through API calls and hacking, killing all of humanity is not one of them. We can develop and study AI before giving it a body that would be able to harm. We can develop AI safely and our current text based models are a great way to do this safely.
Concluding
The rise of more intelligent computers need not induce crippling fears of an apocalyptic future. While it’s true that the ‘mind’ of AI possesses extraordinary storage and processing capabilities, this does not equate to an uncontrolled explosion of intelligence due to the limits of the environment and the body.
Rather than fearing an uncontrollable AGI, we should focus on harnessing its potential, utilizing its capabilities to enhance our world. Intelligence, artificial or otherwise, is not a single-dimensional construct exponentially increasing, but rather it is a multi-faceted concept that is limited by the agent’s environment, body, and mind.
