Introduction
The role of robots and cyber technologies can not be overestimated. The fact is that they have become an integral part of technological progress and the development of technologies in numerous spheres of everyday life. Originally, robots are used for several key aims. The most important is the automation of the repeating process, to liberate human power, and avoid mistakes and delays in the processes. As for the role of cyber technologies in society, it should be stated that we come across robots every day. We buy coffee and sweets in vending machines, we fuel our vehicles in automatic fuel stations, use ATMs. Robots are used in the medical sphere: they control health conditions, regulate medicine consumption, and perform various analyses. Robots are used for entertainment: they play music, control the lights, play soccer, climb walls, dance, etc. The issues of Artificial intelligence entail such factors as history, philosophy of the cyber mind, ethical considerations, and others.
Overview
The issues of artificial intelligence and cyber life have been capturing the imagination of humanity since ancient times. Originally, people were aiming to create assistants, which would perform the hard, dirty, and dangerous work. The very definition of artificial intelligence presupposes the assessment of the environment and performing the sequence of actions, that would maximize the likelihood of success. Thus, it should be able to analyze the environment, generate the suitable idea, and perform it. For these principles to come true in cyber engineering, the scientists should solve the key assignment of the intelligence: the mechanism should be capable for self-development. Thus, the scientists are challenging the enigma of the entire universe.
As for the future of the artificial intelligence, and the matters, which have been described in science fiction novels, it should be emphasized that AI in general is neither negative nor positive. In general, it depends on the aims and purposes, which are pursued by the creation of the AI, and cyber life. Another issue, is whether the humanity will treat the self developing machine positively or negatively. On the one hand, negative treatment will make it hostile towards humanity, on the other hand, machine can not be treated equally with other people. Moreover, they are created as servants, and assistants, who will be able to sacrifice their cyber lives for humans, consequently, the rules of AI, which were formulated by Isaac Asimov will be an important principle, which the cyber self-development should be based upon:
- A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. (In Danielson, 2005)
History of Artificial Intelligence
The first witnesses of the artificial intelligence and cyber inventions were found in Ancient Greece, where the first simple robots, with essentially restricted opportunities were created. The fact is that, the existence of an obedient and powerful assistant have always captured the imagination of dreamers. Thus, in mythology gods had such assistants, who were the exact biological copies of humans, nevertheless, they were featured with extra opportunities, immense power and wit mind. Nevertheless, the real attempts to create an AI were not so successful. As it is emphasized in O’Leary and O’Leary (2008, p. 496):
Mechanical or “formal” reasoning has been developed by philosophers and mathematicians since antiquity. The study of logic led directly to the invention of the programmable digital electronic computer, based on the work of mathematician Alan Turing and others. Turing’s theory of computation suggested that a machine, by shuffling symbols as simple as “0” and “1”, could simulate any conceivable act of mathematical deduction. This, along with recent discoveries in neurology, information theory and cybernetics, inspired a small group of researchers to begin to seriously consider the possibility of building an electronic brain.
In the light of this statement, it should be claimed that the concept of an electronic brain was regarded by numerous researchers, and the main principle of all the researches was based on the binary calculation system. Nevertheless, as it is stated by Lyon (2007) some researchers believe that this system is too primitive for being the basis of AI, and the entire logic of finding “truth” or “false” values is primitive, and higher logical considerations has not been achieved by our civilization yet.
The most interesting and important period of the history in the sphere of artificial intelligence is the XX century. The development of computer technologies and appearance of the programming languages have made the achievement of the artificial intelligence heights more reachable. Electronics and cybernetics have become another effective tool for creating the artificial intelligence, and robots became able to perform simple operations, calculations, and analysis of the input data. Thus as it is stated in Brahm and Driscoll (2005, p. 67) “in 1952-1962 Arthur Samuel (IBM) created the first game-playing software, for checkers, to achieve sufficient skill to challenge a world champion. Samuel’s machine learning programs were responsible for the high performance of the checkers player”. This was the essential and very important step forward, nevertheless, the new challenge appeared: the universal artificial intelligence required the universal software, with distinctly defined algorithms of analyzing the surrounding information, the algorithms and principles of selecting the required information, flows of processing, storing and deriving the required information. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that this is only one side of the coin, as the computational powers and data storage devices were far from the required characteristics.
Nowadays, the artificial intelligence is still developing, and robots can define the voice tones, catch the mimics of the collocutors, gather data in accordance to numerous parameters, collect the required information, store it, and derive in the case of necessity. Nevertheless, the self-studying machines are still within the sphere of science fiction, and, as it was emphasized by Geyer and Van Der Zouwen (2001, p. 156), the further development of AI, will require the development of biotechnologies, instead of electronics.
