In the development of science and technology, mankind has set itself the goal of creating artificial intelligence with human-like cognitive...
In the development of science and technology, mankind has set itself the goal of creating artificial intelligence with human-like cognitive abilities, and significant progress has been made in this area recently. Machines already outperform humans in many areas requiring intelligence. Progress has not stopped and continues toward to even more intelligent systems.
Although the development of artificial intelligence systems is not intended to create machines with self-awareness, and indeed the emergence of consciousness is a need-to-be-avoided consequence of development, sooner or later we will certainly build the structure that will have the ability to be self-aware as a deliberately engineered or naturally emergent property. But building machines with consciousness will present science with entirely new problems. The biggest scientific challenge for machine consciousness will be to handling volition, which comes with the capacity of conscious awareness, and how to manage it to govern machine operation and behavior.
Since the emergence of the artificial machine consciousness is the consequence of human activity, there is a good chance that humans will be able to influence the machine consciousness at some level. Ultimately, humans, the creator of the machine, should be able to turn off the misbehaving machine, and thereby induce an artificial evolutionary process for the created consciousness.
The bigger challenge arising from the creation of artificial consciousness is how will humans, the creators of artificial consciousness, be able to influence the society of self-aware machines?
The problem seems theoretical and philosophical at the moment, but in fact it is already a science in practice. The problem of influencing a society of machines having artificial consciousness is the same challenge and task as influencing and controlling human society.
Definition: Regulation of society: the kind of governance of society in which the behavior of society is influenced in a process that is not hidden from the conscious individuals who constitute society, the process is known to them, and which may be contributed to and approved by the members of society. The regulation of society is a method of governing a symbiotically cooperating community. This is an area covered by various branches of social science, such as social psychology, law, politics, advertising and marketing.
However, the governance of a society of conscious intelligent machines cannot necessarily take the form of symbiotic cooperation with humans. It may be appropriate to manage a society of self-aware machines without the conscious involvement of the machines. This method of social control is a method how the mystical hidden governing power operates, which frequently appears in public discourse.
Definition: Guidance of society: the kind of governance of society in which the self-conscious members constitute of a society do not know that they are being guided.
The existence of a hidden governing power in the case of human society may be fictitious, the emergent behavior of a society of self-conscious intelligent human individuals may produce the activity attributed to the supposed hidden governing power. The guidance of human society by a group of society members would be an inappropriate and dangerous method of governing human society. Human society is based (ideally) on the cooperation of the community of individuals of equivalent value. The governance of an intelligent, self-conscious society from within, by its members, can only be effectively achieved by regulation based on the conscious cooperation of the community members.
However, human society can be a useful area for studying the instruments and operation of the hidden governing power. If scientific understanding can find a suitable method of operating a hidden governing power to influence human society, this knowledge may also be suitable for the control of a society of self-conscious artificial machines.
The difficulty of guidance of society arises from the fact that self-conscious individuals have their own personal, independent will. The difficulty of autocratic regimes, which solve the problems of governance as autocratic control of the society, and the inevitable inadequacy of these regimes by their very nature, justify the difficulty of the task.
The guidance could be accomplished by controlling individual will and volition, which is the intention and purpose of autocratic regimes in relation to the people they control. However, control of will and intention would also mean the elimination of the consciousness, which is impossible because of the emergent nature of its state. However, the history of humanity provides suitable example of effective guidance of human society.
A proposal for a method of the guidance of a society of intelligent, self-conscious individuals:
Premise: Society must be guided from outside. The intelligence (hidden governing power) that controls society cannot be a (known) member of the society. The necessary consequence of being controlled by actual or perceived members of society from within society results in resistance to the power manifested from within. The hidden governing power must be a real hidden authority.
Task: to select a person to be influenced from among the members of society by the hidden governing power. The person to be influenced can be selected in a suitable way on the basis of the distinctive pattern of behavior characteristic of the influenceability. However, influenceable mind can also be developed through appropriate conditioning. Since the functioning of created machines needs to be influenced, the possibility of directed conditioning exists.
Task: the targeted manipulation of the influenced person's intentions through his or her consciousness by the hidden governing power. The selected person's consciousness does not need to be altered, the influenceability is the state of consciousness of the suited person. The influenceable person voluntarily accepts the personal selection and the influencing of his or her intention. To the appropriate person, it is not even necessary for the hidden governing power to appear directly; the appropriate person's personality means that he or she can be controlled indirectly.
Task: through the modified mind of the selected person, the hidden governing power conveys its goals and intentions toward the guided society through the actions of the chosen person.
Task: to raise public awareness towards the selected person. The chosen person, either on his or her own, or with the help of the hidden governing power, is placed in a social position where his or her activity is highlighted to society or performs acts that attract the attention of society.
The Bible provides an example of human society being guided in the way described above. The God as acting in the written Bible controls human society in the way outlined. In the Bible, society is controlled through the persons as prophets who are in relationship with God. The chosen individuals, using their supposed or real relationship with God, refer to that relationship to transmit rules through which society is controlled.
Using the method outlined, a society of artificially intelligent, self-aware agents can be effectively guided by the creator of the intelligence.
Additionally, the biblical method of governing human society may also provide a basis for the idea that humanity (at least in certain periods of history) operates as a guided society, which may also provide supporting evidence for the existence of a second-order creator god.
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