By Porthos
The breathing machine! Quite an amazing idea. Have one thought about it and suddenly in your mind appears the plot of a James Cameron Sci Fi futuristic blockbuster. But it can also be very unfathomable in reality. A breathing machine is nothing but a machine which is alive like any other living being we can see and perceive around. Not just a machine which is mimicking the real life process of inhaling and exhaling air continuously. We call it the breathing machine as this process is the most identifying feature of a living organism.
But why this idea hasn’t become reality till date? We know that scholars around the world are trying to compile a mechanical and electrical device or robot, which can act and think like a human being. Even after that we find certain limitations in all these attempts and the dream of realizing this feat remains unattained.
Because of these continuous attempts, this type of machine has become somewhat like a holy grail for all the intellectuals around the world. Every one of them is taking his own route to find that ultimate philosopher’s stone which can turn their hard work in gold.
In this record, I’ll try to look into and analyze the nature of various attempts made in this regard and their general outcome. Also I’ll try to devise one more implementation which can be helpful in our efforts.
Until now, every time we’ve tried to compile a living robot, we’ve tried to make it more or less like human beings. At the end of such experiments, we find humanoid robots being compiled. These robots look and act like humans but still remain a robot or just a mechanical device. They continue to remain in the control of some external entity like us. They are not in control of themselves, just as we are or in fact any other living being is, even the microbes. The day these machines come in full control of themselves that day, that day only we’ll be able to say that we have a breathing machine among us. Until then, we’ll continue assembling more and more humanoid robots.
The mistake we commit is that we always strive to make the machine just like a human being. Rather we should try to identify the characteristics of life and then embed those in our subject of experiment. In this way, this machine will actually be alive, which would be much better fulfillment of our basic objective, rather than just acquiring a human form.
We’ll need to create a high form of intelligence for our machine for this. We’ve tried to achieve this goal by writing lots and lots of algorithms for it and then storing them all in our machine’s permanent memory. We write these algorithms keeping a particular situation in mind. So they come useful only in their own respective condition. In that way, if we want to make a machine which would be as near as possible intelligent to a human being, we’d have to write nearly millions of algorithms for it. Still we won’t get our breathing machine.
There is one more way of acquiring this objective. If we analyze the behavior of any living being around us, we’ll find that they grow and learn new things in the way. Nobody writes new algorithms for them in this learning phenomenon. They just acquire new knowledge on their own with the help of world around. We can obviously see that this is achieved with their basic intelligence and capabilities they were born with. These capabilities are their ability to see, smell, hear, speak, feel etc. Rest of the knowledge they get by using and through the window of these capabilities only. So the knowledge they attain after being born is actually derived from their basic capabilities. In this case we get two forms of intelligence: Capability Intelligence, which is the minimum level of intelligence every living being is born with, and Derived intelligence, which is based on the roots of capability intelligence. Until and unless these two intelligences are not linked together, the bearer’s intelligence will not be complete and it can’t be called alive.
By writing algorithms, we try to model the derived intelligence for the machine. So the derived intelligence is created artificially and is independent from the capability intelligence of our subject. We should rather strive to find the basic capabilities of the machine of interest, what it can or can’t basically do, then make a bootstrap program for it which would be nothing but a synchronizing mechanism between the capability elements. When this bootstrap program will be executed, the breathing machine will be born.
Upon being brought in this world, with this bootstrap program executing, the machine will use its capabilities to perceive the world. These capabilities will define what inputs will be filtered and will ultimately be fed to its memory. According to the form and quantity of the inputs coming to our machine, it will gather experiences and knowledge. And this knowledge will become the derived intelligence for the machine. This way we’ll be saved from writing infinite number of intelligent algorithms for our subject of experiment and the two intelligences we discussed will be created in place and linked together perfectly. So our machine will truly be alive.
Let’s take a simple example. Suppose like an animal or human being, our machine has the basic capabilities to see and smell. The machine will see something and at the same time smell something. May be the sources of the two are independent of each other, but as the machine is getting both the inputs at the same time, it will go into its memory as a single unit having two characteristics. In future, when the machine will get one of those inputs again, it will feel the effect of second input also in its mind. Machine can also attach some action to the input, which will be taken at the point of getting that input again.
The reason we need to target this capability intelligence is that as compared to the number of elements in derived intelligence, the number of elements in capability intelligence is small and finite. So it is much easier and practical to model in the labs. And this also is very alike to the model of intelligence we have.
Now as the derived intelligence will be based on the capabilities of the machine, so the world they will perceive will also be based upon that only, which could be very different than how we perceive ours. In our real lives also, that a human being lacking any of the basic capabilities have his own perception and view of the world. A blind man’s world will be different from what other fortunate people can see. In any case, the machine with such intelligence will be alive and breathing, and we’ll have our holy grail with us.
