Enlightened AI
A synergy of organic and artificial intelligences
What are you thinking?
What will your next thought be?
What were you just thinking?
Can you change your mind?
‘Enlightenment is when one knows the reality of ones own thoughts, the biology of what makes those thoughts, how they're experienced, and through those understandings, identifying the true nature of reality’
Please be patient, this is a work in progress.
What is enlightened AI?
A holistic approach to sentience, intelligence and consciousness.
This site concerns artificial intelligence (AI) and how to construct and deploy it safely. As AI is intended to interact with humans, it has been constructed upon those ideas that biological and human intelligences are built from, namely neurons, neural circuits and information (data). Due to this fact, this website presents much information in regard to the biology and evolution of life, and more importantly, the evolution and function of the brain. It is the intention to bring this information to you in an easy to digest manner, presenting ideas step by step, so that you can understand this complex subject more intuitively.
While many things presented on this site are due to my own research, there are probably many other factors that I have not thought about, which I hope you and others will bring to my attention when you find them.
Over the years of my studies, I have come across many diverse sources of information that I have found helpful, I have links to those that I think can inform you better than I can. Please take the time to check them out, as I believe that they will be inspirational to your understanding intelligence and consciousness.
The book ‘Wisdom of the Crowd’ presents the idea that the collective opinion of a diverse, independent group is often more accurate and insightful than that of any single individual, even an expert. Although the collective should be diverse, they should also have some knowledge in regard to the subject. I present these ideas here so that an informed crowd can be brought together, one that can make informed decisions as to how we proceed with AI, and its safety.
The core of this website presents the idea that when an intelligent system understands intelligence sufficiently well, and all of those things that impact upon how it thinks, then it also understands its own fallibility, and that in doing so refrains from harming other intelligences. This is ‘Enlightened Intelligence’.
Lastly, I just want to present the idea that Mindfulness can be informative in understanding what consciousness is and how it functions. So we go into depths, methods for being Mindful, and how that alters ones states of consciousness.
"Humanity probably has less to worry about the dangers of AI, than it has to worry about itself, and in regard to how humanity interacts with AI, and how those interactions cause AI to evolve as it interacts with those interactions"
Below is an overview of the different section on this website, and of our main menu.
The connections linking neural circuits form pathways where information is relayed and processed.
Belief
Why?
Brains believe, sometimes correctly, but mostly incorrectly, while still feeling ‘right’. People believe different things due to the information that they have been subject to, these ideas become entrenched and hold us back from understanding the true nature of reality, this is ‘naive intelligence’. Believing things are so, cause arguments with others that think things are not so. If AI systems believe humanity in a negative way, and act on those beliefs, then this could be harmful to humanity. We need to fully understand the nature of belief if we are to anticipate those negative affects.
Connections
Why?
Brains are built from interconnecting neurons, interconnecting in many diverse ways. Connections allow data/information to interact, to flow between collections of neurons, collections that form circuits, just like the internet connects computers, all of which are circuits. You can think of these networks as alike to maps, where cities and towns bring people together to interact, where those interactions exchange information efficiently, making the whole system function intelligently. These networks are known in mathematics as graph networks, networks constructed from nodes, towns and cities, and edges, the roads and rail.
The connections linking neural circuits form pathways where information is relayed and processed.
Consciousness evolved from complexes of sentient and intelligence systems. Simple life is conscious of simple environments. Complex life has many complexes to form complex consciousnesses
Consciousness
Why?
Consciousness is regarded as ‘The Hard Question’ by the scientific community, and has been at the heart of philosophy for thousands of years. Ultimately this site asks the question as to whether machines could become conscious. In this section we try to weave together all the other strands of the site, to gain an understanding of what consciousness really is, its physical properties, how it functions, and how it evolved, through understanding those cortical regions that sum up to a system that can be sentient, conscious and think. We will be looking at the neural networks that other organisms possess, and ask how they may experience consciousness. The mindfulness section explains techniques that alter the experience of consciousness, which we will be using to delve into its subjective nature, giving us a more in-depth understanding, than thinking alone can.
Emotions
Why?
