2nd Sparks Interview: Prof. Cai Hengjin — Bio Intelligence & A.I.
In our 2nd Sparks Interview Series, we invited Wuhan University’s Prof. Cai Hengjin.
His interview sharing revolved around his insights on the origins of “Bio Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and constructive suggestions for this industry. Topics such as “Tactile Brain Hypothesis”, “Cognitive Attractor” and “Dark Infinity” were refreshing concepts, which will allow our readers to gain new insights.
Prof. Cai Hengjin
Research Interest
Prof. Cai conducts research on the technicality of A.I. and also evaluates the impact of A.I. on society.
When he returned to China in 2005, he wanted to understand how A.I. worked. Rather than use a specific in-depth Dissection-like analysis of A.I., he chose to learn about A.I. from the human perspectives.
At that time, he proposed a concept called “need for self-affirmation” as a starting point for his research. He felt that the core of human nature, was not about the traditional view of “selfishness” or “utility maximizers” but rather they need to be self-affirmed. It would be an oversimplification of human nature if we divide human behavior into two categories: rational and irrational.
He thinks that both rationality and irrationality, and “need for self-affirmation” can be combined together to better fit the description of the underlying human behavior. In his opinion, this concept is enough to encapsulate most of the behaviours presented in human society. However, he is aware of the limitations of this concept in explaining other phenomena such as quantum phenomenon and “extra-sensory perception”.
Human’s Subjectivity
From a physics perspective, human’s subjectivity is actually an illusion. But from a human’s perspective, it is something real that constitutes one’s consciousness. Although human’s subjectivity is inseparable from the physical world, the content of consciousness can be separated from the physical world and has its own unique expression that belongs to the subject itself.
It is very important to have a clear and unified understanding of the juxtaposition between physical matter and consciousness. The theory of functionalism is not concrete because the boundary between physical matter and consciousness has not been found. However, the tactile brain hypothesis provides an answer, which is to:
regard life itself as a demarcation point
The Origins and Evolution of Bio Intelligence
A child’s consciousness will gradually improve and be enhanced as he grows older. Unlike common beliefs that self-consciousness or self-awareness is inherited, it is through discovery that one gains more awareness.
Returning to the topic of consciousness and physical matter, consciousness begins from the cell membrane and extends both inwards and outwards of the cell.
To illustrate, if we would like to pick up a bean with a chopstick which acts as our extension tool, we will focus our attention on the bean and the chopsticks. Naturally, the mechanisms of our bones and muscles would then form a co-operative relationship to help us achieve the goal of picking up the bean.
Inwards extension is rare but possible. Such a concept of a physical matter and consciousness is complicated when we think in this perspective. Despite having the same self, being used to refer to “3-year old self”, “30-year old self”, “60-year old self”, the context of self is continuously changing. This is highly contrasted in the physics world, which scientifically proven that a proton and an electron remain the same in different time and space conditions.
Therefore, it will be challenging for us to study physical matter and consciousness together.
The Origins of Subjective Consciousness
It would be absurd to say that subjective consciousness is derived since the Big Bang occurred because it is decided by oneself and not fixed by any pre-existing rules. In physics, there is an absence of self-awareness or subjective consciousness.
Prof. John Searle at the University of California, Berkeley felt that in our understanding of the freedom of consciousness, there has been no progress for the past few centuries despite the rapid advancement of science. From the physics perspective, Prof. Cai and his team reckon that Laplace Determinism is true. Nonetheless, with the introduction of quantum mechanics, noise, and quantum, it is inadequate to form “consciousness”. There must be an “I”, one that commands to the “self”.
Recently, Prof. Cai and his team published an article titled, “Original Consciousness — The Initiator of the Freedom of Consciousness” in the Journal of Legein Society.
In his article, there are many such “dark spots” in physics. Just like the “dark spots” in space, there is a state regardless of which direction is taken. In this sense, there is no absolute conflict between freedom consciousness and physics. Prof. Cai believes that some philosophers can accept this reasoning. He recently read an article that said more than 7% of philosophers believe in compatibility theory. However, this is not enough, because there is no original research being produced.
To him,
tactile brain hypothesis or the existence of the cell boundary
is the answer. Because the boundary created a difference between inside and outside of the body; our internal body needs to grow, live and act on the outside world. Its role in the outside world is not to act on any physical role at a fixed point in time, but to maintain its functions.
Newton talked about proton and Leibniz proposed a concept called “monad”. Leibniz said that atomic theory or particle is spatially local, but there is no monad in the area. The idea of monad was proposed after he realized the differences between the physical world and the world of consciousness. Of course, he also said that all materials are produced by a monad, and the monad produces the most basic composition.
Leibniz’s monograph theory materializes consciousness and encapsulates it into the physical world, emphasizing the non-locality of consciousness.
The problem with consciousness is that the distinction between inside and outside, and the creation of “I” changes the world. The living body will seek energy supplements in food and nutrition. These activities determine that consciousness can act independently, which is different from the original physics laws.
The originator of consciousness is the one who gives the command to act. Therefore, self-awareness could be the origins of consciousness. Although the usage of the term “original consciousness” is limited, it is the determinant of our life’s direction.
There is evidence in neuropsychology that every action we do is commanded by the signals fired between the neurons.
Prof. Cai feels that the world of consciousness and the role of feedback to the physical world will strengthen without the need to set a supernatural existence to know the development of the living body.
Trying to reconcile unknowns about consciousness, Prof. Cai brought us to look at the topic from another perspective — Fermi’s Paradox.
