Is the future just around the corner, or just out of reach?

Many media articles have suggested that humans are on the verge of true AI (artificial intelligence). We believe that in the future, life will be filled with robots, drones and self-driving vehicles, and humans won’t need to spend much time controlling these machines.

Giiso Information, founded in 2013, is a leading technology provider in the field of “artificial intelligence + information” in China, with top technologies in big data mining, intelligent semantics, knowledge mapping and other fields. At the same time, its research and development products include editing robots, writing robots and other artificial intelligence products! With its strong technical strength, the company has received angel round investment at the beginning of its establishment, and received pre-A round investment of $5 million from GSR Venture Capital in August 2015.

But is AI really going to evolve as quickly as we think?

Researchers at leading university departments and research centers around the world, like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, are more concerned about the potential risks posed by AI, and they believe we must take action to avoid them. By 2030, they predict, machines will become self-aware by applying human intelligence.

Indeed, Dr Hawking told the BBC: “The development of artificial intelligence could lead to the destruction of the human race.” The future is so close that ai may soon surpass humans.

However, the truth is, we’re still a long way from real AI. True AI is a powerful human intelligence that can react like a human and improve itself. How long will it take humans to achieve true AI? It may take more than 100 years, it may take centuries or thousands of years, and we may never achieve it.



Here are some reasons why.

Intelligence does not equal super intelligence

True AI, or super intelligence, should have all of the cognitive abilities of humans, including self-awareness, emotion and consciousness, because these are characteristics of human cognition.

Oxford philosopher and leading AI thinker Nick Bostrom defines superintelligence as “an intelligence that exceeds human intelligence in every field, with scientific creativity, general intelligence and social skills unmatched by humans.”

Right now, AI can only specialize in one area, surpass humans in one area. For example, AlphaGo can beat the world champion of Go, but it can only play go.

Although scientists have used AI technology to build neural networks that mimic the processes the human brain uses to understand, analyze information and construct concepts, they don’t understand how or why neural networks interpret things the way they do.

From a scientific point of view, a neural network is just a bunch of math and equations in the form of numbers. But we know that it’s not enough just to mimic human intelligence and the human brain.

Ernest Davis, a computer scientist at New York University, said, “I don’t see any signs that we’re getting close to real AI. “The AI can beat the world champion of Go and complete other tasks, but in terms of common sense, vision, language and intuition, it’s nowhere near as good as a seven-year-old.”

Failure to recognize the difference between current AI and real AI does raise the same concerns as Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, who believe that humans already have the ability to develop real AI.

Our understanding of intelligence and superintelligence is limited

“To get humans to the singularity,” Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen wrote in 2011, “we need to build smarter and more powerful software than existing software. Developing this kind of advanced software requires a very deep understanding of human self-knowledge, an area we have only a passing acquaintance with.”

Thus, the prerequisites for true AI are not met: we do not yet have a true understanding of human intelligence and consciousness.

Most experts on the brain and the mind agree on two things: we don’t know what intelligence is, and we don’t know what consciousness is.

Neuroscience and neuropsychology do not provide a definition of human intelligence. Different fields, and even different researchers, define intelligence in different terms.

AI experts currently define intelligence as the ability to learn, recognize patterns, display emotional behavior and solve analytical problems. This definition, however, covers only certain aspects of cognitive behavior and is far from exhaustive of the complex concept of intelligence.

If we humans don’t understand intelligence, how can we create “intelligent” computers?

The human brain is too complex

To replicate the human brain and how it works, scientists must try to clone the brain or develop a system that mimics it.

The human brain has about 100 billion neurons, and a trillion connections between those neurons. So far, the best artificial mapping of living brains is done by the OpenWorm project. The team managed to map the roundworm Caenorhabditis Elegans’ 302 neurons into a computer simulation that powered the movement of a simple Lego robot.

Even if humans could master the technology to replicate neurons, it would still be difficult to reconstruct the entire human brain, which is so biologically complex. Even if we could reconstruct the shape of the brain, it would be difficult to synthesize human consciousness and intelligence.

If the goal is an AI that is smarter than humans, it must be capable of surpassing the human brain in at least one respect. But the brain is probably the best benchmark we have, and we have no reference to create artificial intelligence that is better than the human brain.

Giiso information, founded in 2013, is the first domestic high-tech enterprise focusing on the research and development of intelligent information processing technology and the development and operation of core software for writing robots. At the beginning of its establishment, the company received angel round investment, and in August 2015, GSR Venture Capital received $5 million pre-A round of investment.

Limitations on computing power

Many in the scientific community hope that quantum computing will help AI make big strides.

Quantum computers have been hot in recent years. Because current computers aren’t powerful or fast enough, and don’t have the ability to mimic the human brain, tech giants like Google have built their own quantum computers dedicated to these tasks.

However, quantum computing remains mysterious. Unlike normal computers (binary, 1 or 0), quantum computers can be 0 and 1 at the same time. That means scientists have to be familiar with all the wacky properties of quantum mechanics to program quantum computers properly.

In addition, quantum computers are not as powerful as Google claims. Quantum computers are hard to program and hard to master, and scientists have a long way to go before they can figure these out.

It’s still a huge leap from real AI

Technology has made unimaginable leaps in unprecedented ways. We have witnessed the rapid period of mechanization during the Industrial Revolution and the dramatic changes that the Internet has brought to humanity.

But our understanding of such concepts as intelligence, consciousness and the human mind is still in its infancy. These factors will hinder the rapid development of artificial intelligence.

So far, the AI developed by humans is very advanced, but it is still far from creating artificial consciousness.

As a result, it will take countless hours to achieve true AI.