1 00:00:14,190 --> 00:00:20,250 Artificial intelligence is easily one of the most prevalent themes in all of science fiction. 2 00:00:20,250 --> 00:00:24,340 The idea that a machine could exhibit the same level of intelligence and sentience as 3 00:00:24,340 --> 00:00:29,300 a human being has captivated writers and audiences alike for decades. 4 00:00:29,300 --> 00:00:33,720 From an ominous computer system in 2001: A Space Odyssey... 5 00:00:34,420 --> 00:00:36,320 DAVE: Open the pod bay doors, HAL. 6 00:00:37,740 --> 00:00:41,340 HAL 9000: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. 7 00:00:42,120 --> 00:00:45,059 ...to superhuman androids in Westworld... 8 00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:48,020 DR. ROBERT FORD: Turn the other cheek. 9 00:00:53,920 --> 00:00:59,940 ...this captivating sub-genre of science fiction has experienced a diverse range of depictions. 10 00:00:59,940 --> 00:01:07,360 But fiction has a habit of romanticizing certain aspects, such as the frequent inclusion of humanoid robots. 11 00:01:07,360 --> 00:01:12,920 Building a robot in pursuit of AI is a bit like constructing the chassis of a car before 12 00:01:12,930 --> 00:01:15,510 the internal combustion engine was even invented. 13 00:01:15,510 --> 00:01:20,400 But I guess anthropomorphism is just an easier solution than expecting audiences to get 14 00:01:20,400 --> 00:01:23,640 emotionally attached to a few lines of code. 15 00:01:23,640 --> 00:01:25,340 Unless you're Joaquin Phoenix of course. 16 00:01:25,340 --> 00:01:27,180 But that dude can do anything. 17 00:01:27,180 --> 00:01:34,460 In recent years a few outspoken intellectuals, such as Elon Musk, Sam Harris, Stephen Hawking, Nick Bostrom 18 00:01:34,460 --> 00:01:39,759 to name a few, have voiced genuine concerns for the rise of artificial intelligence 19 00:01:39,770 --> 00:01:46,050 as brilliant minds across the globe are competing to retrace the hundreds of millions of years 20 00:01:46,050 --> 00:01:49,530 of evolution that resulted in the human brain. 21 00:01:49,530 --> 00:01:54,610 And while many experts have no doubts about machines' ability to achieve human-level intelligence 22 00:01:54,610 --> 00:02:00,270 at some point in the future, just as many believe it to be an impossibility. 23 00:02:00,270 --> 00:02:01,750 And perhaps it is. 24 00:02:01,750 --> 00:02:09,690 Perhaps we are incomprehensibly complex in such a way that we cannot do what nature has done to us. 25 00:02:10,500 --> 00:02:16,260 Then again, if random mutations can lead to intelligence, how hard can it be? 26 00:02:16,260 --> 00:02:19,859 In fact, even though evolution had a hell of a head start 27 00:02:19,860 --> 00:02:24,640 machines have already surpassed us in some limited domains. 28 00:02:24,640 --> 00:02:27,899 Take the two popular board games Chess and Go. 29 00:02:27,900 --> 00:02:34,940 The best human Chess and Go players in the world have been defeated by artificial intelligence. 30 00:02:34,940 --> 00:02:36,520 Just think about that. 31 00:02:36,520 --> 00:02:42,420 No human player will ever again become the best at either of these two games. 32 00:02:42,420 --> 00:02:47,600 No matter how hard you try, even if you dedicate your entire life to become the best player 33 00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:51,840 you could possibly be, it will never be enough. 34 00:02:51,840 --> 00:02:57,460 Luckily for us, there's a lot more to the human condition than Chess and Go but is it 35 00:02:57,470 --> 00:03:04,290 that dubious to think that more general talents and abilities could be rendered equally obsolete? 36 00:03:04,290 --> 00:03:10,200 Assuming it's possible, what happens when machines become more competent at performing 37 00:03:10,209 --> 00:03:13,210 any and all physical and mental labor? 38 00:03:13,210 --> 00:03:22,670 If AI becomes more competent in every regard then what purpose or function would be left for us to serve? 39 00:03:23,540 --> 00:03:29,940 The music playing in the background of this video was entirely composed by a machine. 40 00:03:29,940 --> 00:03:38,760 [MUSIC] 41 00:03:38,760 --> 00:03:40,239 Here's another example. 42 00:03:40,240 --> 00:03:51,380 [MUSIC] 43 00:03:51,380 --> 00:03:55,040 How about some acoustic guitar? 