Five key issues that need to be solved to crack the essence of intelligence and
2024-06-11 / tech
The fundamental principles of constructing intelligence and consciousness are one of the core tasks in the fields of artificial intelligence and intelligent science. Since the beginning of the 21st century, artificial intelligence technology has developed rapidly, especially with the rise of large language models (such as ChatGPT), which has sparked widespread discussion and controversy among the public and academia regarding the timeline for achieving general intelligence, whether AI can develop self-awareness, and future research directions.
The question of whether AI can develop self-awareness has not only caused social panic but also sparked intense debates among the world's top artificial intelligence scientists. The "father of deep learning," Hinton, believes that with the increasing complexity of AI systems, "small-scale consciousness" may have already emerged and could further develop. He warns that AI might surpass human intelligence, bringing potential risks. In contrast, the Chief Scientist at Facebook AI Research, LeCun, takes a more cautious stance, arguing that current AI is still far from true intelligence and consciousness. He emphasizes the need for AI to develop autonomous learning and comprehension abilities rather than relying solely on data processing. The root cause of this panic and debate is that artificial intelligence or intelligent science has not yet established a solid theoretical foundation, lacking widely accepted basic principles. Therefore, intelligent science cannot yet be considered a mature discipline.
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The academic community has conducted in-depth research on the basic principles of intelligence and consciousness, proposing various definitions that provide frameworks for understanding these two concepts from different perspectives. Regarding the definition of intelligence, Sternberg believes that intelligence is the ability of an individual to adapt to the environment, shape the environment, and choose new environments, emphasizing the adaptive role of intelligence in the interaction between the individual and the environment. Russell, from a computational perspective, defines intelligence as the ability to optimize goals under limited resource constraints. Stone and others point out that intelligent systems should have the ability to work robustly in diverse environments, even when information is incomplete or the environment is dynamically changing, to maximize the achievement of set goals. Legg and Hutter emphasize the universality of intelligence in achieving goals in a wide range of environments, that is, intelligence should perform well in various different environments. These definitions characterize the features of intelligence from different dimensions such as adaptability, computationality, robustness, and universality, providing a theoretical basis for understanding and studying intelligence.
Theories about consciousness mainly include the Global Workspace Theory, which posits that consciousness arises from extensive information interaction and integration between different regions of the brain; the Integrated Information Theory suggests that consciousness is produced by the high integration of information within the brain, and the amount of integrated information can be quantitatively calculated; the Higher-Order Theory emphasizes that consciousness stems from higher-order representations of one's own mental states, that is, "thinking that I am thinking"; the Recurrent/Predictive Processing Theory believes that consciousness comes from the brain's process of predicting and minimizing prediction errors of input information. The latest research developments include Graziano's Attention Schema Theory, which views consciousness as a specific pattern of attention information processing; and Friston's Free Energy Principle, which attempts to explain consciousness from the perspective of minimizing perceptual information entropy.
Existing theories explain the mechanisms and neural foundations of intelligence and consciousness from different perspectives, but there are still many limitations. The most prominent issue is that they often overlook or lack discussion on the subjects that produce intelligence and consciousness, that is, "who" can produce intelligence and consciousness, and what common characteristics do these subjects have. These subjects include not only the human brain but also other animals, plants, microorganisms that can produce intelligence and consciousness, as well as AI programs, robots, NPCs in virtual spaces, extraterrestrial life being sought, God in religion and philosophy, Laplace's demon and Maxwell's demon in physics, and other roles. Their common characteristic is the existence of intelligence, but what is the reason for the differences in the emergence of intelligence characteristics? It should be pointed out that for these intelligent subjects, the brain is not the only organ that produces intelligence, and many intelligent subjects do not have brain structures but still possess intelligence.
The second and third key questions are the lack of description of the internal dynamics and purpose of the production of intelligence and consciousness, that is, what drives the intelligent subjects to produce intelligence and consciousness, and what is the ultimate purpose of producing intelligence and consciousness. Some theories have provided answers, but the descriptions are not yet sufficient and do not reach the essence. For example, "goal optimization," "maximizing the achievement of set goals," "universality of achieving goals" and so on mention goals, but they are clearly not the ultimate goals. In terms of dynamics, the Free Energy Principle proposes "intelligent systems maintain consistency between their internal models and the external environment by minimizing free energy" as their dynamic mechanism, but this consistency between internal and external is still controversial.
The fourth key question is how to define the relationship between intelligence and consciousness. From the current definitions of intelligence and consciousness, it can be seen that intelligence and consciousness are often treated separately when defined. Consciousness is rarely mentioned when defining intelligence, and when defining consciousness, it is often confused with the characteristics of intelligence. For example, the Global Workspace Theory considers consciousness to be extensive information interaction and integration between different regions of the brain, and this characteristic can also be defined as a feature of intelligence. In addition, for some intelligent subjects, there is no brain, and the consciousness and intelligence they produce cannot be classified as a function of the brain.
The fifth key question is how to distinguish the four types of consciousness, such as self-consciousness, other-consciousness, mixed consciousness, and unconsciousness. When we use consciousness, we generally refer to self-consciousness, but consciousness also includes other-consciousness and mixed consciousness. Without self-consciousness and other-consciousness, an intelligent subject may still be unconscious. A theory of intelligence and consciousness needs to explain how to distinguish these four types.
We believe that the current theories of intelligence and consciousness have not fully answered these five key questions, which is the fundamental reason for the divergence between different definitions and hinders the formation of a systematic theory system of intelligence and consciousness. We distill these five key questions as follows:1. Does a system that generates intelligence and consciousness have a unified functional structure?
2. What is the ultimate goal of a system in producing intelligence and consciousness?
3. What is the driving mechanism behind the system's production of intelligence and consciousness?
4. How can we define the relationship between intelligence and consciousness, and clarify their conceptual boundaries?
5. How can we distinguish between self-awareness, other-awareness, mixed consciousness, and unconsciousness?
We believe that establishing a basic framework for intelligence and consciousness should fully address the above five key questions. Whether there are sixth, seventh, or more key questions, we also look forward to researchers in the field of intelligence science to propose further.
The paper "Flight Model: A New Exploration of the Basic Principles of Intelligence and Consciousness" mainly revolves around answering these five key questions. As an exploration and attempt, it proposes a new approach and research path for constructing the basic principles of intelligence and consciousness.
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