[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 64 (Tuesday, April 22, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H2492-H2494]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ENGINEERED INTELLIGENCE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
California (Mr. Sherman) for 5 minutes.
Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor to focus on an issue that I have
been discussing with my colleagues for almost a decade and that I have
brought to this floor several times since the year 2000. That is an
issue I call ``engineered intelligence.'' By that, I mean the efforts
of computer engineers to develop computers with intelligence that far
exceeds that of the normal human being and, likewise, the efforts of
biological engineers to create either intelligence enhanced forms of
human beings, or new life forms that have intelligence far beyond that
of the average human.
Mr. Speaker, I believe that science will have a greater impact on the
coming century than it has had in the last several centuries, knowing
full well of the enormous impact that science has had in the last 100
and 200 years.
As one futurist points out, if someone describes the future 40 years
from now and paints a picture that looks like a science fiction movie,
that picture may be wrong, but if someone is discussing the future 40
years from now and paints a picture that does not look like a science
fiction movie, then you know they are wrong. We will be living in a
science fiction movie. We just don't know which one.
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I believe that the issue of engineered intelligence is one that will
have a greater impact on humankind than even the development of nuclear
weapons. Just a few years before nuclear weapons were first exploded,
Albert Einstein wrote to Roosevelt, and explained that it was possible
to create such a nuclear bomb. In fact, just a few years went by before
it was a reality.
Now we have not a few years, but a few decades, to wrestle with the
enormous ethical, theological and sociological impacts of the
technologies that are out there--just 10, 20, 30 years away. My fear is
that we will over the next 10 years do what we have done over the last
10 years: Basically, waste the time that we so urgently need to deal
with issues that we have just begun, that we really have not begun, to
think through.
Now, as we develop more intelligent computers, we will find them
useful tools in creating even more intelligent computers, a positive
feedback loop. I don't know whether we will create the maniacal Hal
from 2001: A Space Odyssey or the earnest Data from Star Trek. My guess
is that we will create them both. There are those who say don't worry
because even the most intelligent or malevolent computer is in a box,
and cannot affect the outside world. But I believe there are those of
the human species who would give hands to the devil, in return for a
good stock tip.
I do draw solace from the fact that because a computer is intelligent
or even self-aware, that this does not mean that it is ambitious. That
is, will it try to affect the outside world? Will it have a survival
instinct?
My washing machine does not seem to care whether I turn it off or
not. In contrast, my pet mouse does seem to care. We should be working
on elements to implant in computers to prevent self-awareness, survival
instinct and ambition. But I know no politician is supposed to say
that, because it sounds wacky; it sounds like science fiction. But if
we are not talking about things that sound like science fiction, then
we are not talking about the real issues that will confront us in the
generation to come.
We also should focus not only on computer engineering but on the
engineering of DNA. Biological engineering starts with an inherently
ambitious raw material. Virtually all life forms seem to seek to
survive, seem to try to affect their environment to achieve that
purpose. Most of them seem to care whether their progeny survive. Now,
bioengineers could create a 1,000-pound mammal with a 100-pound brain
that will beat your kids on the LSAT.
These are issues that deserve the attention of all of us in the
public sphere but particularly those who are our best philosophers,
theologians and sociologists.
I thank the Chair for giving me the time to, once again, bring these
issues before the House, and I look forward to working with my
colleagues to see that these issues are confronted long before science
confronts us with new reality.
I believe that the impact of science on this century will be far
greater than the enormous impact science had on the last century. As
futurist Christine Peterson notes: If someone is describing the future
30 years from now and they paint a picture that seems like it is from a
science fiction movie, then they might be wrong. But, if someone is
describing the future a generation from now and they paint a picture
that doesn't look like a science fiction movie, then you know they are
wrong.
We are going to live in a science fiction movie, we just don't know
which one.
There is one issue that I think is more explosive than even the
spread of nuclear weapons: engineered intelligence. I have spent nine
years focused on this issue \1\ By ``engineered intelligence'' I mean
the efforts of computer engineers and bio-engineers who may create
intelligence beyond that of a human being. In testimony at the House
Science Committee,\2\ the consensus of experts testifying was that in
roughly 25 years we would have a computer that passed the Turing
Test,\3\ and more importantly exceeded human intelligence.
As we develop more intelligent computers, we will find them useful
tools in creating ever more intelligent computers, a positive feedback
loop. I don't know whether we will be creating the maniacal Hal from
2001, or the earnest Data from Star Trek--or perhaps both.
There are those who say don't worry, even if a computer is
intelligent and malevolent--it is in a box and it cannot affect the
world. But I believe that there are those of our species who would give
hands to the devil, in return for a good stock tip.
I do draw solace from the fact that just because a computer is
intelligent, or even self-aware, this does not mean that it is
ambitious. By ambitious, I mean possessing a survival instinct together
with a desire to affect the environment so as to ensure survival, and
usually a desire to propagate or expand.
