Photo credit: Corridor Digital
Technological singularity basically refers to a point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization, with the most popular version of this being an AI agent that eventually enters a “runaway reaction” of self-improvement cycles. This means that each new and more intelligent generation appears more rapidly, resulting in a powerful superintelligence that qualitatively far surpasses all human intelligence.
Rui Wang, an AI researcher at Uber, helped develop POET (Paired Open-Ended Trailblazer), or a piece of software that trains virtual bots. In other words, they are trying to navigate a crude cartoon landscape of fences and ravines without falling over. This software generates obstacle courses, assesses the bots’ abilities, and assigns their next challenge, all without requiring human input. The bots improve through trial and error at a brisk pace.
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There’s probably a vast number of different ways to be very intelligent. One of the things that excite me about AI is that we might come to understand intelligence more generally, by seeing what variation is possible. I think that’s fascinating. I mean, it’s almost like inventing interstellar travel and being able to go visit alien cultures. There would be no greater moment in the history of humankind than encountering an alien race and learning about its culture, its science, everything. Interstellar travel is exceedingly difficult, but we have the ability to potentially create alien intelligences digitally,” said Jeff Clune, a researcher at DeepMind in London.
