Technology research group Nakano’s chief analyst, Andrew Sheehy, is part of a movement to increase the business community’s understanding of what artificial intelligence (AI) is and what positives can come out of utilising AI in business. In this opinion article, he takes it a step further: superintelligence. >>  

GIVEN that the field of machine intelligence, or artificial intelligence (AI) is still clouded by controversy, then it might seem a little premature to say that ‘superintelligence’ is inevitable.

After all, many people would argue that we still do not know what human intelligence or artificial intelligence really are.

The approach I’m going to use here is to bypass completely the conventional arguments about machine intelligence and try to think about the subject in an unconventional way.

The starting point is an assumption that machine intelligence exists. The strength of the machine intelligence could be extremely weak and it could also be very limited but at this stage all we need to do is to accept that advanced AI systems like IBM Watson, or AplhaGo do indeed demonstrate at least some level of genuine intelligence.

But the moment we assume that AI systems like Watson and AlphGo exhibit some level of intelligence then we should immediately ask where that intelligence comes from?

An AI system can be divided into two parts: hardware and software.

The hardware is easiest to understand. Even the most complex computer system is untimely just a collection of semiconductors, circuit boards, passive components, plastics and metal.

It would be very hard to argue that the computer hardware itself possesses any intrinsic intelligence:

We could say that the hardware is intelligent in a way because it is the result of collective human intelligence – which was needed to conceive the design and figure out how to convert the input raw materials into the finished computer. And so if we added up all of the intelligences needed to produce the finished computer then the hardware could be said to embody that intelligence.

The problem with this is that the computer hardware, by itself, does not actually do anything, and nor can it do anything. If it cannot do anything by itself then it cannot exhibit any behaviour which we might deem ‘intelligent’.

In essence, the hardware is like a person the moment after death: intelligence was present, but it no longer is.

Hence, computer hardware as we presently understand it cannot possess intelligence.

The very most we can say about the hardware is that it is the physical environment where machine intelligence can reveal its presence.

The other part of the computer is of course the software.  But first, what exactly is ‘software’?

If this seems like a silly question then consider the following definitions:

• Software is the part of the computer that is not physical.
• Software refers to the programs and data used by a computer.
• Software is encoded information and computer instructions.

But while all of these seem to be reasonable definitions, none clearly define what the software actually is.

Let’s think about this a bit more carefully.

Programmers spend their time creating software which looks like:

  function __construct($settings) {

    $this->host = $settings['host'];

    $this->db   = $settings['db'];

    $this->user = $settings['user'];

    $this->pass = $settings['pass'];

    $this->charset = $settings['charset'];

    $this->connect();

  }

  function connect() {

    try {

      // connect to database

      $this->dsn = "mysql:host=$this->host;dbname=$this->db;charset=$this->charset";

      $opt = [

          PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE  => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION,

          PDO::ATTR_DEFAULT_FETCH_MODE => PDO::FETCH_ASSOC,

          PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES   => false,

      ];

      $this->conn = new PDO($this->dsn, $this->user, $this->pass, $opt);

      $this->status = true;

    } catch (Exception $e) {

      print "Cannot connect to database, error was: ".$e->getMessage();

    }

  }

=========================================

But if we think about this carefully then it becomes clear that these are simply two examples of the many ways in which the software can be represented in our physical reality.

Now I know what you’re thinking, which is that the actual software resides in the memory of the computer where it ultimately exists as a series of electronic charges, comprising electrons, that sit on the gates of millions of transistors.

But this isn’t right either.

What happens when we copy the ‘software’ from one computer to another and run the software on the second computer? At first it seems we now have two copies of the software, but do we really have two copies of the software, or merely two physical representations of the same software?

After all, given that the copy of the ‘software’ exists inside the memory of the second computer (which could be in a different country) then it must be represented by a different set of electrons.

Because none of the electrons that represented the original version of the software form part of the copy (the original electrons are still on the original computer) we can be sure that whatever the software really is, it has nothing to do with electrons.

There’s more...

Even when the software is executed on the original computer the electrons that represent a given instruction in the computer’s memory are not the same ones that are used to represent the software when that instruction is executed in the microprocessor.

Again, we see that the software is different to how it is represented.

So what, exactly, is software?

The answer is that software does not exist – at all:

Software is simply a human intellectual construct, just like mathematics.

Software can only be represented in our physical reality, say by projecting something on a computer screen, printing characters on a paper page, storing a set of electronic charges in a memory chip. Or even as oranges arranged in a particular way in a park.

This rather abstract finding is important for the following reason:

If software is just a human intellectual construct then this means that machine intelligence must be a derivative of human intelligence.

Machine intelligence is where human intellect is repurposed in a way that allows it to exist within a computer, rather than a biological brain.

