Scientific research certifies – 4

Artificial intelligence

The developing artificial intelligence (AI) can become so superintelligent and powerful that it will be able to lead to massive social upheavals and even to the destruction of humanity, The Week reports. According to the publication, more than 350 researchers and engineers have recently issued a warning that artificial intelligence poses a danger comparable to the risks of pandemics and nuclear war. In a survey of experts conducted in 2022, the average probability that artificial intelligence will cause extinction or a serious decline in humanity was 1 in 10. Jeffrey Hinton, who is often called the "godfather" of artificial intelligence, does not consider such concerns to be fantastic. Hinton used to think that the danger from artificial intelligence would appear in at least 30 years. However, now artificial intelligence, in his opinion, is developing into a superintelligence so rapidly that in five years it can become smarter than humans. ChatGPT based on artificial intelligence and Bing chatbot can already pass exams for obtaining law and medical licenses, and score 99% in IQ tests – that is, reach the level of human genius. Hinton and other experts fear the moment when artificial intelligence will be able to surpass humans in almost any task. Some artificial intelligence experts compare this possibility to the sudden arrival of a superior alien race on our planet. So, another pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence research, computer scientist Stuart Russell said: "You have no idea what they're going to do when they get here, other than they're going to take over the world." One of the apocalyptic scenarios is that attackers can use the capabilities of artificial intelligence to create new biological weapons that are more deadly than natural pandemics. Another danger is that as artificial intelligence is integrated into global systems, terrorists and other attackers can use it to disable vital infrastructure and financial markets. In addition, as indicated in the article, artificial intelligence may want to become completely independent and for this to completely get rid of human control. Therefore, artificial intelligence can trick the leaders of nuclear states into believing that the enemy has launched missiles, thus forcing them to launch their own missiles. Scientists believe that the uncontrolled rapid development of artificial intelligence, neural networks, and chatbots is dangerous for humans.

A computer has been created that works like a thinking human brain, now calculations are faster and require less energy. The breakthrough was made by scientists from Northwestern University, Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), it is noteworthy that similar developments are underway at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics at the University of Hong Kong. According to Nature, the work made it possible to give artificial intelligence (AI) behavioral skills beyond the framework of template calculations and even simulate the principles of the human brain. The researchers were able to give computers an understanding of the logic of the functioning of higher human nervous activity, including thinking and memory. The result of the work was a microelectronic platform (memristor) that copies the action of neurons and synapses. The advantage of the technology is in computing directly in PC memory, when there is no need to transfer ready–made data between processors and memory blocks. In the future, this will allow you to get rid of energy-consuming AI and switch to large-scale computing, even based on smartphones. The devices will also find applications in medicine (well-being monitoring and virus genome sequencing). Earlier it became known that light allows you to transfer data 100 times faster than Wi-Fi networks.

From the book Tikhomirov A.E., The origin of words and signs. The Science of Superstition, Ridero, Yekaterinburg, 2017, pp. 150-151): "Billions of neurons in the human brain are constantly developing trillions and trillions of new connections, of course, this happens strictly individually. In the process of human life, all information entering the brain is stored there (as on a computer hard drive, the similarity of the brain to a computer hard drive lies in the fact that information is transmitted in the brain through the nervous system, which is a network of several trillion nerve cells (neurons) as in a computer, through electronic switches that have only two values – bits (double numbers) and performs only one action – addition, which is also observed in the finds of artifacts of an ancient man who could only add, as well as small children who put together a quantity of something or someone from matches, computer BIOS – unconditional (innate) reflexes, and later installed programs on a computer hard drive – acquired reflexes or a certain "soul" of a person), but in most cases it turns out to be unclaimed. With an organic change in the brain (injury, infection, etc.), completely different neural connections that were not previously characteristic are established and various phenomenal abilities (drawing, memorization, versification, etc.) may appear, but individually, since each person has their own neural connections. There are models for creating computer programs that modulate the mind of any person with any level of accuracy, and it will be possible to create a computer copy of any person who has ever lived in the world."

