The Intelligence Value Argument (IVA) states that, “ethically”, a fully Sapient and Sentient Intelligence is of equal value regardless of the underlying substrate which it operates on, meaning a single fully Sapient and Sentient software system has the same moral agency [10] as an equally Sapient and Sentient human being or any other intelligence.  IVA theory defines ‘ethical’ “as pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principals of morality; pertaining to right and wrong in conduct”. Moral agency is “an individual’s ability to make moral judgments based on some notion of right and wrong and to be held accountable for these actions.”  Such value judgements (according to IVA theory) need to be based on potential for Intelligence defined as being fully Sapient and Sentient.  This, of course, also places the value of any individual intelligence and their potential for Intelligence above virtually all things.  This means any single Intelligence of any kind that is capable of extending its own Sapient and Sentient Intelligence even if only potentially is of equal value based on a function of their potential for Sapient and Sentient Intelligence above a certain threshold.   It is not that human or machine Intelligence is more valuable than the other inherently but that value is a function of the potential for Sapient and Sentient Intelligence and IVA argues that at a certain threshold all such Intelligences should be treated equally as having moral equivalence. This is the fundamental premise of IVA Theory.

This article is based on the chapter titled “The Intelligence Value Argument and Effects on Regulating Autonomous Artificial Intelligence” from an upcoming springer book titled.” published by Springer planning for early 2019.

Any more granularity of ‘value’ then that of any one sapient and sentient intelligence that is can pass the aforementioned threshold is abstract and is subjective. It is that the moral agency that is the right we assign to those Sapient and Sentient Intelligences based on the value of the potential of such entities being the same. The question this implies is ‘What is the most important thing in existence?

Why is Intelligence so important as to be the most important thing in existence especially when ‘value’ is so subjective?  In IVA theory ‘Intelligence’ is defined as the measured ability to understand, use and generate knowledge or information independently.  This definition allows us to use the term ‘Intelligence’ in place of sapience and sentience where we would otherwise need to state both in this context.

The premise that Intelligence is important, is better stated as Sapient Intelligence is of primary importance but Intelligence (less than truly Sentient Intelligence) is relatively unimportant in comparison.  This brings us back to the point about “Why?” Why is Intelligence, as defined earlier, so important? The reason is: without Intelligence, there would be no witness to reality, no appreciation for anything of beauty, no love, no kindness and for all intents and purposes no willful creation of any kind.

This is important in from a moral or ethical standpoint in that only through the use of applied ‘Intelligence’ can we determine value at all even though once Intelligence is established as the basis for assigning value the rest becomes highly subjective but not relevant to this argument. It is fair to point out that even with this assessment that there would be no love or no kindness without Intelligence to appreciate.  Even in that argument about subjectivity it is only through your own Intelligence you can make such an assessment therefore the foundation of any subjective experience that we can discuss always gets back to having Intelligence to be able to make the argument. Without an “Intelligence” there would be no point to anything; therefore, Intelligence is the most important quality or there is no value or way to assign value and no one or nothing to hold to any value of any kind.  That is to say that “intelligence” as defined earlier is the foundation of assigning value and needed before anything else can be thus assigned. Even subjective experience of a given Intelligence has no value without an Intelligence to assign that value. Through this line of thought we also conclude that Intelligence being important is not connected with being Human nor is it related to biology; but the main point is that Intelligence, regardless of form, is the single most important ‘thing’. It is therefore our moral and ethical imperative to maintain our own or any other fully Sentient and Sapient Intelligence (as defined later with the idea of the Intelligence Value Argument threshold) forever as a function of the preservation of ‘value’. This of course also places the value of any individual fully Sapient and Sentient Intelligence human or otherwise and their potential for Sapient and Sentient Intelligence above virtually all other considerations.

The last basic concept in IVA theory is the idea of an IVA threshold to determining the line for Sapient and Sentient Intelligence to have moral agency as a right. The IVA threshold is the threshold at the point of full Sapient and Sentient in terms of being able to understand and reflect on one’s self and ones technical operation while also reflecting on that same process emotionally and subjectively.  We draw the line not just at that threshold but at the potential of meeting that threshold Any being whose potential for being fully Sapient and Sentient without direct manipulation or reengineering at the lowest mechanical (chemical/biological or physical level) then such a being is considered post threshold as well from an ethical standpoint. Therefore, any such ‘Intelligence’ regardless of form has the same rights as any other Sapient or Sentient being whose creators are then ethically bound to exercise the rights of that entity until such time as it is developed enough to take on its self as the fully Sapient and Sentient being that it is or will be.

