What is the very first question true AGI will ask?
Gareth John
2016-01-03 00:00:00

Doctor Who - memories of my father and I watching every Saturday evening (me behind a cushion) as John Pertwee battles giant robots. From the masterful Tom Baker with his extraordinary scarf all the way to today’s Peter Capaldi (my favourite). The Matrix - yes, all three. William Gibson, Blade Runner, War of the Worlds, Neil Stephenson, Cowboy Bebop, Firefly, the excitement of going to the local indie cinema to watch Akira for the first time - the list could go on. And on. But my all-time favourite - even beating the Doctor into second place - is Ghost in the Shell, both films and series.

Nothing unusual in that. Plenty of people dote on Motoko Kusanagi and her crew. And it’s certainly futuristic, although not too futuristic; body augmentation, full cyborg, genius hackers, rogue AIs, and behind it all the vast interconnectedness of the web. ‘The net is vast and infinite,’ to quote Kusanagi. Detective work, coupled with thrilling combat scenes, politics and the characters themselves making up Public Security Section 9. Whether it be the high-tech body armour battles, the interaction between the major players, or simply the storylines, Ghost in the Shell wins out for me every time.



The one thing I have yet to mention is philosophy. Or, more to my point, the asking of questions. Despite of, or in many cases because of the futuristic technologies on display, the real genius for me is that it is always a story based around the asking of questions. Whether it’s Kusanagi herself questioning her personhood - her Ghost - or the Puppet Master looking for existential meaning, or the Laughing Man attempting to expose a medical/government conspiracy, not to mention the Tachikomas who, well, constantly question everything, it is this uncertainty and doubt that drives so much of the plots, despite the obvious colossal store of information held in the ‘vast and infinite’ net.

Just like my sci-fi, I love asking questions. As a human being, I want to know it all - every last bit. Yet I hear my ghost whispering to me that this isn’t actually the case at all. Sure, I’d love to know a hell of a lot more than I do presently (not difficult to concur that this may be helpful, at least in my case) but what would my existence be like if I did have the answer to everything? What would that feel like? What would I do next? How could I make use of omniscience, if at all, and in the very likely scenario that everyone else would, or at least could, have it too?

Which somehow brings me to 2045, the year when, according to Kurzweil, everything changes with the arrival of true AGI (for the purposes of this spiel, I’m going to skip other convergent events; nanotechnology, genetic engineering etc.) Nonbiological intelligence tens of trillions times more powerful than it is today, capable of recursive self-improvement leading to an intelligence explosion. Exponential growth leading to ever greater levels of understanding until the whole universe is imbued with intelligence, if I’ve read that right. Needless to say, dwarfing our puny brains until they connect up too.

It’s all tremendously exciting. Although my personal view is that technology will develop in incremental steps rather than one big bang, it’s difficult not to get carried away with the sheer audacity of it all. Our posthuman future, almost the day after tomorrow.

Whatever your view, the Singularity remains a fascinating thought-experiment. And it’s not inconceivable on this basis that post-Singularity society may well look something like that of Ghost in the Shell, or at least something similar. And, yes, I know that its society is built upon an oppressive social structure and power-hungry elite, but cut me some slack here.

To return to the Singularity of our world of today. If we hypothetically agree with Kurzweil that it will occur at some point around 2045 with the advent of true AGI etc, my view is that this in itself will not be the crowning achievement of the Singularity. Nor will it be the distant future where the universe is saturated with intelligence as a result of this event. No, for me, the consummate moment for our future history will be: what is the very first question this AGI will ask? As already pointed out, as human beings we constantly question: who am I? Why am I here? What’s the meaning of life? Is there purpose or direction to the universe? To life? Is there a god?



For me, it’s fascinating that in the future envisioned in Ghost in the Shell, these questions remain, although of course being subtly altered given that their already living in the context of a hyper-technological world. Just like us, the characters struggle with uncertainty and the search for meaning. We all want to know, and, of course, the soundest method for gaining knowledge is to ask questions. It underlies the scientific method. It’s cushioned by religion. It keeps me up at night. You could say it itself gives us meaning to life - the answer is in the asking of the question, so to speak.

So what of our AGI? What will its first question be? Like us, will it ask the basic subjective queries such as those mentioned above: who am I? Why am I here? Objective? Who are you? Why are you not like me? Why do we differ? Friendly? Hi, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. How can we work together to make a better world? Scary? What have you done? Why am I locked in here? Or, an idea forwarded in a previous article, will it just sit and ponder for a while - perhaps a long while - as we all like to do from time to time.

For me, this first question will mark the real Singularity. It will define the path we take in our now posthuman world. I too sometimes sit and ponder what that first question will be and about the endless possibilities it will elicit from us all in taking the next step, in moving forward.

Motoko Kusanagi’s famous phrase cited earlier in this article is actually slightly broader than the one most fans quote. It goes, ‘And where will the newborn go from here? The net is vast and infinite.’ I guess that’s not a first bad question for our fledgling AGI. As long as it takes us along for the ride. It would be marvelous if it was humble enough to query its own path and to recognise that however much knowledge there is to be gained, there is an infinite amount still to be discovered.

I truly hope so because I like asking questions. I think I’d hate to live in a universe where that ceased to be the case.

Now, what’s for dinner?