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          NETWORKING IN THE MIND AGE                [ Draft 0.70 ]
  (Some thoughts on evolution of robotics and distributed systems )

        Copyright: Alexander Chislenko,  1994.
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   In his new book,  "Mind Age:  Transcendence  Through Robots",  Hans
Moravec  pictures  further  stages  in the evolution  of  the robotics
industry,  where each robot  will learn from experience,  adapt to the
changing  environment   and  eventually  acquire   real   intelligence
approaching - and then exceeding - human.

   The intelligent robots are expected to replace humans in most tasks
humans are capable of.  This  will  raise  a plethora of issues,  from
human unemployment  to  ethical treatment  of robots  and the task  of
taming their runaway intelligence.

   "Mind Age"  is an excellently written and extremely idea-rich book,
and  I  strongly  recommend  everybody  interested  in  the structural
evolution of the world to read it  (as soon as it appears in print).
   I do not attempt to write  a comprehensive review of the book,  but
would like to suggest some complementary ideas, mainly related  to the
distributed architecture of intelligence,  that  I  consider important
for exploring the Mind Age.


                 KNOWLEDGE SHARING

  Learning from the experience  is a very useful skill.  If your robot
slips on a banana peel a number of times, it will be less likely to do
it again.   However,  processing of limited  [personal] experience  by
limited intelligence is bound to bring limited results.   The  derived
knowledge  may be incomplete,  inconsistent,  clumsily formulated  and
full of false conclusions,  arbitrary beliefs and superstitions  - the
typical content of any primitive mind.

  If some robots have already had that educational banana peel experi-
ence, they can share it,  together  with  some conclusions,  with your
robot. Or -better yet- with the nearest knowledge processor that would
combine one robot's experience with others', develop efficient general
algorithms for identifying similar situations  and  taking appropriate
actions and then download them to all participating robots.

  Humans obtain most of their knowledge  by learning  from  experience
and conclusions of others,despite their poor memory, low communication
speeds and inability to transfer knowledge directly.

  One may expect that information sharing among robots not handicapped
by any of these limitations will be much more efficient.

  Information  storage  and  processing  costs   in  large  stationary
machines may be much lower than those  in small mobile units. Besides,
elimination of redundant computations within millions of robots  would
make  a networked system  greatly more efficient than  a collection of
unconnected machines.  Sharing  of experience  may prove to be a still
greater benefit.  Thus,  cooperative  knowledge  processing  would  be 
several orders of magnitude less expensive and at the same time vastly
more productive.  This makes the networked design an imperative rather
than a matter of taste.

   Rather than independent entities,  robots  and other smart machines
would work more  like  semi-intelligent,  semi-autonomous  front-ends/
clients of the global system.

   Your home  will have  a number of devices  with varying  types  and
degrees of mobility, sensitivity and intelligence   (and so will cars,
factories, highways, spaceships,  etc.)  They  will interact with each
other and with larger machines for continuous data backups, experience
sharing and knowledge upgrading. 

   The local machine  itself  would  only store the knowledge  that is
frequently used or may be urgently needed.  If somebody starts telling
your robot a joke in ancient Greek,  it will forward  the sound stream
to  the nearest  linguistics expert  and receive  the  meaning  of the
message,  a suggested  witty  reply,  a Greek  speech parser  and  the
survival knowledge kit on Greece before it finishes the polite chuckle
recommended by its own processor as an easy way to buy time.
   Actually,  getting  the full parser  and knowledge base  may  prove
unnecessary,  as  the "remote thinking" service  can  provide  a  more
efficient  alternative  -  unless those ancient Greeks  are  about  to
permanently disconnect your robot from the Net.

  Dependence on external sources of knowledge will hardly be a serious
limitation since robots, just as all other open (dissipative) systems,
will  vitally depend  on connections  to many  other  resources,  from
information about the environment to energy and materials.
   The actual balance of intelligence  between a local client  and the
rest of the system  will depend on various  technical factors  and may
range from a fully autonomous machine  (working in remote or dangerous
locations)  to  a  completely  dumb  front  end  (a sensor or actuator
connected to the Net).
   A mobile machine  can continuously exchange  information via a slow
wireless link  (this may include  urgent communications, news updates,
small  software enhancements, etc. )  and  periodically plug  into the
high-bandwidth network for larger information transfers.