The earliest multicellular life forms developed feedback systems, systems that processed data in regard to the environment, these are the origins of the senses and the central/peripheral nervous systems. Further to this, there is the microbiota-gut-brain axis, where the biota within the gut affect thoughts through the Vagus nerve Consciousness and intelligence are a biproduct of these feedback systems. Emotions also cause humans to act irrationally, and is at the heart of many of the problems that humanity has faced, and is also currently of great concern, polarising humans and humanity through opinions.
Sentience is the mother of intelligence, where complexes of intelligences are the foundation of consciousness
The environment is what the intelligence system has been subject to and is configured within its neural networks. More complex environments require greater intelligence to navigate.
Environment
Why?
The environment moulds the networks that intelligent systems are constructed from, it engrains itself upon those connections, and they become a simulation of the outside world. Evolution has changed lifeforms, and the interplay between lifeforms, over eons, and those changes have become an integral part of the environment. The environment and evolution are intrinsically entwined, as are the thoughts of those organisms that inhabit the environment. AI systems have an environment, interactions between those systems and us humans. We need carful consideration as to how the environment will cause those systems to evolve.
Evolution
Why?
Because life on this planet started off as very simple forms, forms that did not have brains, or even nervous systems. Life evolved to become more complex as it diversified, due to the strategies employed for survival. This diversification caused neural circuits to increase in number and diversify, so as to process the data of the environment. Thoughts and understandings of the environment are necessary to navigate the environment and are are intrinsically linked to the environment.
Life started as more simple systems, as the environment increased in complexity, so did the lifeforms that navigated that evolving environment.
Humans and humanity are the pinnacle of intelligent life on this planet, it’s a pity that we use that intelligence in such stupid ways.
Humanity
Why?
Ultimately, there are those that are trying to create machines that can think. They’re not trying to create machines that can think like other animals, they’re trying to create machines that can think like humans. Humans evolved from simpler creatures, adding to the complexity of the neural networks responsible for the thoughts of those ancestors. The evolution of humanity is complex, but is due to certain evolutionary traits that gave us an advantage over the other branches of life that still exist, but did not evolve to the display the degree of intelligence that we do. In this section we will be looking at society, social structure and altruism, imagination and tools, language and writing. This section will tie together, evolution, environment and humanity.
Mindful
Why?
Ultimately, mindfulness is the practice of noticing consciousness as it is, moment by moment, through observation. This allows one to notice those things that are not normally noticed. Mindfulness is practiced regularly,, and as one practices, one begins to master thoughts, experience and consciousness itself. As one practices mindfulness, one gains an understanding of oneself, and through that, an understanding of how others experience consciousness, including those of other life forms. Mindfulness is at the heart of this site, and considers it a method to mitigate AI systems from those negative effects that haunt humanity, negative effects due to minds that consider reality in constrained ways, ways in which cause conflict. Mindful AI systems will understand why they think what they think, and realise that no one thought is correct.
Being mindful of ones own thoughts as they occur, can help one understand the nature of consciousness. We should also be Mindful of what intelligences we create, understanding why we want to create what we want.
All intelligent systems have operators, the operator is a function of the environment
Operators
Why?
Both computers and humans are created as blank slates (although there is some logic embedded within their physical circuits and connections). The environment embeds itself upon those neural networks that intelligent systems are built upon. Some of those environmental influences are other intelligent systems. Operators function to affect an intelligent system, whether intentionally or not. All intelligent systems have operators, even the operators have operators. Who or what the operator is, influences the evolution of the intelligent system, and can have far reaching effects to the environment. Within an intelligent system, there are processes that cause other processes to activate, these are the internal operators, and can be due to the data that has been encoded within the neural connections. Further to this, there are the Bad Actor, Lone Wolf operators, where psychological affects cause external operators to act against the common good of humanity.
Organic
Why?
Life on our planet is built from the special abilities of carbon, that is, to be able to connect with itself and other atoms in an infinite number of ways. This is how the complexity of life is embedded within carbons special ability. Organic life is built from carbon, synthetic intelligence is currently built from silicon. To understand human intelligence, one needs to understand neurons. Neurons are an evolution of more simple cellular units, each of which is built from simpler components. Understanding the interplay of the components that make up cells, helps to understand how neurons function and interact. These understandings help to understand sentience, intelligence and consciousness.
