The Technological Singularity (Paperback)

The idea that human history is approaching a "singularity" -- that ordinary humans will someday be overtaken by artificially intelligent machines or cognitively enhanced biological intelligence, or both -- has moved from the realm of science fiction to serious debate. Some singularity theorists predict that if the field of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to develop at its current dizzying rate, the singularity could come about in the middle of the present century. Murray Shanahan offers an introduction to the idea of the singularity and considers the ramifications of such a potentially seismic event.

Shanahan's aim is not to make predictions but rather to investigate a range of scenarios. Whether we believe that singularity is near or far, likely or impossible, apocalypse or utopia, the very idea raises crucial philosophical and pragmatic questions, forcing us to think seriously about what we want as a species.

Shanahan describes technological advances in AI, both biologically inspired and engineered from scratch. Once human-level AI -- theoretically possible, but difficult to accomplish -- has been achieved, he explains, the transition to superintelligent AI could be very rapid. Shanahan considers what the existence of superintelligent machines could mean for such matters as personhood, responsibility, rights, and identity. Some superhuman AI agents might be created to benefit humankind; some might go rogue. (Is Siri the template, or HAL?) The singularity presents both an existential threat to humanity and an existential opportunity for humanity to transcend its limitations. Shanahan makes it clear that we need to imagine both possibilities if we want to bring about the better outcome.

人類歷史正逐漸接近「奇點」的概念──普通人將有一天被人工智能機器或認知增強的生物智能所超越──這個想法已從科幻小說的領域轉移到嚴肅的辯論中。一些奇點理論家預測，如果人工智能（AI）領域繼續以目前令人眼花繚亂的速度發展，奇點可能會在本世紀中葉出現。穆雷·沙納漢（Murray Shanahan）介紹了奇點的概念，並考慮了這樣一個可能具有地震性事件的影響。

沙納漢的目標不是做出預測，而是探討一系列情景。無論我們相信奇點是近在眼前還是遙不可及，可能或不可能，末日或烏托邦，這個概念本身都引發了重要的哲學和實際問題，迫使我們認真思考作為一個物種我們想要什麼。

沙納漢描述了人工智能的技術進步，包括從生物啟發和從頭開始設計的方法。他解釋說，一旦實現了人類水平的人工智能──理論上可能，但難以實現──那麼向超級智能人工智能的過渡可能會非常迅速。沙納漢考慮了超級智能機器對人格、責任、權利和身份等問題可能帶來的影響。一些超人類的AI代理可能被創造出來造福人類，而一些可能會變得失控（Siri是模板還是HAL？）。奇點既是對人類存在的威脅，也是超越限制的機會。沙納漢明確指出，如果我們想實現更好的結果，我們需要想像這兩種可能性。