AI has become a common word in our daily lives. We could hear it in any place; we see it in different papers; and we also benefit a lot from it through various approaches. However, how much do we really know about AI? In fact, the word has become so familiar that we seldom take real notice of it. Today I am going to introduce to you some real knowledge about AI. Of course, these knowledge does not come from me: Since I am both lazy and in capable of forming my own views due to lack of knowledge, I copied them from one article YuSi shared to us last time. The title of this article is AI Revolution 101.
In the article the author uses a phrase "exponential growth " to describe the rapid development of AI. To prove this, he gives us a story: Imagine we have received a time machine and been given a quest to bring somebody from the past and to surprise him with the technological and cultural advancements of our time. All we need is to go back around 200 years, getting to the early 1800s and bring a guy back to 2016. I am sure he will be surprised by the shiny capsules racing by on a highway, and etc. Now , this guy wants to try the same thing. Certainly, if we just jump back another 200 years, which is the 1600s, that would be clearly not enough. We need to go somewhere further in order to make a real surprise. Here, the author explains: " this happens because more advanced societies have the ability to progress at a faster rate than less advanced societies ". Then he continues : logic also suggests that if the most advanced species on a planet keeps making larger and larger leaps forward at an even faster rate, at some point, they will make a leap so great that it completely alters life as they know it and the perception they have of what it means to be a human. Kind of like how evolution kept making great leaps toward intelligence until finally it made such a great leap to the human being that it completely altered what it meant for any creature to live on planet earth.
Then, how far we are still to that point? I mean the point that we are going to make a leap so great that it completely alters life as we know it and the perception we have of what it means to be a human. To answer this question, we need to know some definitions regarding AI. The development of AI was generally divided into three levels: ANI, AGI and ASI.
ANI : 1st intelligence caliber: AI that specializes in one area. There's AI that can beat the world chess champion in chess, but that's the only thing it can do. It is only a program written by people like engineer Guo. So this is ANI.
AGI : 2nd intelligence level: AI reaches and then passes the intelligence level of a human, meaning it has the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience.
ASI: 3rd intelligence level: AI that achieves a level of intelligence smarter than all of humanity combined.
So where are we currently? It is said that as of now, humans have conquered the lowest level of AI, which is ANI, in many ways. And the author is also optimistic about humans reaching another level of AI. That is AGI. He even conceived some ideas regarding how to make it happen. However, personally, with my very limited knowledge, i think it still remains as a question that whether we can accomplish it. By that time, probably we have to redefine the word "we". Because it may not means only humans but also robot that have the same leval of human intelligence. And it's far beyond this. To create something that just like humans also involves a fundamental philosophical question that whether humans can fully recognize oneself. It is a question that has been reflected and argued by so many years, yet still unsolved. However, there is one thing that most of you will agree that is human society is moving forward. And I truely hope that AI will be a blessing to our human beings.