Philosophy of AI
Originally, this part of the paper may be regarded as the continuation of the historical part, as philosophy of the artificial intelligence has been developing for centuries. Philosophy of the artificial intelligence is the inevitable part of technical aspect of development, as the synthesis of philosophical approaches and technical development of the cybernetics will be able to originate the appearance of the universal machine, involving all the required aspects of moral, technical, and mental development. Thus, philosophy is aiming to find the replies for the questions, entailing, what capabilities of human mind the machine should be characterized with, what are the limits of machine intelligence, what are essential and unbreakable differences between human and machine intelligence, and lots of others. Originally, numerous thinkers have tried to find the answers, and the key concepts of machine intelligence are evaluated from the position of human mind development. The key philosophical concept, by Crosson (2007, p. 45), is the Turing’s ‘polite convention’. By it, the machine is not able to act as politely as a human, and the behavior of any machine may be evaluated only by the technical capabilities of the machine. Additionally, the Dartmouth proposal exists, which is aimed to claim that every aspect of learning, or any other aspect, which features intelligence, may be achieved by machines and simulated, if described in details. Thus, the polite behavior may be taught. In the light of this statement Searle’s strong AI hypothesis should be emphasized:
The appropriately programmed computer with the right inputs and outputs would thereby have a mind in the same sense human beings have minds.” Searle counters this assertion with his Chinese room argument, which asks us to look inside the computer and try to find where the “mind” might be. (Crosson, 2007, p. 187)
Additionally to this concept, the artificial brain argument should be emphasized. Originally, it is stated that human brain can be simulated. By the statement by Crosson (2007, p. 79), the contents of the brain may be copied directly into the hardware storage, thus, all the information, experience and analysis algorithms will be available to any machine. Thus, the behavior of the cyber organisms will be identical to human behavior, they will be able to learn, to study, to feel, to analyze, to interpret, and experience all the emotions like humans.
On the one hand, all these philosophical concepts are quite real (from the perspective of philosophical concepts of human behavior, and the attitude towards artificial intelligence) and correct, on the other hand, they are barely achievable practically, as the real values of the human life and the human mind is the individuality. Everyone is individual, and if some particular human features are attributable to machines, these will be the cyber clones of the humanity. The ethical aspects of these values will be discussed in the following chapter, nevertheless, it should be emphasized that the opportunity of creating an artificial intelligence requires the deeper and wider development of the logical elements, computational powers, storage volumes and data collection equipment. The attribution of the human features is the thing of the further step of technological development.
Ethical Issues
The ethics of cloning, described in the previous part, is close to unauthorized access to human memory and manipulation with the human mind, which is unethical. Anyway, the creation of the artificial intelligence will be ethical only if it is used for making good, but not for the military aims, or for making harm to people. Considering the aspects of creating AI from the perspective of humanity of the machines, it should be stated that independently on the capabilities and skills of the machines and robots, humanity will never regard them as the full fledged neighbors on the planet. Thus, if AI will be identical to human minds, racial war is inevitable.
On the other hand, if robots with AI will be created for the particular aim, they will be professionals in any particular sphere, thus, there will be no place for humanity on the planet. People will inevitably degrade as a civilization, as they will not be required to think, analyze, evaluate, etc., as these tasks will be performed by robots. Another variant of history development is the realization by robots that humans are the weak creations, and the world can exist without humanity. Thus, too self-assured humanity will be destroyed by those, who were aimed to help.
Nevertheless, considering the realities of cyber science, robots and intelligent mechanisms are created with the only aim to help.
Robots in Society. Pros and Cons of Artificial Intelligence
“Then you don’t remember a world without robots. To you, a robot is a robot. Gears and metal; electricity and positrons. Mind and iron! Human-made! If necessary, human-destroyed! But you haven’t worked with them, so you don’t know them. They’re a cleaner better breed than we are.” (From I, Robot by Isaac Asimov). Originally, this abstract may be the prologue for the discussion, whether robots should have their place in the human society. On the one hand, robot are the obedient servants, which perform the tasks, provided by people. They are working instead of humans, performing tasks which can not be performed by people. On the other hand, people are aiming to expand the variety of tasks, performed by robots, and try to develop the more complicated intelligence, for robots could think, collect and analyze the received information. The top of AI development will be the self developing machine, nevertheless, the consequences of such progress are unpredictable. This machine may either become mighty partner of the humanity, or the mighty enemy, which will not tolerate the presence of humanity on this planet. Despite the fact, that this moment is far, and the Artificial Intelligence has not reached even the basic levels of self development, the developers should think over the moral and ethic issues of the artificial intelligence development.
Conclusion
Finally, it should be emphasized that the role of the robots in the human society is clear. Originally, these are the obedient servants of the human civilization, and they are friendly partners of people, as they perform works, which may be dangerous, or even impossible for people. Nevertheless, the important aspect of cyber technologies development – the Artificial Intelligence should be thoroughly discussed by the developers, as the machine revolt themes have been raised in science fiction, and servants often appeared the mighty enemies, which aimed to destroy the humanity and the entire civilization.
Nevertheless, by the reality of cybernetics, robots are created as the assistants, which can sacrifice their electronic lives for the sake of human safety. Robots can maintain life, controlling and regulating life important processes, take the place of a lost extremities, etc.
Reference
Brahm, G. & Driscoll, M. (Eds.). (2005). Prosthetic Territories: Politics and Hypertechnologies. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Crosson, F. J. & Sayre, K. M. (Eds.). (2007). Philosophy and Cybernetics: Essays Delivered to the Philosophic Institute for Artificial Intelligence at the University of Notre Dame. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Danielson, P. (2005). Artificial Morality: Virtuous Robots for Virtual Games. New York: Routledge.
Geyer, F. & Van Der Zouwen, J. (Eds.). (2001). Sociocybernetics: Complexity, Autopoiesis, and Observation of Social Systems. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
O’Leary T., J. & O’Leary L., I.,(2008). Computing Essentials. McGraw-Hill.
Lyon, D. (2007). The Silicon Society. Grand Rapids, MI: Lion.