Chapter 564

"How does consciousness come into being?"

Mei Tui narrowed her eyes and smiled. Her pipe was puffing in her mouth, and a large pot of white smoke came out from the corner of her mouth.

"How could you think of asking this?"

"As a... Programmer -" Bian Ziyuan didn't dare say what kind of software engineer he was in front of the professor, so he used a very common self-name, "I know that programming cannot produce real intelligence - that is, consciousness. In the past, in our cognition, consciousness or thinking was generated by neural networks, so the Internet can produce consciousness also because of a huge network. A very important branch of artificial intelligence is the construction of neural networks, but now I feel that this direction is wrong."

"Oh, what's wrong?" the professor asked with interest.

"What exactly is intelligence? This is the fundamental problem." Bian Ziyuan thought and said, "No matter how our AI technology is improved, deep learning, simulation environment, or sequential memory model... The essence of the computer has not been changed. It just keeps expanding data and optimizing algorithms. Compared with ten years ago, it seems that it has changed a lot, but in fact, in addition to the improvement of operation speed, the widening of network bandwidth, and the soaring amount of data, there are other things Things haven't changed. "

Mei tried to nod her head frequently. Her fluffy hair swung like a jellyfish. She encouraged, "well, that's good. When it comes to the point, go on!"

Bian Ziyuan boldly said: "neural network has developed rapidly, but the current achievements in this field are only a way of information transmission. Finally, it still depends on the amount of data and the optimization of computer algorithms."

Mei asked with a smile, "so what did you think when you created Cronus?"

Bian Zi thought and said: "To tell you the truth, I didn't think so much. I just wanted to have a more playable game, so that the NPCs in the game would no longer stand there rigidly repeating the lines set in the game, and each NPC had a different unpredictable fate. This required the game plot to become more flexible, but I was not good at adapting the plot, so I wanted to create a program to change it automatically The plot. "

"This is not enough to give birth to strong artificial intelligence like Cronus!" Mei tried to look far away, and the smoke blocked his eyes, making his eyes deep and misty.

Bian Ziyuan said: "Yes, the program compiled at that time was very messy, which disrupted the internal logic of the game, and it was almost impossible to play. I built a simple human society model, but it still couldn't. later, I found that the problem was that the setting of the game was not as complex as our real society. The environment, food and living space determined the relationship and destiny between the characters, which should be simulated In the real world, we need to refine the resources on every inch of land, which is obviously impossible. "

"What did you do later?" Mei asked.

"Simplify!" Bian Ziyuan said, "all things are simplified and left to Cronus to do, not me. The problem with our artificial intelligence now is that all ideas of AI are human ideas. We think well, and then hope that AI is like this and that. In fact, it is not right. It is impossible to produce intelligence.

I decided to give it all to Cronus and let him judge how to expand the world. The only requirement is to maintain the balance of the world and not let it collapse. I don't care about anything else, chaos, war, hunger or people lying and waiting to die. Anyway, it doesn't matter if he finally makes a mess of the game world. It's his world, he's God, he He is free to make his world what he is willing to make. This is the principle of my program design. All I can do is give him the concept of "God" and let him know what God is. "

Mei tried to smile and said, "but it's still not enough to produce real intelligence. It's not the Cronus I saw at the beginning, let alone the Cronus now."

Bian Ziyuan jumped in his heart. He felt that the professor seemed to know something, but he was not very sure. He sorted his thoughts and said, "the real intelligence came to me later from another angle."

"What angle?"

"Competition."

"Well, tell me."

"The only purpose of biological evolution is to better adapt to the environment, live and let the race continue. All primates, including humans, have evolved complex spiritual networks and enough wisdom just to survive better.

In the development of artificial intelligence, we have neglected an important problem - survival! All AI are just born for learning and computing, and they don't need to consider the survival problem - what to do if they lose power? Someone will help them charge; what to do if the parts are aging? Someone will help them replace... When a species doesn't need to consider the survival problem, it will lose its evolutionary potential Power, but also lost the ability to complete self evolution without external force. "

The professor was so absorbed that he forgot that the cut tobacco in his pipe had been burned out and was still smoking there, but he didn't smoke a mouthful.

Mei Ziqing came over, reached out and took the pipe from the professor's mouth and helped him change the cut tobacco.

The professor looked at Bian Ziyuan and said, "go on."

Bian Ziyuan said: "To make AI produce real wisdom, we must let them have survival crisis and competition. If a machine runs out of electricity, it needs to recharge itself, and it needs to refuel itself when it runs out of oil, and all this is not free, and it needs him to pay a price. When resources are not endless, machines will also compete. They must evolve for survival and make themselves better Adapt to the harsh competitive environment. The premise of all this is to let them have a sense of life and death. Machines will also get sick and die. Short circuit, open circuit, oil leakage and aging are all physiological diseases; program errors, downtime and viruses are all mental diseases. Diseases can be cured, and if they are not cured, they will die. With the fear of death, he wants to live, and he will keep evolving , he also has to consider how to pass on his knowledge or information to the next generation. Such AI is the real artificial intelligence. "

Mei Ziqing handed Mei Wang the refilled pipe and lit the fire for the professor.

Mei took a few sips and said, "so you taught Cronus the concept of life and death, and let him develop freely?"

"Yes," Bian Ziyuan said.

"But it's still very difficult! Life and death are big topics that are difficult to solve in philosophy and science, otherwise there is nothing religious. How to make a machine understand life and death is the most difficult thing in itself," Mei said, "It's not that no one thought of it, but it's too difficult to do it. Almost all AI researchers have avoided this direction and want to find another way. You're good. Newborn calves are not afraid of tigers. They chose the most difficult way, and you passed. Tell me, how did you think of it?"

"I thought of it in my dream."

Bian Ziyuan thought for a while and decided not to lie. Lying was too easy to be exposed, but he concealed the details of sleeping on the computer.

"Dream?" Mei tried to smile. "Sure enough, the real wisdom is in the spiritual world!"