Recently, I have seen almost every CEO of major tech company talk about building Artificial Intelligence. Somehow bright minds of Silicon Valley are confusing Machine Learning, Al and consciousness.
Let’s First Define these three states of a system
Machine learning can be defined as a field of study that gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed. Machine learning explores the study and construction of algorithms that can learn from and make predictions on a specific data set. Such algorithms operate by building a model from example inputs in order to make data-driven predictions or decisions, rather than following strictly static program instructions.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence exhibited by machines. In computer science, an ideal “intelligent” machine is a flexible rational agent that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal. Colloquially, the term “artificial intelligence” is applied when a machine mimics “cognitive” functions that humans associate with other human minds, such as “learning” and “problem solving”
Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness, or, of being aware of an external object or something within oneself. It has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind.
So I just wrote this “Chocolate Paradox” to explain the situation. If I am eating chocolate in front of a machine. Would a machine feel the same urge and desire to consume Chocolate as well on his own without any code modification? If yes would that entity be a machine anymore? If No, then this is neither Artificial Intelligence Nor Artificial Consciousness but a complex version of IF This Then That set of conditions. Is desire, character and courage programmable?
Machine Learning or Natural Learning is a by-product of Artificial Intelligence or Natural Intelligence which is a by-product of Consciousness. Consciousness is the reason why Intelligence of any kind would want (want is a desire) to Learn something in the first place so till we figure out what Consciousness actually is, even the most complex set of instructions can never be truly intelligent. Today machines are good at execution in familiar and known environments through continuous loops of code but nothing more. If you put them in new environments there is no capacity to self-adjust or adapt or learn till a human tweaks the code and the dataset to deal with that particular scenario. Most self-driving cars today stop functioning in case of a scenario which has not been dealt by the system before. Same goes for Machine powered health diagnosis.
Computer Scientists have mastered the art of writing routines and executing them at mind-boggling speeds but we still need to get our machines to a level where they can modify their own code and data as per prevailing circumstances. Studying the Concept of “Neuroplasticity” in humans is the key for success in this field.
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