to Machine Intelligence
The question this raises is, where does it stop? And here, what we are really asking is whether machines will one day become conscious. The answer, as unsatisfying as it may be, is that we simply don’t know. Given that reality, I believe our work is to set ourselves on a course that best optimizes our chances, regardless of whether machines do some day “wake up.”
There is so much unknown as we search for this path, but I believe that renowned knowledge expert Michael Polanyi offers us a clue when, in describing tacit knowledge, he said, “We know more than we can tell.” Though I doubt he intended it this way, that succinct statement holds great wisdom about our future with machines. What it suggests is that human intelligence is forever pushing the edge of what we know, just as technology constantly works to convert that experience into machine intelligence. This, I believe, is the essence of synthetic intelligence—and a hint for our continued relevance to machines, even if they attain consciousness.
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