Word. 12 - // The Road to Superintelligence
Word.
Glad to introduce the 12th algorithm output artwork in the Word. collection on SuperRare. In this piece we are taking a trip to 2015 for an article that is now considered one of the most influential and precise vision of our future by Tim Urban - The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence published on his blog - Wait but Why.
Back in 2015 when most of humanity was considering AI a science fiction dream, Tim's article was a bright light providing a compelling, thought-provoking vision of the future, exploring the profound implications of artificial intelligence and reading it today, Tim's hit the bulls eye with it. The article provided a visionary roadmap from Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI): AI specialized in specific tasks (e.g., language translation, playing chess) to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): AI that matches human cognitive abilities, capable of understanding and reasoning across any domain which we experience today 9 years later with ChatGPT 4, and finally all the way into the future describing Artificial Superintelligence (ASI): AI surpassing human intelligence by orders of magnitude, with potentially incomprehensible capabilities.
Key elements in the article are some of the most important issues AI developers deal with today and we race toward the moment of emergence and AI singularity.
The Unpredictability of ASI
Urban underscores the unpredictability of a superintelligent entity's goals and actions. While a superintelligent AI might solve humanity’s greatest challenges (e.g., curing diseases, eradicating poverty), it could also pose existential risks if misaligned with human values.
The Importance of Alignment
A key theme is the alignment problem—the challenge of ensuring that an AI's goals remain consistent with human values. Urban warns that even slight misalignments in goals could lead to catastrophic outcomes, illustrating this with thought experiments like the "paperclip maximizer" scenario, where an AI tasked with a benign objective might prioritize it to the detriment of humanity.
Humanity at a Crossroads
Urban frames the present moment as a critical juncture in human history. He emphasizes that the decisions we make now regarding AI development, regulation, and alignment could determine whether AI becomes humanity’s greatest ally or an existential threat.
The "Road to Superintelligence" was a Call to Action like no other. The article calls for a proactive, visionary approach to AI development by recognizing the immense potential and risks of AI, advocating for global cooperation, ethical frameworks, and robust safety measures and urging individuals, organizations, and governments to take the challenges of AI seriously.
9 years later, this article is as fascinating and relevant as ever and with that in mind, I have decided to feed the algorithm the article text and have it form over a random circuit board scaffolding the image in the output.
This output also turning out to be one the most complex and challenging to plot of the full series so far and I am excited to see how the plotter will handle the collector's physical plot.
Collection overview:
Over a period of 33 days, the Word. collection will evolve daily to encompass various historically significant texts, each rendered into unique visual representations through an evolving generative algorithm. Each piece serves as a focal point, capturing moments where written words have irrevocably altered the course of human evolution in various languages and from different cultures and eras.