44 00:03:55,040 --> 00:04:02,900 [MUSIC] 45 00:04:02,900 --> 00:04:05,100 Or some drum and bass. 46 00:04:05,100 --> 00:04:13,700 [MUSIC] 47 00:04:13,700 --> 00:04:17,440 It's quite impressive but, then, take a listen to this. 48 00:04:17,440 --> 00:04:39,060 [PIANO MUSIC] 49 00:04:39,060 --> 00:04:47,100 This short and simple composition may sound rather unimpressive in comparison but then consider this. 50 00:04:47,100 --> 00:04:48,480 This sound... 51 00:04:48,480 --> 00:04:53,420 [PIANO MUSIC] 52 00:04:53,420 --> 00:04:56,580 ...is not the sound of a piano. 53 00:04:56,580 --> 00:05:07,560 The sound itself, the waveform itself, was created by an AI in an effort to mimic the sound of a piano. 54 00:05:07,560 --> 00:05:11,700 Machines have also begun tackling the human language by writing poems. 55 00:05:12,140 --> 00:05:19,320 "When I in dreams behold thy fairest shade Whose shade in dreams doth wake the sleeping morn 56 00:05:19,320 --> 00:05:25,340 The daytime shadow of my love betray'd Lends hideous night to dreaming's faded form." 57 00:05:25,960 --> 00:05:31,140 You know who would love this nonsensical mess of words that is inexplicably a real language? 58 00:05:31,140 --> 00:05:33,060 That's correct, the Danes! 59 00:05:33,070 --> 00:05:37,930 So poems may not be the best example but news articles is a better one. 60 00:05:37,930 --> 00:05:43,760 Machine-written content has become so common place and so good that you've likely read 61 00:05:43,760 --> 00:05:47,270 a few automated articles without even realizing it. 62 00:05:47,270 --> 00:05:53,430 If you pause the video, see if you can discern which of these two paragraphs were written by an AI. 63 00:05:53,430 --> 00:05:55,290 The answer will be in the description. 64 00:05:56,200 --> 00:05:58,640 Now, this is one of my favorites. 65 00:05:58,640 --> 00:06:02,200 Many of you have likely played around with text-to-speech engines. 66 00:06:02,200 --> 00:06:05,760 You input some text and then a voice will read it aloud. 67 00:06:06,540 --> 00:06:10,580 TTS VOICE: Many of you have likely played around with text-to-speech engines. 68 00:06:10,580 --> 00:06:14,180 TTS VOICE: You input some text and then a voice will read it aloud. 69 00:06:14,180 --> 00:06:15,200 TTS VOICE: Please send help. 70 00:06:15,200 --> 00:06:21,479 Up until now, this has been accomplished by having a voice actor read a long series of sentences and words. 71 00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:27,980 Then you splice the syllables into tiny samples before attempting to stitch and morph them back together. 72 00:06:27,980 --> 00:06:34,260 Artificial intelligence can not only do this in seconds but can also produce more natural-sounding speech. 73 00:06:34,260 --> 00:06:35,420 Let's take a listen. 74 00:06:35,920 --> 00:06:40,860 [CONCATENATIVE EXAMPLE] 75 00:06:41,360 --> 00:06:46,380 [WAVENET EXAMPLE] 76 00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:51,900 [CONCATENATIVE EXAMPLE] 77 00:06:52,420 --> 00:06:56,740 [WAVENET EXAMPLE] 78 00:06:57,300 --> 00:07:00,100 It can also produce human-like gibberish. 79 00:07:00,620 --> 00:07:17,780 [WAVENET GIBBERISH EXAMPLE] 80 00:07:18,240 --> 00:07:20,660 So how does it work? 81 00:07:20,660 --> 00:07:24,360 Well, as you can imagine, it's complicated. 82 00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:26,460 And that's a severe understatement. 83 00:07:26,460 --> 00:07:28,500 But let's use an analogy. 84 00:07:29,020 --> 00:07:30,880 Think of a human infant. 85 00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:35,040 An infant doesn't really know or comprehend anything. 86 00:07:35,040 --> 00:07:40,000 It's just an oblivious sack of meat that occasionally moves around and screams a lot. 87 00:07:42,680 --> 00:07:45,699 Nevertheless, the human brain must be doing something, right? 88 00:07:45,699 --> 00:07:48,419 I mean, it's not dead, so what's happening? 89 00:07:48,419 --> 00:07:52,479 Well, for the most part, the brain will be searching for patterns. 90 00:07:52,480 --> 00:07:59,080 Systematically attempting to identify recurring events in an effort to make sense of the world. 91 00:07:59,090 --> 00:08:01,190 Colorful toys equals fun. 92 00:08:01,190 --> 00:08:03,370 Vegetables, not so fun. 93 00:08:03,370 --> 00:08:07,010 If mommy and daddy can speak, maybe I can speak? 