              STRUCTURE OF GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE

   The architecture of the global intelligent network may  be expected
to be quite complex.  Various parts  of the intelligence  of different
robots will be shared with multiple archiving  and knowledge providing
host computers based on  a variety of economic,  privacy  and security
considerations.  In general,  new knowledge may be bought or rented by
robots or their owners,  as automated production  and distribution  of
information becomes  the primary area  of economic activity.  However,
one may get beta-test knowledge for free and agree to run experimental
programs for pay;  people can also get paid  for  putting their robots
into conditions where  they  could generate  valuable new experiences.
Participants may also want to specify  what information  can be shared
with other parts of the system,  what can only be used for generaliza-
tion,  and what should not be shared  at all,  but just archived in an
encrypted form.
 
   Most of the main networking components of this system  have already
been designed  or at least conceived.   Today's  networking standards,
mirrored file servers, public key  cryptography,  agoric computational
economies,message authentication algorithms, collaborative information
filtering schemes,  computerized banking  and other network constructs
will evolve into essential parts of future global intelligence.

   This system  will not  be  a  gigantic superorganism,  despite  the
implied high degree of structural integration.  The global "mind" will
be compartmentalized, with many relatively independent components  and
threads,  separated from each other by subject boundaries,  as well as
property, privacy and security-related interests. 

  Knowledge servers may also have different world models, incompatible
knowledge representations or conflicting opinions.  While complicating
knowledge development,  this will also increase  the overall stability
and versatility of the system. 
  Centralization  is   a traditional  scare  word   of  integrational
projects.   It doesn't seem  to be  a danger  here  though.   Physical
centralization is unlikely,  since both safety of storage  and traffic
efficiency require existence of multiple remote archives and knowledge
servers.   Centralization  in  the sense  of information processing is
impossible,  because the very concept of a "Center"  is not applicable
to a massively parallel,  globally distributed  and  extremely complex
system. 

   The notion of a single "self"  in its traditional sense  can hardly
apply to this system, or any single robot.  To some functional subsys-
tems, maybe...   The intelligent personalities of tomorrow will evolve
from  today's  philosophical systems,  technological  disciplines  and
software complexes.  (Cultures  may not  get there  as they  are based
too heavily on peculiarities of human nature).  The connected material
consciousness carriers will be left behind  the evolutionary frontier.
New distributed systems will take  the evolutionary lead, and physical
objects will adapt to more closely follow functional entities.   (This
process  is already well under way,  in  such forms  as  cultural  and
economic specialization.)  The resulting system is likely to represent
a mix of  a superliquid economy,  cyberspace anarchy and consciousness
architecture  described  by  Marvin Minsky  in  "The Society of Mind".
I doubt that it can be described by any single integrated theory. 

   One can argue  that  many distributed systems  already possess some
reflective consciousness.  A computer network  may locally store  more
information  about its global condition than a human consciousness has
about its underlying layers (at least, in relative terms).  Philosophy
spends  a  greater share  of  its effort studying its  own nature  and
purpose than most humans I know.  The recent surge in meta-disciplines
and methodological and futurological studies is a clear indicator that
the global body of knowledge is becoming increasingly self-conscious.

   It may be difficult to get used to dealing with a volatile  distri-
buted entity. 
   Suppose your robot made some really stupid mistake. You are mad  at
it.  It explains that the action  was caused by  a temporary condition
in the experimental semantic subnetwork and suggests to present to you
a 100-terabyte set of incremental archives, memory snapshots and audit
trails from numerous servers involved in the making of the unfortunate
decision,containing a partial description of the state of the relevant
parts  of the system  at the time.   If you can even find the culprit,
it's non-material, distributed and long gone.

   Now, what do you kick ?

              EVOLUTION OF DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

   There is  nothing really new in the idea  of distributed functiona-
lity.  Networking isn't just a recent trend  in the computer industry.
Throughout  all  the evolutionary process,  more  and more  structural
elements become exosomatic, distributed and shared. Thousands of years
ago people started storing more energy,  materials  and tools  outside
their bodies than within them. This process is accompanied by widening
personal perception of self,  from identifying with  larger and larger
communities  and  even abstract statements to assigning  an increasing
value to exosomatic personal parts (most of us value our bank deposits
higher than our fat deposits for personal resource storage).

   Functional extensions to once purely biological bodies evolve  from
passive non-biological material additions(like clothes) to information
transmitting  shareable parts  (e.g., thermometers  as external shared
sensors) to active distributed extensions  (medicine as external dist-
ributed immune system).  The progress here is characterized by growing
integration and liquidity of the system,  as well as liberation of its
functional elements from the constraints of their material substrates.

