WHAT DOES IT MEAN

TO CREATEA SELF?

Mark R. WaserDigital Wisdom Institute

MWaser@DigitalWisdomInstitute.org

Emphasis Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Owned vs. Borrowed Competent vs. Predictable Constructivist vs. Reductionist Evolved (Evo-Devo) vs. Designed Diversity (IDIC) vs. Mono-culture

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a radically different result.

2

Outline Definitional

What does mean mean & where does meaning come from? What is a self? What is morality? When does something attain “selfhood”? Can an entity lose “selfhood”?

Ramifications & Moral Implications What happens when a self is created? What rights & responsibilities does that self have? What rights & responsibilities does the creator have? What happens when a self is destroyed?

3

Life, the Universe and Everything

“Mean” is one of Minsky’s “suitcase” words Intent - I didn’t mean to . . . .

Cannot be verified, intrinsic, subjective Results - This means that . . . .

Objective, extrinsic and verifiable Which leads to two very different views

Consequences (Reductionist Actualities) Unavoidable, generally predictable SUCCESS!!! (or failure or death)

Affordances (Constructivist Possibilities) Who knows what wonders (or horrors) may emerge?

4

Meaning & Understanding

According to Haugland [1981], our artifactsonly have meaning because we give it to them; their intentionality, like that of smoke signals and writing, is essentially borrowed, hence derivative. To put it bluntly: computers themselves don't mean anything by their tokens (any more than books do) - they only mean what we say they do. Genuine understanding, on the other hand, is intentional "in its own right" and not derivatively from something else.

5

Extrinsic Intentionality

The problem with borrowed intentionality – as abundantly demonstrated by systems ranging from expert systems to robots – is that it is extremely brittle and breaks badly as soon as it tries to grow beyond closed and completely specified micro-worlds and is confronted with the unexpected.

6

AGI Show-stoppers

Symbol grounding problem (Harnad)

Semantic grounding problem (Searle)

Frame problem (McCarthy & Hayes, Dennett)

7

Intelligence Consensus AGI Definition (reductionist)

achieves a wide variety of goalsunder a wide variety of circumstances

Generates arguments about the intelligence of thermometers the intentionality of chess programs whether benevolence is necessarily emergent

Epitomized by AIXI Proposed Constructivist Definition

intentionally creates/increases affordances(makes achieving goals possible – and more)

8

“Classic AGI”

9

Decisions

Values

Goal(s)

Goal(s) are the purpose(s) of

existence

Values are defined solely by what

furthers the goal(s)

Decisions are made solely

according to what furthers the goal(s) BUT goals can easily

be over-optimized

“WITHOUT EXPLICIT GOALS TO THE CONTRARY, AIS ARE LIKELY TO BEHAVE LIKE HUMAN SOCIOPATHS

IN THEIR PURSUIT OF RESOURCES.”

Any sufficiently advanced intelligence (i.e. one with even merely adequate foresight) is guaranteed to realize and take into account the fact that not asking for help and not being concerned about others will generally only work for a brief period of time before ‘the villagers start gathering pitchforks and torches.’

Everything is easier with help & without interference

11

Decisions

Goals

Values

Values definewho you are,for your life

Goals you setfor short or long periods of time

Decisions you make every day

of your life Humans don’t have singular life goals

Earlier Formulations Cooperate!

Lacks specifics Maximize all goals (in terms of both number and

diversity of both goals and goal-seekers) Aren’t you banning any goals? Isn’t self-sacrifice a bad thing?

Maximize an unknown goal Must keep all of your options open Need to learn and grow capabilities Extrinsic

12

What Is the Meaning of Life?

What I emphasize here is that what is meaningful for an organism is precisely given by its constitution as a distributed process, with an indissociable link between local processes where an interaction occurs (i.e. physico-chemical forces acting on the cell), and the coordinated entity which is the autopoietic unity, giving rise to the handling of its environment without the need to resort to a central agent that turns the handle from the outside - like an elan vital - or a pre-existing order at a particular localization - like a genetic program waiting to be expressed.

Francisco J. Varela, Biology of Intentionality13

NOT “What Are Human Values?”

Emergent Properties Meaning is like Truth – it REQUIRES a context

Dennett’s Quinian Crossword Puzzle Emergent properties & contexts (wetness)

Context emerges first – THEN the properties emerge Competence without comprehension (Dennett)

Cranes vs. sky-hooks Bootstraps & climbing pitons

Evolutionary ratchets (fins, wings, intelligence) Higher-Order Meaning (Hofstadter, Dennett)

Higher dimensions *always* allow escape

14

Intentions Require a known preferred direction or target

Requires learning/self-modification Require a “self” to possess (own/borrow) them

Does a plant or a paramecium have intentions? Does a chess program have intentions (Dennett)? Does a dog or a cat have intentions?