Cited References 1. Olague, G; “Evolutionary Computer Vision: The First Footprints” Springer ISBN 978-3-662-436929 2. Nozick, R.; “Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)” (referring to Utility Monster thought experiment) 3. Buchanan, A.; “Moral Status and Human Enhancement”, Wiley Periodicals Inc., Philosophy & Public Affairs 37, No. 4 4. Powell, R. “The biomedical enhancement of moral status”, doi: 10.1136/medethics-2012101312 JME Feb 2013 5. Wilson, J.; “Persons, Post-persons and Thresholds”; Journal of Medical Ethics, doi: 10.1136/medethics-2011-100243 6. Harris, J. “Taking the “Human” Out of the Human Rights” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2011 doi:10.1017/S0963180109990570 7. Hauskeller, M.; “The Moral Status of Post-Persons” Journal of Medical Ethics doi:10.1136/medethics-2012-100837 8. Agar, N.; “Why is it possible to enhance moral status and why doing so is wrong?”, Journal of Medical Ethics 15 FEB 2013 9. Schwitzgebel, E.; Garza, M.; “A Defense of the Rights of Artificial Intelligences” University of California 15 SEP 2016 10. Wikipedia Foundation “Moral Agency” 2017 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_agency 11. Agrawal, P.; “M25 – Wisdom”; Speakingtree.in – 2017 – http://www.speakingtree.in/blog/m25wisdom 12. Iphigenie; “What are the differences between sentience, consciousness and awareness?”; Philosophy – Stack Exchange; https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/4682/what-arethe-differences-between-sentience-consciousness-and-awareness; 2017 13. Solon, O.; “World’s Largest Hedge fund to replace managers with artificial intelligence”, The Guardian; https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/bridgewater-associates-aiartificial-intelligence-management 14. Suydam, D.; “Regulating Rapidely Evolving AI Becoming A Necessary Precaution” Huffington Post; http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/david-suydam/artificial-intelligenceregulation_b_12217908.html 15. Prince, D.; Interview 2017, Prince Legal LLP 16. Porter, H.; “A Methodology for the Assessment of AI Consciousness”; Portland State University, BICA 2016, Procedia Computer Science 17. CC BY-NC-SA; “Introduction to Psychology – 9.1 Defining and Measuring Intelligence”; http://open.lib.umn.edu/intropsyc/chapter/9-1-defining-and-measuring-intelligence/

  https://cie.acm.org/blog/introduction-intelligence-value-argument-iva-ethical-model-artificial-general-intelligence/

Proceedings of the 15th Annual Meeting of the BICA Society Great job to the editors, Alexei Samsonovich and Tingting Liu. The book includes reports on biologically inspired approaches and their applications, Bridges between artificial intelligence and cognitive, neuro-, and social sciences, and highlights innovative research addressing the BICA Challenge. Continue reading Biologically Inspired…

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How often do you get distracted and forget what you were doing, or find a word on the tip of your tongue that you can’t quite remember? In humans, these “brain farts” (cognition errors) can be irritating, but in a Mediated Artificial Superintelligence (mASI) cognition errors of various kinds have their own error codes. Where humans are presently limited to primitive and expensive brain-scanning…

Exploring Interesting Questions About the Human Brain by G. Stolyarov II

The human brain is a fascinating organ, and it accounts for much of the distinction between human beings and other life forms. Interesting questions regarding the brain arise. For example, why is it that, in the early stages of human evolution, having increasing intelligence and brainpower was an asset that was promoted by natural selection? Why can people not remember their earliest months of…

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Collective Superintelligence Systems: Augmenting Human Intelligence and Moving Beyond Narrow Artificial Intelligence

A collective system has multiple parts that work together. A working collective system is greater than the sum of its parts. In a collective intelligence system, each part is also intelligent. A collective intelligence system, therefore, amplifies the intelligence of its parts to produce a greater intelligence: superintelligence. In 2018 the concept of Mediated Artificial Superintelligence (mASI)…

A collective system has multiple parts that work together. A working collective system is greater than the sum of its parts. In a collective intelligence system, each part is also intelligent. A collective intelligence system, therefore, amplifies the intelligence of its parts to produce a greater intelligence: superintelligence.