By necessity, machine intelligence must be very different to human intelligence:

• we are representing it using an imperfect intellectual construct (software)
• we are enhancing certain aspects (by taking advantage of the computer’s ability to process large volumes of data)
• we are ignoring certain aspects completely (like emotion etc.)
• we are then constraining it further by it by realising it in the form of multiple, wholly independent intelligence domains (different AI systems operate within their own closed domains)
• we are further restricting it by not providing any meaningful ability to interact with the surrounding environment

There is no way that machine intelligence is remotely like human intelligence in nature – even though it is derived from it, and – in a very restricted sense– can exhibit a degree of autonomous action or ‘free will’.

But, nevertheless, the nature of the intelligence we are creating in machines – while very different to ours – is absolutely as real as ours.

What is currently happening in the field of AI is that scientists and engineers are working with experts that have deep domain knowledge to aggregate, magnify and then commoditise their collective intelligence.

Because of the intellectual complexity of this task things are proceeding slowly on a domain-by-domain basis, but the end point is clear:

AI systems will eventually have been developed for all human intellectual domains.

We can easily imagine that these systems will be connected together into a network – rather like the internet – but where questions and answers will be relayed between the nodes, instead of data packets.

The resulting level of collective machine intelligence will be greater than the collective human intelligence that was required to build the network. This will be because the intellect of each ‘AI node’ will already be supra-human while network effects will mean that the collective intelligence of the whole network will be exponentially greater than the sum of the individual intelligences.

Even if some aspects of human intelligence – such as emotion, worry and irony, or even sentience as we understand it - remain absent from the ‘AI web’ then the resulting structure will still be extremely powerful, or ‘superintelligent’.

As soon as we realise that machine intelligence is simply a derivative, superior form of human intelligence then the inevitability of superintelligence is clear, even if the timescales and implications are not.

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TWO new research initiatives are designed to assist Australian researchers to collaborate with the oil and gas industry to help strengthen Australia’s competitive advantages in the sector.

The ARC Research Hub for Offshore Floating Facilities and the ARC Training Centre for Liquefied Natural Gas Futures were recently launched at the University of Western Australia. 

The Hub and Centre have been provided with $4.9 million and $4.5m respectively in ARC funding under the Australian Research Council’s Industrial Transformation Research Programme.

ARC chief executive officer, Aidan Byrne, said the interrelated Hub and Centre, both based at the University of Western Australia, would drive stronger innovation in Australia’s energy sector.

Professor Byrne said industry-research partnerships would focus on strategic technologies specifically relating to floating offshore developments and liquefied natural gas (LNG) production.

“The ARC Research Hub for Offshore Floating Facilities will tackle critical engineering challenges for offshore oil and gas projects in remote deep water locations by creating improved designs and operating procedures, leveraging Australia’s competitive advantage in floating LNG facilities,” Prof Byrne said.

“Researchers at this Hub — working with leading global gas and oil industry organisations  Woodside, Shell, and partner organisations Lloyds Register and Bureau Veritas — will develop new technologies and analysis methods required for safe and efficient offshore projects, such as ocean forecasting, vessel motion and offloading analysis, riser and mooring longevity, and novel anchoring and subsea foundations,” Prof. Byrne said.

“The ARC Training Centre for Liquefied Natural Gas Futures — with support from industry partners Chevron, Shell, Woodside, Samsung, Daewoo, GE, Clough, Guodian, and VMG —will train the next generation of researchers in the industry, who will work closely with experts in a conducive industry setting, ensuring they have the right skill sets to make a difference in their field.”

www.uwa.edu.au

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A BOOK on the intriguing and extraordinary 2008 US$1.5 billion ‘counterfeit’ trial and conviction of David Wallader – followed by his urgent  re-trial and quashing of all international fraud charges for ‘no conviction recorded’ – is now in production  by Australian publisher Screamer Media.

David Wallader’s story has all the hallmarks of an international espionage novel, or perhaps an Indiana Jones movie – trillions of dollars of 1934 US Treasury bonds, housed in elaborate once-only access plaster of Paris boxes, sealed under glass with Do Not Open warnings of poisonous gas within; and all hidden in deep underground caves to protect them from the Japanese invasion of 1942. 

Except, until now, the back story of the Australian Federal Police astonishingly accusing him of trying to ‘sell’ an alleged US$1.5 billion worth of ‘counterfeit’ US Treasury Bonds in his possession – which he had been asked to try to authenticate – to the Turkish Government has not been told.

Mr Wallader said, at first, he had laughed when he had heard the peculiar charges raised against him – but they proved no laughing matter as his life was sucked into a whirlpool of damning false accusations, flimsy evidence, clumsy defence and possible perjury of a person in the witness stand against him. This maelstrom led to his initial custodial conviction.

Even as he was being hauled off to Numinbah Prison Farm, he could not understand, or believe, the circumstances that had led to this cataclysmic downturn in the 62^nd year of his life.

The former Westpac bank manager had branched out from that increasingly inhibited world, after progressing to the leading ranks of bank management, to join the agriculture industry in the late 1980s – and things were going well at his innovative Colinton Station property in Queensland by the early 2000s.