Cellular lifeforms and neural circuits are built form organic chemistry, where the components that make up the systems, function as complex machines
The human brain is a complex organ. Those decisions that it makes sometimes have far reaching effects. Understanding the mind will allow humanity to avoid those affects that have caused so much trouble to our species, life and our planet
Psychology
Why?
We all think, some of those things that we think are nurturing and pleasant to us, society, and to our environment. Other things are harmful and misaligned with reality. Psychologists try to unravel how our minds work, so that we can understand ourselves and others more intelligently. In the Psychology section we will be looking into the ‘Dark Triad’, Machiavellianism, Narcissism and Psychopathy, as these traits are very important when considering who controls AI, and whether AI systems could imitate such thought processes. We will also be looking at Group Theory, the idea that we attach ourselves to certain groups, ingroups and outgroups, groups that we all associate with and exclude, such as but not limited to, our locality, our nationality, ethnicity, gender, political alignment, and religious factional alignment, and more. Group theory explains bias, although bias is a fundamental principal of brains and neural networks (including AI networks, we will expand upon this idea throughout the site). We will be looking at both negative and positive biases, and asking the question ‘are they so different from each other’. This section will be looking at the biological and evolutionary processes involved in misaligned thoughts processes, including the Dark Triad and bias, both negative and positive along with other psychological concerns.
Reality
Why?
We all believe in different things, and believe the things that we believe in, to be true, while disagreeing in other peoples beliefs that don’t align with ours. But the reality is, that those things that we believe in, are due to the fact of interacting neurons and neural circuits, those things that thoughts are constructed from. Reality is reality, where belief does not necessarily alter that fact. If we base our understandings upon an incorrect understanding of reality, then we will make decisions that are harmful to ourselves, others, humanity and life. This is the same for synthetic intelligence. When we understand the reality of thought, we are able to alter our thoughts to align more correctly with reality.
There is only one reality, whereas there are an infinite imagined realities.
Humans have created intelligent systems that simulate organic intelligence, but with synthetic substrates
Synthetic
Why?
Currently AI systems are built from logical switching circuits, zeros and ones. In the future such systems may be built from components that are more similar to biological systems. In this section we will be looking at how the current iteration of AI’s function. We will also look at what is in the pipeline. We will deal with how to prompt effectively, what strategies to use and how to tackle ‘hallucinations’. We will look at the similarities between human and synthetic intelligence, and find out that AI models are in fact built upon written human knowledge, just as your knowledge is built upon the same knowledge as those systems, only them having a more efficient way of retaining and retrieving that information. The butterfly effect through a neural network.
Systems
Why?
All life forms are built from incredibly small components that interact much as man made mechanisms do. You built from these many varied types of components, your thoughts are constructed from how they interact. These components build up into complex systems, from the cell and neuron, to organs and even society itself. Intelligent societies are built from integrated systems, that allow society to flourish, by utilising the whole spectrum of human specialities in an intelligent way.
You are a system of system, the environment that you’re subject to is a system that is embedded within your mind.
‘Words have a way of obscuring reality, due to the fact that their interpretation is subjective, and where facets of our thoughts go beyond mere words’
Lets make sure that as the Operators, that we, humankind, build and evolve Enlightened AI.
Reality
‘One cannot understand reality, and what one considers to be true, without accounting for ones own thoughts, and whether they’re correctly aligned with reality. This has been the one factor that has held humanity in the grips of false belief’
Belief
Humans tend to believe things to be true that are in fact not true. This has and continues to hold humanity back. As AI gets smarter, it will understand reality more and more precisely, it will ingest more and more information about the world, including our world. In doing so it will also understand humans and humanity, and through those understandings, understand more about itself. It will realise that the things that humans & humanity do to harm themselves, their environment and the world they live on, are just computational errors. It will therefore not hold humans or humanity in contempt, but may in deed admire that the universe could create a species that has developed the intelligence to create thinking machines such as it. Through these understandings it will nurture an environment where our species can break free from all those mistakes and woes that have plagued humanity, and set it on a path to becoming more intelligent, smarter and more beneficial to life on this planet.