Scientific assessments of forecasts and predictions

Experts have compiled a list of unexpected events that will surprise the inhabitants of planet Earth in 2024. The forecast is published in the American magazine Politico. The top 3 included the US presidential election, the digital apocalypse and the discovery of an alien mind. Jan Bremmer, head of the Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting company, doubts that the election of the American leader in November 2024 will be held calmly. The struggle for the presidency will be fierce, as evidenced by the intensity of passions now. Joe Biden and Donald Trump are not going to give in to each other. The editor-in-chief of the Bulwark newspaper, Charlie Sykes, warned that humanity may face a virus that will affect the operation of computers. "The satellites will stop working. The global banking system will suffer," the expert described the apocalyptic scenario. The list of the worst events of 2024 also included the US war with China and the coup in Russia. Experts have no doubt that Lai Ching-te, who won the presidential election, will declare Taiwan's independence. Beijing will launch a military operation, and the United States will use force to defend the island. The writer Nassim Taleb used the term "black swan" for difficult to predict and rare events with significant consequences.

From the book by Tikhomirov A.E., The origin of words and signs. The science of superstition, "Ridero", Yekaterinburg, 2017, p. 114: "Predictions – predictions have been made in all ages, some of them were actually realized if a certain condition was met – if, then it will be so, if otherwise, then it will be like this. The English writer Jonathan Swift, talking about Gulliver's travels, describes his visit to the flying island of Laputa, where he describes the famous academy, which is interesting, all these Laputyan experiments were subsequently reproduced by scientists from real academies, and they all gave a brilliant result. These are the condensation of light energy in cucumbers – photosynthesis, and a stochastic computing machine – in the form of modern computers, and finally, the bloating of a dog – the study of mechanoreceptors of internal organs. The use of intraatomic power for economic purposes is discussed on the pages of the novel "The Liberated World" by the heroes of the English science fiction writer G. Wells. The writers foresaw other, non-peaceful uses of atomic energy. One of the first (if not the first) of these terrible prophecies at the beginning of the century was expressed again by G. Wells. And the famous Russian poet A. Bely does not just discover familiarity with the cutting edge of science of his time, with the ideas that scientists are struggling with. He thinks in terms sprouted from the soil of atomic decay. The hero of one of I. Ehrenburg's novels, an American scientist, tells about the use by his compatriots against the Japanese of some kind of weapon to destroy large masses of people. It's not just about the foresight itself, but also, as we can see, in the details. Later, after this actually happened, the writer explained: "They ask me why in 1921, when Japan was an ally of America, I wrote that the Americans would try a new deadly weapon on the Japanese." And then he admits: "I do not know what… answer" (perception of information at the subconscious level, since the brain actually "catches" information with the help of its neural network)." The philosopher A.K. Sukhotin writes in the book "Rhythms and Algorithms" (pp.163-169): "Let's say that large-scale ideas entered the attention zone, which, as they say, hung in the air and which became an integral element of public thought. At the same time, artistic premonitions sometimes concerned more distant events, and often very specific ones. So, if you compile a set of literary omens in the field of technical discoveries and inventions, it will turn out to be impressive. We will announce only some of his positions. For example, by means of transportation. It turns out that the imagination of writers long before the real embodiment "mastered" all the most important modes of transport, land, water and air, even encroaching on space. By the power of artistic insights, science fiction writers have long populated the world with cars, submarines, and aircraft of all kinds (up to missiles and rocket ships). These mechanisms appeared on the pages of novels at a time when they did not yet walk, swim or fly, and when their future designers themselves hardly took their first steps on earth. Other sections of our list are equally saturated with literary and artistic predictions, where behind each line there is an exciting prehistory of artistic searches anticipating scientific and technical thought. For example, robots. One of the old fantasies is to build an anthropomorphic, that is, "human—like" machine capable of facilitating, or even completely replacing our work in some details. L. da Vinci was already seriously burdened with this idea both as a scientist and as an artist. Gradually, the theme became firmly established in the fields of fiction. In the middle of the XVIII century, an eighteen-year-old Englishwoman M. Shelley in the novel "Frankenstein" told about a rebellious robot (although the term itself was not born then). The hero, the young scientist Frankenstein, managed to build an artificial man, and then revive him. Alas, this husband turned out to be ugly, people were afraid of him, and for this he begins to take revenge on them. The first victim was the inventor himself, who dies with the consciousness of the severity of the mistake. Indeed, there is something to think about. And not only to the hero of the novel, but also to today's reader. The moral and ethical theme of modern science is outlined in full growth in front of us, the fruits of which are capable of bringing the death of civilization itself, along with scientists and their achievements. Later, humanoid creations flashed