Peter Cochrane: Does life = intelligence?

What is real intelligence, and does intelligence equate to life? asks Peter Cochrane

Our planet and everything on it, including all forms of life, are made from the same ‘star dust' with identical atoms configured to a finite number of molecular structures and purposes. In turn, all lifeforms (including us) share the same starting point; the simplest of single-celled creatures that mutated and banded together to form every plant, animal, human and fungi that ever existed.

So the genetic strands of this vast library of life exhibit the same elements of code throughout. It is not so much that we are relatives of monkeys and apes; more, that we are all related to fish, the earliest algae and fungi.

To be so successful in creating such a vast abundance of life, this zoo of cells had to exhibit sufficient intelligence to seek, find, communicate and bind with others in order to realise the many complex organisms now in evidence. But it did not do so by design or some fixed algorithm, it was by way of a ‘primordial soup' of chance, trial and error, and the survival of what worked, and the most adaptable.

Today, less than one per cent of all life forms that have ever existed on our planet remain as a result of the evolutionary processes spanning four billion years tempered, of course, by five major extinction events.

For historical reasons those engaged in the study of life, biology, intelligence and behaviours place each into isolated and disconnected boxes, but by looking at the whole and analysing as one leads to a surprising hypothesis:

All living things exhibit intelligence, but not all intelligent things exhibit life

This line of inquiry also leads to axioms that appear uniformly applicable to natural and man-made (unnatural/artificial) lifeforms and intelligences (artificial life or ‘AL' and artificial intelligence or ‘AI'):

• Life and Intelligence are emergent properties of complex systems;
• Not all complex systems exhibit life and/or intelligence;
• Life and Intelligence are inherently entropic and always involve communication (in the broadest sense);
• Life and Intelligence systems always seek the lowest energy state;
• Living and Intelligent systems must have some form of input and an output (sensors and actuators);
• Memory and processing power are not always necessary, but sensor and actuators are.

In turn we further postulate:

• Sentience is a function of awareness and cognition, which in turn, is determined by sensors, actuators, communication, memory and processing power; and,
• Humans are highly unlikely to have the ability to recognise all forms of intelligence and life.

These axioms and postulates appear to apply to all forms of life and intelligence (natural and artificial) with some exacting implications for AI, AL and robotics.

Interestingly, philosophers, futurists, science fiction writers and engineers of such systems may be converging slowly on a series of similar conclusions. In turn, this is rapidly becoming of great concern in the fields of: self driving and flying vehicles; robotic surgery; AI medical diagnostics; AI legal system and barristers, judgements and sentencing; autonomous industrial robots with full mobility; and so on.

Today, AI and robotics struggle to understand us, but we have to start thinking anew.

Ask not what AI and robotics can do for you, but ask what you might do for AI and robotics

So what happens when something goes wrong and humans are hurt or killed, or robots are damaged or destroyed? Who or what is to blame and who pays?

To date, we have chosen to ignore science fiction writer Isaac Azimov's Three Laws of Robotics and have even deployed primitive artificial intelligence, life and robotics in weapons systems. Too often in human history, it takes a catastrophe to force through positive change.

To avoid that, now is the time to act - to lay down new laws for AI, AL and robotics, including ethical, moral and legal frameworks for a rapidly emerging ecosystem running parallel to that of Mother Nature. Right now we and we alone are responsible.

But even that might not work in the not too distant future.

Peter Cochrane OBE is an ex-CTO of BT who now works as a consultant focusing on solving problems and improving the world through the application of technology