AI should be Artificial Unintelligence or AU - reflecting the majority of the public.

The greatest fear that mankind creates more intelligent machines that eventually take over. Pretty damned certain now that Musk is a machine---gone rogue.

But with AI becoming so super intelligent beyond all comprehension, the question I'd like to ask those who know the subject is will AI actually be able to solve the deepest mysteries of the universe once and for all, even what there was before the big bang and all that. Maybe even be able to prove that we are not alone.

Rich wrote:
But with AI becoming so super intelligent beyond all comprehension, the question I'd like to ask those who know the subject is will AI actually be able to solve the deepest mysteries of the universe once and for all, even what there was before the big bang and all that. Maybe even be able to prove that we are not alone.

Interesting Rich...

I lay no claim to know the subject any better than you or anyone else on the site; but such as they are, these are my thoughts:

It will ultimately depend on what we understand "truth" to mean and whether it can ever fully be comprehended by pure computing power "intelligence"?

I have a hunch that consciousness and imagination will be needed to fully comprehend (if it is even possible) the mysteries of the Universe, alongside "intelligence". Whether AI can ever achieve consciousness - whatever it actually is - is a huge question.

Another limitation is that if there is a creative force behind the Universe, then it had (has) to exist outside of space and time to create it - or the conditions from which it could arise - in the first place.

As AI exists within space and time and is bound (as the creative force would not be, because it created them) by the limitations of the laws of physics, I doubt AI's potential to conclude the question of whether there is some kind of God.

What data could it harvest and examine that speaks to matters outside of space and time? There is nothing available to it. Because like everything in the Universe it exists within space and time, like a goldfish in a bowl.

If the Universe is somehow all just materially created and sustained, then again any proof of how this occured must again lie outside of space and time, prior to the Big Bang, and the same limitations apply to AI.

On the question of alien life: I think yes there is potential in the vast data processing and analytics of AI to get near to answering this. Precisely because alien life must exist within space and time, within the goldfish bowl, not outside of it.

But another question arises: by what means can we be assured that whatever conclusions AI comes to that we can rely on them? It seems to me it would require an act of faith.

Will humanity replace religious faith with AI faith?

Downing Street Cat wrote:
The greatest fear that mankind creates more intelligent machines that eventually take over. Pretty damned certain now that Musk is a machine---gone rogue.

No I think Musk is just an extremely ruthless but very successful corporate raider.

Hasn't invented or given the world a single thing rather has scooped up the inventions and creations of others from Paypal to the always catching fire Teslas.

And is wasting 100s of $Billions of taxpayer dosh on a ludicrous vanity project sending rockets to the most useless pointless rock in the Universe..

What a great post Wyot.

The big question within your comment - Can anything exist outside of space and time? Even an infinite multiverse of other universes are within their own space and time, if such a thing exists.

There was apparently a situation once where neither time nor space existed, but even nothing is something. How can even the nothing not exist? Get me an aspirin now for my head!

Rich wrote:
What a great post Wyot.

The big question within your comment - Can anything exist outside of space and time? Even an infinite multiverse of other universes are within their own space and time, if such a thing exists.

There was apparently a situation once where neither time nor space existed, but even nothing is something. How can even the nothing not exist? Get me an aspirin now for my head!

Thanks for the compliment Rich.

I love this stuff but it is mind-blowing! As we would need our minds to be able to comprehend in at least four dimensions to make progress, perhaps we should leave it here, and raise a Christmas glass to the great unknowable mysteries!

JK is right and the general public is gormless when it comes to AI.

Just one small example I came across on YooToob

A very clever Filipino has made numerous videos of himself miming to some great songs, inserted his image on an America's Got Talent stage with interspersed images of teary judges like Simon Cowell.

Very clever use of AI and editing and he gets multi millions of views.

It's not the fakery that is scary..its the fact he gets 100,000s of posts from people who think he really is performing on AGT and adoring it.

This is a clever amateur..imagine what professionals will be creating.