AI: Simulating Humans or Synthetic Humans ?

The elephant in the room for me is not whether Artificial Intelligent machines or robots will be able to gain sentience, but when.

Since the first software we dared to call Artificially Intelligent, we've been talking about simulating human behavior and patterns.  In other words, we were able to copy human behavior using lines of code, algorithms, cameras and math.  

It was cute, it became practical and now these bits of code and even machines are integrated into our society either in very visible ways (computer opponents in games) or very subtle ways (predictive software for the stock market or Google's Search engine).

Fast forward to today's research and the tech industry's surge to develop more and more intelligent applications of our artificial intelligent expertise.  We are developing and commercializing artificial intelligence able to:

• Reliably detect human emotions
• Reliably detect conversation tone of voice
• Understand language and even translate it
• Learn from practice and get better at what they do over time
• Understand human patterns of behavior in order to sympathize or compete against humans.

Those sound like the patterns of intelligence of a growing and learning child to me.  Doesn't it?

In the video here, I talk a little bit more about this idea if you wish to go deeper:

In any case, seems to me that we are passed the theoretical science fiction idea of possibly machines eventually becoming our friends, partners and colleagues.  Once we are able to properly roll out artificial intelligence that is capable of interacting with humans on the emotional intelligence level, we can make some that people can get attached to.

How would you feel if your computer OS would understand speech of any major language, detect your emotional state, understand your posture and tone of voice, and even learn your patterns without having full information (imperfect information problem solving skills), and do as you ask taking all that into account faster than any human can?

That, my friends, is an aware, sensitive, high performance work colleague.... or the AI colleague 5 years from now.

When are we going to start thinking of AI more along the lines of Synthetic Humans (or Synthetic life) versus the current ideology of seeing them as Simulated Humans?  

If it looks like a duck, quack likes a duck, and is a better duck than an actual duck.... 

Artificial Intelligence replacing the worker

Will you be replaced at your work one day soon by artificially intelligent applications and automated devices?

This is not as easy a question as one would think.  In fact, it is the wrong question for the coming few years altogether.

What we should ask ourselves is:  "How will my basic needs be met (food, home etc...)?"  and "What should I occupy my time with in order to feel like I'm contributing to society? "

Here's the truth.  We're in a technological transition currently where most jobs in the transportation and commercial sectors (most jobs have been already replaced in the manufacturing sectors and it's not done yet) will be replaced now by A.I. and automated systems.

We're talking pretty much any service job from waiters to reception desk people, to clerks, to cashiers etc....  Cabbies, bus drivers, cam or subway operators, truck drivers of all kinds will also be replaced by robots guided by artificial intelligence.

The first major visible part of the transition will be massive with the worldwide self-driving car roll-out that is planned by all international car manufacturers by 2020.  This will be the first time the people will actually see this transition.

Here is my short video talk about it all:

It will only accelerate after people start panicking.

They will panic because some people will realize that if cars can drive themselves on the street safely, why can't people get served by intelligent assistants such as more advanced versions of Google Assistant, Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana, Apple's Siri or IBM's Watson.

On top of the self-driving cars soon, several companies including Amazon, Just Eat, Drone Deliveries Canada and others were automating deliveries from distribution center to individual homes experimentally in 2016.  No more pizza delivery boy to your door!

Since 70% of all jobs fall into the commercial and transportation buckets these days, how can the economy support all the people.  People need to eat, drink, and stay somewhere after all... and it is our salaries that allow us to pay for stuff produced by the A.I. in the first place.

It is a catch 22.  A.I. replaces workers to make goods & services.  Workers don't get paid so can't buy goods & services.  A.I. goes out of work????

This path leads to a paradigm shift where we'll need to figure out a way where everyone needn't worry about feeding themselves or where they will sleep and at the same time have a way to acquire or make whatever widget they need to do anything.

Now I know what most of you are thinking:  we've been at this juncture before.   New tech always creates new jobs for people to do so the economy is fine the way it is.

Well, not this time for a very simple reason:  the technology, A.I., in itself is designed to be a replacement for work.  We're not creating robots to replace workers at the car manufacturing plant here (which incidentally created lots of jobs in the computers, robotics and automation fields back then).  Heck, the A.I. we'll create will eventually be better than us at creating the next generation of A.I. and so on.

In a world where A.I. and robots do most of the work, humans would be free to do whatever they choose to create value for themselves in the world since money changes in meaning.  Artificial intelligence will be able to run the world and keep us doing what we do best and prefer:  follow our passions, whatever that may be.

I'm leaving the ramifications of all that for my upcoming book but in a nutshell, you can check out the concept of Paradism to think more about it all.

Right now, we have multiple A.I. that are even able to do art and of course the sex industry, looking for more money in the robotics and A.I. space, are making a go at it as well.  We even have done great work with A.I. in order to ensure computers of tomorrow will understand emotions.

Be ready to choose your new occupation soon 'cause it won't be a job.  When?  Well, as soon as most basic infrastructure for food and housing will be automated, it'll be fairly easy then to transition from worker to Human.  The technology to do exactly that is here TODAY.  It's only a question of time for the systems to be put in place in enough businesses for it all to be felt.

Give it a few years.....