ultraintelligent machine
In plain wordsI. J. Good's 1965 name for a machine smarter than any person at every kind of thinking, which could therefore build machines smarter than itself.
A machine whose intellect outstrips the ablest person's at every kind of mental work: I. J. Good's 1965 term for what is now called superintelligencesuperintelligence, n.: A mind, usually imagined as an AI, that would leave even the cleverest people far behind in nearly every kind of thinking, not just in one game or skill. None is known to exist.. Because designing machines is one such kind of work, Good reasoned, it could build a better successor, which could build a better one still, an intelligence explosionintelligence explosion, n.: The idea that once AI gets good enough at improving AI, each smarter version could build a smarter one faster still, so abilities would snowball far beyond human level in a short time. that would put human intellect hopelessly out of reach. Hence his conclusion that the first such machine would be 'the last invention that man need ever make', with the caveat that this held only if it were tractable enough to explain how it could be kept under control, an early statement of what later became the control problemcontrol problem, n.: The challenge of making sure that an AI much smarter than its makers still does what they intend, and can be corrected or stopped if needed.. The term is now used mainly in discussing the history of these ideas.
Good's ultraintelligent machine is the ancestor of every modern intelligence-explosion argument.
Origin
Coined by the British statistician I. J. Good, who had worked with Alan Turing as a codebreaker at Bletchley Park, in 'Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine', published in Advances in Computers in 1965 and based on talks given in 1962–1963. It became canonical after Vernor Vinge and later AI-risk writers cited it.
Related
- I. J. GoodI. J. Good, prop. n.: A British statistician who broke codes with Alan Turing and in 1965 argued that a machine smarter than us could design still smarter machines, setting off an 'intelligence explosion'.
- intelligence explosionintelligence explosion, n.: The idea that once AI gets good enough at improving AI, each smarter version could build a smarter one faster still, so abilities would snowball far beyond human level in a short time.
- superintelligencesuperintelligence, n.: A mind, usually imagined as an AI, that would leave even the cleverest people far behind in nearly every kind of thinking, not just in one game or skill. None is known to exist.
- technological singularitytechnological singularity, n.: A moment some people expect in the future when technology, usually AI smarter than us, starts changing the world so fast and so deeply that we cannot see past it.
- control problemcontrol problem, n.: The challenge of making sure that an AI much smarter than its makers still does what they intend, and can be corrected or stopped if needed.
Sources
- Good, I. J. (1965). Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine. Advances in Computers 6: 31–88.
Mentioned in
superintelligencesuperintelligence, n.: A mind, usually imagined as an AI, that would leave even the cleverest people far behind in nearly every kind of thinking, not just in one game or skill. None is known to exist., I. J. GoodI. J. Good, prop. n.: A British statistician who broke codes with Alan Turing and in 1965 argued that a machine smarter than us could design still smarter machines, setting off an 'intelligence explosion'., intelligence explosionintelligence explosion, n.: The idea that once AI gets good enough at improving AI, each smarter version could build a smarter one faster still, so abilities would snowball far beyond human level in a short time.