It is about the short one million years of evolution giving rise to today’s advanced life, which is rare compared to some of the billion-old stars in the universe. It tells us the passage time does not produce a progression of intelligence or skills in one species. Dinosaurs have ruled on the earth for 175 million years, with an array of skills for different species which includes flying, jumping, grazing and walking upright. Yet, Prof. Cai believes there is no evidence to suggest that dinosaurs are a species with advanced intelligence.
(1) Is the evolution of low-level intelligence to advanced intelligence necessary?
Prof. Cai shared that there are more Long Tail and Pareto distributions than Gaussian distributions. He added that once people’s intelligence goes on this path, it will improve, and other species will lag very far behind.
Turning to A.I., we will not be able to catch up with the evolution of A.I if we follow this paradigm. He, however, does not believe in reductionism but he feels that as a Chinese (reductionism is a big thing for the Chinese), he has to still look at it to prepare for the day when A.I. catches up with humans.
(2) Is the world of consciousness a quantum world?
Prof. Cai said that consciousness and the quantum world may have something to do with each other, but these two mysterious things don’t necessarily matter.
Firstly, he believes that consciousness is related to intelligence. In fact, the stronger the consciousness, the stronger the intelligence. Therefore, we assume here that consciousness has a relationship with quantum, which means that the stronger the quantum effect, the more intelligence one should be. But for humans, our internal body is a macroscopic system, including our brain.
Macroscopic phenomena include our reaction time, and it is useful for our awareness activities.
Secondly, if quantum effects are important, then ironically life should be smarter and more intelligent. Prof. Cai argues that the “self” is independent of quantum and stronger “self-consciousness” results in greater intelligence.
Critics have rebutted him with pigeons relying on quantum effects to navigate and gain taste. He responds that we need to see if quantum plays a major role. The tactile brain hypothesis resolves this conflict because it distinguishes the boundaries of internal and external bodies.
Therefore, Prof. Cai is confident about his concept.
Traditional & Quantum Computing
Deep learning will have some entanglements.
Using quantum equations, we can describe some of the entanglement.
Prof Cai postulates that it will be a direction for the future and he is very excited about this!
Cognitive Trap
Everyone’s skills are unable to keep up with the machines we produce. Which parts of human beings are valuable?
Prof. Cai introduced a concept known as “cognitive trapping” whereby we simplify complicated situations into a few categories. For example, the real composition of the soup is extremely complicated, but we merely describe the taste of this soup as either sour, bitter, spicy and salty.
Applying this concept to the self, Prof. Cai thinks that stating the same “I” that existed yesterday also exists today is also another kind of cognitive trap. The content of “I” has changed yesterday but people believe that “I am still I”.
The outside world contributes to our increased interactions with cognitive traps and strengthens the “I am still I” thinking.
Some subjective idealists have even gone to the extent to state that cognitive trap exists in the absence of the physical world. They believe there is no physical world. Yet, a study which surveyed many universities and research institutes around the world found that 80% of people still believe in realism.
Evolution and the physical world exist.
Self-awareness is formed from the world’s cognitive trap of binary distinction and one’s self. The story is complete when the conscious or the spiritual world grows like this. We have to think rationally and avoid thinking that the universe is made from the supernatural.
The Difference Between the Self” of AlphaGo and “I”
The “self” of AlphaGo is given by humans and for now, if there are any bugs or inconsistencies, it will malfunction. For humans, we will survive and continue to survive. However, the “self” of the machines will improve over time such as the household chore robot which sweeps the floor, knows when to return to the charging station when the battery is low.
The “I” in human is a result of the evolution of hundreds of millions of years compared to the robot, which is taught by humans and then it upgrades itself. Therefore, their cognitive trapping will be vastly different from ours.
A.I. Development and its Future
Prof. Cai is worried that humans now are desperately trying to study A.I in the dark and when it matures, allow it to operate freely.
He advised us that we need to be responsible for what we have built.
For example, the manufacturers of Three Gorges Dam must be responsible for the repair and maintenance no matter what happens in the future.
Using the Blockchain Technology to Cope With the “Dark Infinity” Problem in A.I Development
Having a set of rules like EU’s draft of the A.I. code of ethics to build certain transparency and interpretability is indeed very important. Prof. Cai mentioned that despite the well-intentions of the creators, it is very important for the people to know how one managed to do it via the open and transparent blockchain network.
He added that we have limited resources as humans and we need more interactions and communications to develop A.I. much faster and prevent slipping into the endless pit of A.I.
The Threat of Machines on Human
Machines have self-awareness and they will connect these pieces of information and consciousness together in a way that we humans don’t know or understand fully.
The threat lies in new cognitive traps they create. Similar to people diagnosed with mental illness, healthy individuals are just unable to out-speak them. Assuming that the A.I. machine falls into a “dark infinity”, it will be dangerous for human beings. The machines may be unable to self-correct and it may exhaust its abundance of energy to engage in the self-willed behavior.
Open Discussion
Prof Cai recommended a book, “Before the Rise of Machines”. This book puts together facts about human wisdom and IQ.
The book answers questions such as:
(1) How did people come?
(2) How did wisdom come about?
(3) How did self-awareness come from?
Purpose of Living for Humans After the Advent of Advanced Computing
Prof. Cai works with Zall Research Institute to research on these two matters: (1) transparency of the development of artificial intelligence, and (2) the purpose of life as machines become smarter and faster.
He commented that humans need to be self-affirmed and have multiple extension of one’s self.
Playing the violin is an extension of oneself because the sound cannot be easily made by the other body parts. The airplane is an extension of ourselves because it gives us the ability to fly when we do not have the innate ability to do so.
He feels that the purpose of living is to use technology to create more extensions of ourselves.