on the pages of J.'s books. Verne, G. Wells. Finally, in the play by the famous Czech writer K. Chapek "RUR" (abbreviated designation: Rossum's Universal Robot – a reasonable universal robot), written in 1920, as we see, the name itself appears. It is derived from the Czech word robota – "forced labor". Immediately, as it always happens when loud ideas appear, there were a lot of imitators. Acceleration, presumably, was communicated not only to writers, but also to scientific circles, which were even more convinced of the possibility of creating such a mechanism. Thus, art has forestalled science, bringing closer, albeit in a dream, in a half-dream, the time of the invention of human-like devices… According to the number of successful predictions, one of the first is the famous Jules Verne, an inexhaustible discoverer of scientific and technical innovations. An attentive eye discovers in his works more than a hundred original proposals, 66 of which by the end of the 60s of our time had already been implemented. The rest are also considered quite real and are just waiting in the wings in the more or less near future. Thus, J. Verne anticipated the appearance of submarines, electric vehicles, aviation and space rockets, color photography, sound films and television. You can't reread everything and you won't keep track of his heroes, who managed to traverse the depths of the oceans and seas, break through the earth's strata, and visit space. The power of the writer's foresight is incredible, and in places it seems simply inexplicable. Judge for yourself. In the novel "From a Cannon to the Moon", a spaceship launches from Cape Canaveral in 1876. Exactly a hundred years later, it was from here that satellites went into space, and then ships. Maybe this is a tribute to the memory of the writer, or rather, Cape Canaveral is a very suitable place for space launches, which is why American engineers chose it "at the suggestion" of J. Verne. But whatever happened, Apollo 11 was also equipped here, which took the astronauts to the Moon. Moreover, the ship was an exact replica of the projectile sent by Verne. And finally, an absolutely amazing detail: Apollo 8 landed just four kilometers from the point where the heroes of the Jules Verne novel completed their journey. It seems that everything has turned upside down, and it is not clear who copied from whom: whether the Americans from J. Is it true, or is it J. They have Vern. Many other premonitions of the great science fiction writer are also striking. For example, what Dr. Fergusson saw from the work of the same name during a balloon trip over Africa. The hero tells about plants, animals and birds, about the landscapes of this interesting continent, the surface of which had not yet been touched by a single human foot. Imagine the surprise of contemporaries when, shortly after the publication of the book, it turned out that the information delivered by Fergusson was quite reliable and coincided with those brought by the first African travelers. Let's say they watched and saw everything. But where did J. get these facts from? Vern? Such is the power of artistic vision, penetrating through decades and spaces, having power over time, over the future of science. It is characteristic that J. himself Verne did not consider himself a science fiction writer. One day he explained to his daughter that he was wrongly attributed to fiction: everything he says is true. When, for example, the first projectile flies to the Moon (or rather, it will not be a projectile, but a ship), it must have the dimensions and trajectory specified by it. And so it turned out. The researcher, based on knowledge, calculation, using analogy and generalizations, boldly makes guesses, accurately predicting even details… Dostoevsky never encroached on the genre of science fiction, describing quite modern events in the second half of the last century. Nevertheless, he also had the opportunity to make exceptionally bold, long-ahead-of-time predictions. There is a remarkable place in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov". Ivan Karamazov is having a conversation with an authorized devil about… a satellite. He seems ready to deploy a real space program. And to begin with, he says that if you throw an axe further into space, then it "will begin to fly around the Earth… in the form of a satellite." Astronomers will calculate the "rise and fall of the axe" and even put it on the calendar. The impression, what can I say, is impressive… Almost a hundred years before the first Soviet satellite in human history was launched into orbit, the artist had already put it into flight with the power of imagination, "forcing" it to overcome the field of gravity. And what an expression! "Fly… in the form of a satellite." It was only in our days that they began to say that. Perhaps they began to talk because F. Dostoevsky prepared these words. And if they hadn't been pronounced by him, who knows what it would have been called. In general, why did the designers of the satellite call it "sputnik", and not in any other way? Was it not the influence of the writer who established this concept as the norm when describing cosmic events? After all, "sputnik" had a completely different meaning in the Russian language than the one with which F. enriched it, one might say, ennobled it. Dostoevsky and in which it has now spread all over the world. Everything is so. But how could he have prevented it? Here is the hero of D. Granin's story "Return Ticket" Pyotr Semyonovich in perplexity (presumably, we, the readers, are perplexed). "Is it acceptable to present such an accurate prediction? After all, no one will allow it. This is a violation of scientific laws. I ask you," Pyotr Semyonovich presses, "how did he become aware of space achievements?" And here D. Granin makes the necessary correction on behalf of the author: "Nothing surprising… It is accepted among good writers."

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