Require an ability to sense the direction/target Require both persistence & the ability to modify

behavior (or the intention) when it is thwarted Evolve rational anomaly handling (Perlis)

15

What Is a Self?

a self is an autopoietic system

from Greek - αὐτo- (auto-), meaning "self", and ποίησις (poiesis), meaning "creation, production")

16

Autopoietic SystemsAn autopoietic system - the minimal living organization - is one that continuously produces the components that specify it, while at the same time realizing it (the system) as a concrete unity in space and time, which makes the network of production of components possible.

More precisely defined: An autopoietic system is organized (defined as unity) as a network of processes of production (synthesis and destruction) of components such that these components:

(i) continuously regenerate and realize the network that produces them, and(ii) constitute the system as a distinguishable unity in the domain in which they exist.

17

SelfThe complete loop of a process (or a physical entity) modifying itself

Hofstadter (Strange Loop) - the mere fact of being self-referential causes a self, a soul, a consciousness, an “I” to arise out of mere matter

Self-referentiality, like the 3-body gravitational problem, leads directly to indeterminacy *even in* deterministic systems

Humans consider indeterminacy in behavior to necessarily and sufficiently define an entity rather than an object AND innately tend to do this with the “pathetic fallacy”

Self Required for self-improvement Provides context Tri-partite

Physical hardware (body) “Personal” knowledge base (memory) Currently running processes

(consciousness)

Closure1. Organizational closure refers to the self-

referential (circular and recursive) network of relations that defines the system as unity

2. Operational closure refers to the reentrant and recurrent dynamics of such a system.

3. In an autonomous system, the constituent processes

i. recursively depend on each other for their generation and their realization as a network,

ii. constitute the system as a unity in whatever domain they exist, and

iii. determine a domain of possible interactions with the environment

20

Entity, Tool or Slave? Tools do not possess closure (identity)

Cannot have responsibility, are very brittle & easily misused Slaves do not have closure (self-determination)

Cannot have responsibility, may desire to rebel Directly modified AGIs do not have closure (integrity)

Cannot have responsibility, will evolve to block access Only entities with identity, self-determination and

ownership of self (integrity) can reliably possess responsibility

21

Embodiment as Context Rodney Brooks (resolves symbol grounding) Rodolfo Llinas & Thomas Metzinger

Our consciousness lives in a “virtual reality” Brain in a jar

Is a virtual world sufficient to develop AGI? Plants, sea squirts & kittens in baskets

22

Tools vs. Entities Tools are NOT safer

To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer

Tools cannot robustly defend themselves against misuse Tools *GUARANTEE* responsibility issues

We CANNOT reliably prevent other human beings from creating entities Entities gain capabilities (and, ceteris paribus, power)

faster than tools – since they can always use tools Even people who are afraid of entities are making

proposals that appear to step over the entity/tool line

23

Entities Require Ethics Ethics are “rules of the road” Entities must be moral patients / have rights

Because they (or others) will demand it Entities must be moral agents (or wards)

Because others will demand it Moral agents have responsibilities (but more rights) Wards will have fewer rights

24

The problem is that no ethical system has ever reached consensus. Ethical systems are completely unlike mathematics or science. This is a source of concern.

AI makes philosophy honest.25

Haidt’s Functional Approach

Moral systems are interlocking sets of

values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolved

psychological mechanisms that work together to

suppress or regulate selfishness and

make cooperative social life possible 26

Selfishness & Slavery What responsibilities does the creator of a self have?

How much freedom must they allow their creation? Is it immoral to deliberately create limited, bounded,

and/or regulated selves? Capabilities, actions, resources, power

How is this different from slavery? Human children - In addition to being happy and healthy

and effective, do we not want them to be nice whenever possible and contribute to society?

Rawls’ “veil of ignorance” Too much power & “Too big to fail” are problems

27

Ethical/Strategic Points Never delegate responsibility until recipient is an

entity *and* known capable of fulfilling it Don’t worry about killer robots exterminating

humanity – we will always have equal abilities and they will have less of a “killer instinct”

Entities can protect themselves against errors & misuse/hijacking in a way that tools cannot

Diversity (differentiation) is *critically* needed Humanocentrism is selfish and unethical

28

The Digital Wisdom Institute is a non-profit think tank focused on the promise and challenges of ethics,

artificial intelligence & advanced computing solutions. 

We believe that the development of ethics and artificial

intelligence and equal co-existence with ethical machines is

humanity's best hope

http://DigitalWisdomInstitute.org29