My washing machine does not seem to care whether I turn it off or
not. My pet mouse does seem to care. So even a computer possessing
great intelligence may simply have no ambition, survival instinct, or
interest in affecting the world.
DARPA \4\ is the government agency on the cutting edge of
supercomputer research. I have urged DARPA to develop computer systems
designed to maximize the computer's utility, while avoiding self-
awareness, or at least ambition.
I have spoken about computer engineering. But there is a whole
different area of engineering: bio-engineering. Roughly 30 or 40 years
from now bio-engineers should be able to start with human DNA
and create a 2,000 pound mammal with a 300 pound brain designed to beat
your grandkids on the LSAT. No less troubling, they might start with
canine DNA and create a mammal with near-human intelligence, and no
civil rights.
DNA is inherently ambitious. Those microbes which didn't seek to
survive or replicate, didn't. Even birds seem to care whether they or
their progeny survive, and they seek to affect their environment to
achieve that survival.
In any case, you have the bio-engineers and the computer engineers
both working toward new levels of intelligence. I believe in our
lifetime we will see new species possessing intelligence which
surpasses our own.
The last time a new higher level of intelligence arose on this planet
was roughly 50,000 years ago. It was our own ancestors, who then said
hello to the previously most intelligent species, Neanderthals. It did
not work out so well for the Neanderthals.
I used to view this as a contest between the bio-engineers and the
computer engineers (or if you use the cool new lingo, wet
nanotechnology and dry nanotechnology), in an effort to develop a new
species of superior intelligence. I felt that the last decision that
humans would make is whether our successors are carbon-based or
silicon- based: \5\ the product of bio-engineering or of computer
engineering.
Now I believe we are most likely to see combinations that will
involve nature, computer engineering, and bio-engineering: humans with
pharmaceutical intelligence boosters; DNA enhancements; computer-chip
implants; or all three. First, this will be used to cure disease, then
to enhance human capacity. The partially-human will precede the trans-
human.
Now how should we react to all of this? It is important that we
benefit from science even as we consider its more troubling
implications. I chair the House Subcommittee on Nonproliferation which
deals with the only other technologies that pose an existential threat
to humankind, namely the proliferation of nuclear and biological
weapons.
The history of nuclear technology is instructive. On August 2, 1939,
Einstein sent Roosevelt a letter saying a nuclear weapon was possible;
six years later, nuclear technology literally exploded onto the world
scene. Only after society saw the negative effects of nuclear
technology, did we see the prospects for nuclear power and nuclear
medicine.
The future of engineered intelligence will be different. The
undeniable benefits of computer and DNA research will arrive long
before the problematic possibilities. Their introduction will be
gradual, not explosive. And fortunately, we will have far more than six
years to consider the implications--unless we choose to squander the
next few decades. My fear is that our philosophers, ethicists and
society at large, will ignore the issues that will inevitably present
themselves until . . . they actually present themselves. And these
issues require more than a few years of thought.\6\
I have been urged not to make this issue the centerpiece of my
reelection campaign. One journalist has told me that he can guarantee
that computers will not be self-aware or overly intelligent: ``All we
have to do is get them elected to Congress.''
I am confident that if we plan ahead we can obtain the utility of
supercomputers, and the medical treatments available from bio-
engineering, without creating new levels of intelligence. We can then
pause and decide whether we in fact wish to create a new intelligent
species or two.
Finally, I would quote Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1913 when he said,
``I think it not improbable that man, like the grub that prepares a
chamber for the winged thing it never has seen but is to be--that man
may have cosmic destinies that he does not understand.'' \7\
Likewise, it is possible that within the next 30 or 40 years, our
children--or should I say ``our successors''--will have less
resemblance
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to us than a butterfly has to a caterpillar. I don't know whether to
cry or rejoice, but I do know that our best minds in philosophy,
science, ethics and even theology ought to be focused on this issue.
ENDNOTES
1. I gave my first speech on the House floor regarding
engineered intelligence on May 17, 2000. For speech go to
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/r106query.html on page H 3306.
2. On April 9, 2003, the U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, held a hearing titled The Societal
Implications of Nanotechnology. The transcript is available
at http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/science/hsy86340.000/
hsy86340_0f.htm
3. A test to determine whether computers are able to
demonstrate intelligence matching a human's. In particular, a
human sends text-only messages to communicate with both a
computer and another human located in a different room. If
the human sending the messages cannot determine if the
response messages are composed by the computer or by the
human, then the computer has passed the Turing Test. It
should also be noted that one route to developing a computer
with human intelligence is by reverse engineering the human
brain perhaps using nanobots.
4. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
5. While I realize that supercomputers may not use chips
with silicon substrate, I still prefer to call computer chips
``silicon''.
6. This issue is discussed in ``Brave New World War'' by
Jamie Metzl. Published in Issue 8, Spring 2008, Democracy: A
Journal of Ideas.
7. Oliver Wendell Holmes. ``Law and the Court,'' speech at
the Harvard Law School Association of New York, 15 February
1913.
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