94 00:08:07,010 --> 00:08:11,039 If they can walk around on two feet, maybe I can too? 95 00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:16,840 A few years of this repetitive learning process and we can go from this to this. 96 00:08:16,840 --> 00:08:18,159 And even this. 97 00:08:18,160 --> 00:08:19,780 And unfortunately this. 98 00:08:19,780 --> 00:08:20,520 You don't want that. 99 00:08:20,520 --> 00:08:23,880 This is essentially what machine learning is all about. 100 00:08:23,880 --> 00:08:29,960 You create a simple mathematical model of the human brain and then you feed it a bunch of information. 101 00:08:29,970 --> 00:08:35,360 This artificial neural network will then attempt to make sense of this information by learning 102 00:08:35,360 --> 00:08:38,259 from past mistakes and imitation. 103 00:08:38,259 --> 00:08:44,219 The result is this natural evolution that no human could ever manually program. 104 00:08:45,500 --> 00:08:52,560 And there's really no reason why this system could not be scaled up to human levels and beyond. 105 00:08:52,560 --> 00:08:57,359 A limiting factor of the human brain is that it has to fit inside a cranium. 106 00:08:57,360 --> 00:09:01,670 An artificial brain could be the size of a building or larger still. 107 00:09:01,670 --> 00:09:07,390 An AI could also operate at the speed of light as well as improve upon itself. 108 00:09:07,390 --> 00:09:14,170 In essence, it could teach itself how to learn new things and in doing so would eliminate 109 00:09:14,170 --> 00:09:17,339 the need for a human at the controls. 110 00:09:17,340 --> 00:09:21,820 I don't know about you but the fact that this is even theoretically possible makes me a 111 00:09:21,820 --> 00:09:23,920 bit worried for the future. 112 00:09:23,920 --> 00:09:29,640 There is a genuine cause for concern as lost in this idealistic quest for improvement 113 00:09:29,640 --> 00:09:32,560 is the function of humanity itself. 114 00:09:32,560 --> 00:09:37,779 If we render the species incompetent, what's to prevent artificial intelligence from recognizing 115 00:09:37,779 --> 00:09:40,399 that incompetence and taking control? 116 00:09:40,399 --> 00:09:46,320 Because how do we control something that is more intelligent than us? 117 00:09:46,320 --> 00:09:51,029 It would be like a colony of ants attempting to control even a single person. 118 00:09:51,029 --> 00:09:53,129 It just isn't believable. 119 00:09:53,129 --> 00:09:57,160 And elaborating upon that analogy, think about the way we treat ants. 120 00:09:57,160 --> 00:10:02,880 Must of us don't have some deep hatred for ants but if they are ever in the way of something 121 00:10:02,880 --> 00:10:07,040 that we want to accomplish, we could not care less about their existence. 122 00:10:07,040 --> 00:10:11,510 And even if we did care, how would we explain to them that they need to move because we 123 00:10:11,510 --> 00:10:14,170 want to construct a building or something? 124 00:10:14,170 --> 00:10:19,180 Attempt to explain to the millions of animals living in the jungle the geopolitical and 125 00:10:19,190 --> 00:10:23,670 socioeconomical reasons for why we continue to destroy their home. 126 00:10:23,670 --> 00:10:25,260 It's impossible. 127 00:10:25,270 --> 00:10:29,270 They simply lack the intelligence to understand. 128 00:10:29,270 --> 00:10:32,439 And that is what so many are concerned about. 129 00:10:32,450 --> 00:10:35,510 That we would lack the intelligence to keep up. 130 00:10:36,160 --> 00:10:40,000 So this concern for AI has nothing to do with malevolence. 131 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:43,480 It's simply a fear of losing control. 132 00:10:43,480 --> 00:10:47,920 Then there's the issue of sentience and cognition which are entirely different beasts all together 133 00:10:47,920 --> 00:10:53,860 but if we assume that super intelligence is possible, how long until that happens? 134 00:10:54,420 --> 00:11:02,939 It may be sooner than you think as most estimations seem to land in-between three to six decades. 135 00:11:02,950 --> 00:11:04,630 So within this century. 136 00:11:04,630 --> 00:11:11,480 But I mean it's just estimations. So who knows? No one can predict the future. We don't know, to be honest. 137 00:11:11,480 --> 00:11:16,720 I seriously hope they're wrong though cause it'd be so much more convenient if we could just leave this 138 00:11:16,720 --> 00:11:22,120 impending doom of humanity to our children and just reap the benefits in the meantime. 139 00:11:22,440 --> 00:11:25,380 Happy holidays everyone!