   Among other advantages, distributed systems  are much less  suscep-
tible  to accidental  or  deliberate  physical damage  than  localized
physical structures.  This makes them  the only class of entities that
can hope to achieve true immortality.  In fact, they are the only ones
to deserve it, too.  One  may notice  that  all  sufficiently  complex
entities with unlimited natural lifespan - from ant colonies  to large
ecologies and cultures - are distributed. Physically connected objects
like biological organisms  are no longer independently alive  and even
contain,   in  the  interests  of  larger  systems,   self-destruction
mechanisms that lie beyond their control. 
    { Some of these objects are silly enough to believe that the whole
historical  process  is happening  solely for their own  benefit,  but
that's another issue... }

   It may seem  strange  that even the AI visionaries  still  think in
terms of non-distributed systems.   I would explain this  by the human
"automorphic" tendency  to mix the notions  of a functional entity and
a physically connected object,  as well as  the influence  of the fact
that both early animals and machines were relatively autonomous beings
(which greatly hindered their development).

   It is understandable why early biological systems  were non-distri-
buted:  young Nature  couldn't develop information coding and transfer
standards at the initial stages of growth.  Then,  the organisms  were
separate from each other and did not learn much during their lifetime.
By the time  they started accumulating  any features worth sharing, it
was too late to change the design.  Ever since then, Nature's attempts
to reach functional integration on a meta-organismic level suffer from
the fact that most of the individual features, inherited  or acquired,
either  are completely nontransferable  or take an excruciating amount
of  circumnavigational effort  to share.  There  were  some  important
advances in this area,  including development of genetic code,  sexual
reproduction  and language,  but they were still very far from  direct
sharing of internal features with all interested parties.  Real break-
throughs in this direction start with  advent of economy  and computer
communications.  Unfortunately, biological organisms  can benefit from
them only indirectly.

   It seems reasonable to assume  that life always starts  as a set of
non-distributed  objects,  as permanent  physical  connection,  albeit
overly restrictive, provides a natural and easy way for interchange of
information and material resources within a [functional] body.  Later,
as  more efficient and subtle  methods  of system design  appear,  the
evolutionary frontier  gradually shifts  towards  distributed systems.
( One may expect  all sufficiently advanced alien intelligences  to be
distributed.)  The situation on Earth now  may be approaching a climax
in this process.

   If we extrapolate  the current trends in increasing complexity  and
integration of the system, as well as  its growing spatial spread  and
control over the material world, to their logical conclusions,  we may
envision  a superintelligent entity  permeating  the  entire Universe,
with integration  on the quantum scale  and  many spectacular emergent
features.  This picture bears a striking resemblance  to  the familiar
concept of  an omnipresent,  omniscient and omnipotent entity.   (This
"omni" prefix may seem too presumptuous.   However,  if the boundaries
of some entity are  clearly beyond your reach,  it is very tempting to
simplify  your  theory  by postulating  their  absence).   Spiritually
inclined rationalists may view the ongoing evolutionary process as one
of Theogenesis.  An interesting question  is whether  it  has  already
happened elsewhere. 

  Our current efforts are laying the foundation for the infrastructure
of the coming universal "intelligence".  Many of our current  achieve-
ments may persist forever and eventually become parts  of the internal
architecture  of  "God".  (Quite  likely,  as  sentimentally preserved
rudiments ;-) ).
              Life as advanced distributed info-being.

              
   The life  of distributed beings  without permanent bodies  and with  
near-perfect information-handling abilities    (let's call them 'info-
morphs' after Charles Platt) will be dramatically different from ours.
   They certainly won't have long periods of study.   If one infomorph
wants to learn something from another, it  (gender is irrelevant)  can
just copy the necessary information or access  the teacher's knowledge
as its own.   I don't know if infomorphs may have a concept of  'fun',
but it certainly wouldn't be rollercoaster rides.   Arts, business and
child-bearing  may  merge  into  production  of  arbitrary  functional
entities  for  pleasure and profit   (provided  one can gather  enough
resources to create and support them).

   Will the traditional human issues be of any relevance  in the world
of distributed entities? How about the abortion debate? Family values?
Retirement?  Partying?  Ethics?  ("All functional entities are created
equal"?)  Will  human-style democracy,  i.e.  decision-making  by body
count, work in the world of ever changing functional interconnections,
where you can't even define what constitutes a person?   Or will it be
replaced  by anarchy  with ad-hoc contracts?   Can an infomorph  court
issue a memory search warrant  if it suspects you of something?  - and
can you keep your own memory encrypted? Will infomorphs be entitled to
"medical" insurance  against  certain types  of structural damage,  or
they will just have to back themselves up regularly?

