4 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2019
    1. It has been jokingly suggested several times during the course of this study that what we are seeking is an "intelligence amplifier." (The term is attributed originally to W. Ross Ashby[2,3]. At first this term was rejected on the grounds that in our view one's only hope was to make a better match between existing human intelligence and the problems to be tackled, rather than in making man more intelligent. But deriving the concepts brought out in the preceding section has shown us that indeed this term does seem applicable to our objective. 2c2a Accepting the term "intelligence amplification" does not imply any attempt to increase native human intelligence. The term "intelligence amplification" seems applicable to our goal of augmenting the human intellect in that the entity to be produced will exhibit more of what can be called intelligence than an unaided human could; we will have amplified the intelligence of the human by organizing his intellectual capabilities into higher levels of synergistic structuring. What possesses the amplified intelligence is the resulting H-LAM/T system, in which the LAM/T augmentation means represent the amplifier of the human's intelligence.2c2b In amplifying our intelligence, we are applying the principle of synergistic structuring that was followed by natural evolution in developing the basic human capabilities. What we have done in the development of our augmentation means is to construct a superstructure that is a synthetic extension of the natural structure upon which it is built. In a very real sense, as represented by the steady evolution of our augmentation means, the development of "artificial intelligence" has been going on for centuries.
    1. This is not a new idea. It is based on the vision expounded by Vannevar Bush in his 1945 essay “As We May Think,” which conjured up a “memex” machine that would remember and connect information for us mere mortals. The concept was refined in the early 1960s by the Internet pioneer J. C. R. Licklider, who wrote a paper titled “Man-Computer Symbiosis,” and the computer designer Douglas Engelbart, who wrote “Augmenting Human Intellect.” They often found themselves in opposition to their colleagues, like Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy, who stressed the goal of pursuing artificial intelligence machines that left humans out of the loop.

      Seymour Papert, had an approach that provides a nice synthesis between these two camps, buy leveraging early childhood development to provide insights on the creation of AI.

    2. Thompson’s point is that “artificial intelligence” — defined as machines that can think on their own just like or better than humans — is not yet (and may never be) as powerful as “intelligence amplification,” the symbiotic smarts that occur when human cognition is augmented by a close interaction with computers.

      Intelligence amplification over artificial intelligence. In reality you can't get to AI until you've mastered IA.

  2. Sep 2018
    1. And its very likely that IA is a much easier road to the achievement of superhumanity than pure AI. In humans, the hardest development problems have already been solved. Building up from within ourselves ought to be easier than figuring out what we really are and then building machines that are all of that.

      The authors of the text are proposing a radically different approach to the inevitable "singularity" event. They propose the research and development IA, or Intelligence Amplification, is developing computers with a symbiosis with humans. Noting that IA could be easier to develop than AI algorithms, since humanity had to probe what their true weaknesses and strengths are. In turn, developing an IA system that could cover humanities' weaknesses. This would summarily prevent an IA algorithm from getting over itself, which could potentially slow a point when we reach singularity.