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By George F. Smith

The question arises: Will Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) initially be a trait of a machine or an augmented human? I think a machine will get super-smart first, if only because most humans develop much-needed common sense while they grow up, which in the area of brain amplification would dictate caution.

Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultra-intelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an “intelligence explosion,” and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make . . . — “Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine,” Irving John Good, British cryptologist, 1965 (my emphasis)

Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence.  Shortly after, the human era will be ended.  — What is the Singularity?, Vernor Vinge Department of Mathematical Sciences San Diego State University, 1995

First, some relevant history.

The idea of creating something man-like or even greater than man dates back to the beginning of recorded history, but many in the AI world credit a 19-year-old girl as their spiritual mentor, English author Mary Shelley.  In 1818 she published Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, the story of a young scientist named Frankenstein who creates an intelligent creature from laboratory experiments.  Frankenstein today is a metaphor for the monster, but in the novel the creature is presented sympathetically, in other words, misunderstood.

In 1950 Alan Turing posited that a machine could get so good at conversing with a human that it could pass for human, based only on its responses.  Critics jumped on his assertion but he addressed them all in his seminal paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, wherein he described his Imitation Game.

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