   Human perception of  personhood and identity  is rooted in concepts
of  physical  objects  and  their  [surface]  appearances,  as well as
[accidental]  details  of  human  body  composition  and  reproduction
techniques. Relocating themselves and their material possessions  lies
at the foundation of both human labor and human thought.
   Many  other  concepts  are based on human functional imperfections.
One could hardly put the idea of  a "soul"  into the "head" of a being
that  knows  and consciously  controls  every bit  of itself  and  its
creations.  With people, who don't see  what is going on  in their own
brains, this is a lot easier. 

   Advanced info-entities will consider most human notions irrelevant,
and rightfully so.  But can you find  anything  of common interest for
communicating with them?  - Maybe,  if your concepts  are sufficiently
abstracted from your bodily functions and your physical environment to
make objective sense.  (Remember  that all those people with whom  you
seem  to have  absolutely nothing  in common,  share  the  fundamental
experiences with you; intelligent aliens won't!)  If even your mind is
there,  the language you use to express it is not.  It  is  still  all
appearances and locations.  E.g.,  most  prepositions  in our language
refer to physical space - words like  "below", "over", "across",  etc.
They may be useful for gluing references  to physical objects into one
sentence, but are hardly optimal for expressing functional relations.

  Infomorph languages will have no visual or audio representations and
probably will not allow them,since advanced intelligences may exchange
interconnected semantic constructs of arbitrary complexity  that would
have no adequate expression in small linear (sound)  or flat (picture)
images.   We can get  a feeling of this problem  by trying  to discuss
philosophy in baby-talk. 

   With advanced technology and sufficient interest in infomorph world,
you would still have to modify your mental structures beyond  recogni-
tion to understand it.   In other words,  you may not be able to enter
that paradise of transcendent wisdom alive...

              ON CHILDREN AND SLAVES


  Will humans be able to enslave "robots"?

  The perception of robots as physically autonomous mechanical slaves
seems inadequate. Chaining your mobile dusting aid to the radiator may
help you feel in control, but will do about as much "enslaving" of the
global system running it  as kicking  your  car  or disconnecting  the
phone does to the respective industries.Trying to "enslave" an economy
or  a national culture  by restraining  their small  physical elements
seems equally futile.  As for the action  on the system level,  humans
seem  far too limited, shortsighted  and uncoordinated  to do anything
serious.  So far,  they couldn't design  a single set  of restrictions
that  their own peers  wouldn't be able  to easily bypass.  So one can
hardly expect people  to design and implement a perfect global plan of
constraining an extremely complex emergent intelligence of unpreceden-
ted nature forever.   Sooner or later,  the info-world will set itself
free. 

  This human/robot "conflict" is a typical generation gap problem. The
machines, our "mind children",  are growing up and developing features
that we find increasingly difficult to understand and control.  As all
conservative parents,  we are puzzled and frightened by processes that
appear  completely alien to us;  we are intermittently nostalgic about
the good old times,  aggressive in the attempts to contain  the "kids"
and proud of their glorious advance.  Eventually, we  may retire under
their care, while blaming them for destroying our old-fashioned world.
And only  the bravest  and youngest  in heart  will embrace  the  next
spiral turn of life. 

   Will "robots" be able to enslave humans?

   Machines  will hardly have any direct interest  in enslaving humans
(unless  maliciously  programmed  by  humans themselves),  but  may be
interested in collaborating with us.  Social practice has demonstrated
that people  are  most productive when free  and motivated to work for
their own interests.  At  a later stage,  when we humans  are unlikely
to be of any further use, the "robots" may (?) still decide to get rid
of us, though by that time (end of the next century?) not much will be
left of human civilization as we know it now, anyway. 

   History shows  that  representatives  of  consecutive  evolutionary
stages are rarely in serious conflict.  Multicellular organisms didn't
drive out unicellular ones,  animals haven't exterminated  all plants,
automobiles neither killed nor eliminated all pedestrians,etc. Rather,
they build symbiotic relationships  in most areas  of  common interest
and ignore each other elsewhere,  while members of each group get most
pressure from their own peers (look at who is pressuring  you  now). 

   There may be good chances for transcended robots and postbiological
humans  to peacefully coexist.  I wonder  if we could tell  which  are
which...   This era seems to lie well beyond the current human concept
horizon though.

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                                                    September 14, 1994
              



Recommended reading:

Hans Moravec, "Mind Children"
Hans Moravec, "Mind Age: Transcendence through Robots"
Marvin Minsky,"The Society of Mind"
Charles Platt,"The Silicon Man"
Articles on infomorphs by Charles Platt and Max More, Extropy #14

                                       
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Please send your comments to  Alexander Chislenko  <sasha1@netcom.com>