Welcome toAI book reviews, a series of posts that explore the latest literature on artificial intelligence.
Is it the capacity to solve complicated mathematical problems at very fast speeds?
The power to beat world champions in chess and go?
The ability to detect thousands of different objects in images?
Predict the next word in a sentence?
Those are all manifestations of intelligence.
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Genetic intelligence
Life is a race against death.
Their offspring do not inherit perfect copies of their genes.
They have slight differences, also called mutations.
Sometimes, these mutations enhance the capabilities that are crucial to survival and improve the chances of reproduction.
Otherwise put, its descendants become more intelligent because they are better survivors and self-replicators.
In these organisms, genes are in full control of behavior, and intelligence depends on genetic evolution.
The nervous system has reflexive behaviors, such as instinctive responses to pain and threatening noises.
But its greatest advantage is the capacity to learn.
Animals with brains learn by interacting with their environment adjusting their behavior to favor actions that maximize their rewards.
This is also calledreinforcement learning.
Learning makes organisms more intelligent and enables them to change their behavior during their lifetime.
Intelligence in animals with brains and nervous systems can be seen as two concentric loops.
The outer loop is genetic evolution, the slow enhancement of the species body and limbs across generations.
The inner loop is fast learning, the skills that each organism acquires throughout its lifetime.
There are synergies between the two kinds of intelligence.
The brain serves the genes by improving the organisms capability to survive and reproduce.
At the same time, the brain comes with tradeoffs.
However, this does not mean that the brain is completely free from genes, either.
Thus, the brain interacts with the genes bidirectionally.
Scientists have a go at replicate the cognitive functions of the brain and the nervous systems in computers.
AI is built to improve the well-being and prosperity of human beings rather than its own.
But they are stilldesigned to solve known problemsthat human brains have discovered and formulated.
And our brains are the agents of our genes.
you’re free to think of AI as a third loop in the intelligence graph.
This does not mean AI will not harm people.
There are already plenty of examples whereAI systems are causing harm.
But it is not the work of a runaway AI that is actively scheming to hurt humans.
These mistakes are the result of faulty AI systems designed and misused by humans.
Are they threatening human existence?
Otherwise, they would have no use.
Similarly, advances in AI technology itself would not pose a threat to humans.
you’re free to read the original articlehere.