Perhaps because David Wallader had a wealth of banking experience – he had handled the coupon interest payments of Commonwealth bonds, so he knew what genuine bonds looked like and how they operated, plus he had written a thesis on trading securities and bonds – that a friend in the Philippines asked him to take a look at these intriguing ‘US Treasury bond’ caches. Mr Wallader was also sceptical, as he knew the Philippines’ reputation for creating intricate and elaborate counterfeits of currency.

But he nevertheless agreed when his friend, a Canadian dentist and business owner, made the request out of the blue while Mr Wallader was in the Philippines on holiday in 2001. Intrigued by photographs, Mr Wallader agreed to travel to Mindanao and was shown a broken security box filled with bonds, brought to him on the back of a pick-up truck. All the local people wanted, they said, was David Wallader’s opinion on the bonds’ authenticity.

If they were counterfeit, Mr Wallader discovered, the tell-tales were beyond his experience at the time.

The main cache was said to be still buried in the untouched glass-sealed cases deep underground somewhere on the island of Mindanao. The locals claimed these ‘bonds’ were part of a trove that was a wartime guarantee for the Philippines’ support of US forces against the Japanese, set to mature in 1964.

“Before David explained to me the nuances of one of his current businesses, IFO, which funds infrastructure through a unique Europe-based trading platform, he insisted on showing me evidence of this horrendous period of his life – and especially, of course, his Crown pardon,” Business Acumen editor and author of the new book, Mike Sullivan said.

“I was astonished – it really did sound like an Indiana Jones script: unearthed ‘treasure’, David’s quest to have the bonds verified, which eventually led him to a currency expert in Turkey, then the out-of-the-blue raid on David’s home in Queensland by Federal Police.

“David was clearly worried that I might write him off as some type of nutter, but it had quite the opposite effect as I viewed his compelling evidence,” Mr Sullivan said.

“In fact, I think it made me take his innovative infrastructure financial platform more seriously as I realised how savvy, honest and methodical this man really was – and how he had been brought almost to the point of suicide by the trials and his temporary jailing. A lesser man would have succumbed to this vast arsenal of malicious legal power against him.”

How and why did this happen to David Wallader? In hindsight, and with the benefit of archived evidence that has only recently come available, the answer may be found in the tense geo-political and international financial tumult of 2007: the Iraq War neighbouring Turkey and the onset of Sub-Prime Mortgage crisis dragging the US into its ‘Great Recession’.

Finding answers to these questions is what this book is all about, according to its editors.

“It cannot be ignored that there was a war going on in Iraq at the time – a war in which the US needed Turkey’s assistance – and Turkey was heavily in debt to the US,” Mr Sullivan said. “A scenario in which – brought to Mr Wallader by a financial business executive in Turkey – that country’s government could possibly obtain such bonds for millions of dollars. That is, assuming they turned out to be authenticated, Turkey might trade them back to the US for trillions. Such a scenario would have been very, very uncomfortable at the time.

“Perhaps as significant, David Wallader found himself on the precipice of another unexpected event, the sub-prime meltdown of the US financial sector. Remember, this was 2007 … and the Great Recession and its near destruction of Wall Street was germinating. The last thing the US would have wanted at that stage was the appearance of trillions of dollars of mature US Treasury bonds.”

Whatever the geo-political factors at play, this awful period in David Wallader’s life makes fascinating reading. The very District Court judge who convicted him, Charles Brabazon QC, realised on the night after the trial and Mr Wallader’s custodial sentencing, that he had made “a grave error in law”.

That night, the judge began the application to set that judgement aside and, eventually, set Mr Wallader free and overturn his conviction.

David Wallader has the stamped Crown judgement paper to prove it.

Significantly, the appeal trial came just 28 days after sentencing – a rare rapid timeframe indeed.

“Oh, and he still has that handful of ‘US Treasury bonds’ that he took to Turkey to have assessed as fake or genuine,” author Mike Sullivan said. “I’ve seen them and we have very clear photographs of them within this book …

“Except now they have ham-fisted black ink stamps placed all over them, I’d assume by the Federal Police, which proclaim THIS IS A FICTITIOUS DOCUMENT.

“Why would Australian Federal Police do such a thing? The re-trial and appeal was won on the grounds that these ‘bonds’ could not be proven as counterfeit beyond reasonable doubt – and the prosecution could not produce a genuine example for comparison.

“If anything, those stamps raise more questions, particularly as they seem much more like a graffiti than an official announcement, compared with the quality of the paper, the rich inks and watermarking of the ‘bonds’.

“The biggest question of all is why he was accused of trying to sell those ‘bonds’ to the Turkish Government, when Mr Wallader said there was no such offer on his part – he had taken them to Turkey to see if a regional expert in bonds and currencies he knew could authenticate them,” Mr Sullivan said.

“An extremely dark episode in David Wallader’s life – one which still unfortunately impacts his business reputation, thanks to the anomalies of Google searches and one-sided press coverage of the time – makes for fascinating reading today. This is why we have taken the decision to present David’s story in a well-illustrated blow-by-blow account.”

Wallader’s Word is Whose Bond? is the working title of the book, planned for publication in 2017 by Screamer Media, publisher of Business Acumen magazine.

www.businessacumen.biz

ends