Reviews/recommendations of science books: Kevin Warwick

Kevin Warwick is a roboticist working at the University of Reading. 'In the Mind of the Machine' is well-informed and interesting when dealing with the practical aspects of robotics; when it comes to the philosophy and future of artificial intelligence, however, it is considerably weaker.

He occasionally shows an extreme ignorance of biology, operating on the basis of intuition rather than understanding. For example: "Do we use a lot of mathematics, numerous complex physical equations, in order to work out planned movements and gripping schedules? Well, I certainly don't!". This is patently untrue. If it were not for the fact that our brains perform such calculations, we could not survive, let along work out planned movements and gripping schedules. It is just that we are not aware of them - that is, unless we are coming to terms with a new motor skill, for example driving a car or learning to type.

Learning machines of the inorganic variety are still limited to very small numbers of 'neurons' (about 50-1000 at the time of writing); if too many are put in, the machine does not become more efficient, because the different types of information are filed and compartmentalized inefficiently (if at all), and these files therefore cannot interact in a productive way. We should not be surprised at this; in the evolutionary predecessors of humans, such inefficiency was usually punished with death. It was a little like a tennis tournament of brains, except the winners got to clone themselves, and all those fringe ATP players died. All the resultant Pete Samprases and Bjorn Borgs had tournaments, and the winners of these ended up better tennis players than Daddy Pete and Papa Bjorn. Generation after generation honed the workings of the brain; the brain 'modules' and their interactions were continually improved and streamlined.

I agree with him on the reasons why machines will become more intelligent than us:

I like the way he thinks about the closeness of the relationship between humans and technology:

The fact that some of our mental functions take place outside our body, and some inside, is largely just a question of geography. In a very real way, technology often makes us more mentally powerful by supplementing the sensory input to which we could naturally have access (i.e. through television, telephones etc.), our computational abilities (i.e. calculators), by reducing the amount of time we have to spend worrying about being taken by predators or frozen to death by the winter cold, and so on.

"The human race, as we know it, is very likely in its end game; our period of dominance on Earth is about to be terminated. We can try and reason and bargain with the machines which take over, but why should they listen when they are far more intelligent than we are? All we should expect is that we humans are treated by the machines in the same way that we now treat other animals, as slave workers, energy producers or curiosities in zoos. We must obey their wishes and live only to serve all our lives, what there is of them, under the control of machines."

Although I agree with Warwick that machines will eventually become vastly smarter than us, I think the above quote is rather flawed. Certainly, the human race will no longer persist as we know it; it will probably no longer be the dominant force. But to assume that they will subjugate us is to take guesswork a step too far. How can we know that a far more intelligent creature than humans will not take our welfare into account? Or that morality will not be either built into their brains, or simply an intrinsic part of high intelligence? Even humans, who are neither particularly intelligent nor outstandingly moral, often treat other species with a lot of respect; and these positive behaviours are on the increase. (Unfortunately, however, our destructive power is also on the increase; so the more technologically advanced we become, the more moral we need to be).

I have tried to work out how machines will treat us in the future. One observation I would make is that Warwick's 'slave worker' scenario is probably far-fetched. Creatures of such physical and manual ability should probably not need humans to carry out tasks for them. But in general, I found - and was correctly informed, mainly by Kenny Lynch - that my investigation was too much to take on. For now, I think we just can't know; even though I'm intuitively optimistic about it, there are too many ifs and maybes to make a convincing case. I feel pretty sure that their intelligence will vastly outstrip ours; but as for how they will act when they become the most powerful creatures in the world, I think it's just a matter of wait and see.

In spite of my qualms about some of Warwick's speculations, I found 'In the Mind of the Machine' to be an interesting and thought-provoking book.