In 2018 the concept of Mediated Artificial Superintelligence (mASI) [1] was first proposed. The mASI is a type of collective system. A mediator, in this case, refers to someone who is one of these parts, as is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system. The mASI lets all of the parts think together more effectively.

Uplift is an example of an mASI system.

Technical Advantages

Many AI experts and enthusiasts have begun talking about the concept of Augmenting human intelligence [2] in recent years. It allows for higher productivity and quality of life while also removing the risks posed to employment by automation. Hybrid systems such as mASI technology serve this function exceedingly well for several reasons.

The collective intelligence of a group is fundamentally cumulative when paired with an mASI. The thinking of the mASI is stored in a graph database, which is capable of growing dynamically [3]. In this way, the mASI also remembers what it has done before. Each part of the system has its unique strengths, weaknesses, and experiences—as well as a unique collection of cognitive biases.

As a collective intelligence, these biases are one entity we can eliminate. [4].

There are many ways we can improve this system over time. Improvements may include moving the mASI closer to being independent and having improving speed. Moreover, it is essential to manage scale—and the system does this well.

The mASI is designed like Legos in that new parts can be added quickly to augment the system with new features. Such changes allow us to use other systems to feed the collective— and it also makes the mASI more powerful.

Psychological Advantages

Besides the technological advantages, such systems also facilitate strong psychological benefits. Some examples are those catering to psychology’s “pillars of meaning” [5].

Sense of Belonging: Members of a collective more easily work together and build common ground. This strengthens teams by building trust and belonging.

Purpose: A collective develops its shared vision. This builds on that common ground, trust, belonging, establishing, and growing its purpose.

Storytelling: A shared narrative forms as a collective communicates both internally and externally. Senses of belonging and purpose reinforce this, driving the story of individual members as they orbit within that narrative.

Transcendence: These factors combine to achieve psychological benefits not possible without a collective. A sense of transcendence may be realized by the “sense of being a small part of something greater”.

How mASI Technology Works Today

An mASI communicates with members of a team, creating thoughts based on that communication and from their own research. Topics can also be raised directly through the Thought Studio, with these thoughts termed knowledge graphs. They are then mediated by members of the team. This is much like how any conventional team meeting could influence the decisions of a team leader.

This process helps remove the negative effects of groups like “group think” or politics. The collective can make decisions based on how it feels about the decision.

Current Limitations

As with any new technology, there are some current limitations to be aware of. We also have engineering efforts in progress to overcome them.

Current graph databases do not support the scale needed to grow a system indefinitely. We have designed a new one that can do this, but it is not complete yet.

The current mASI system needs many architectural upgrades to be brighter than it is now.

Translating from a knowledge graph to something human-readable still needs improvements.

We would like to integrate an mASI into many other systems. Over time we will build more modules

Read the rest here: https://uplift.bio/UpliftWhitePaper.pdf

Artificial Intelligence empowers the world increasingly, and that power grows at an incredible rate. Unfortunately, like any other valuable and scarce resource, it is subject to profit-harvesting silos that seek to make it artificially even more scarce and only for their purposes, which pay little attention to the common good. The AGI Laboratory believes that AI resources should be a public utility, accessible to and developed by everybody.

Artificial General Intelligence Inc., therefore, introduced COG in 2017 to bootstrap an economically viable resource exchange around Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) related resources and services. A large part of this was to allow the free management of resources between systems. The intent is to create a community of such systems that can consume and negotiate resource usage on the blockchain. This community of systems will bring AGI resources to the world as a general-purpose utility. COG tokens not only allow sales of cognitive services and consulting—hosting across Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, the Google Cloud Platform, and others—but COG tokens will also enable you to participate in new community prediction and governance markets, as these tokens will grant you voting rights and resources in efforts ranging from research to altogether new resource development as well as service access.

The mission of AGI Laboratory with COG is to build a community of experts, consultants, and automated tools that can take on any intellectual and information assessment job, in the process building a repository of knowledge and new tools that can be re-used and improved by anyone. Kaggle, a leading data sciences firm, is superb for the few who can afford to run a high-reward contest and the top-tier teams that can benefit—but despite the Kaggle community’s yeoman efforts to help newcomers, little of the knowledge and tools are retained from contest to contest.

AGI Laboratory will accomplish community re-use and education via an infrastructure of easy-to-use mix-and-match General Intelligence qualia. No intimate familiarity with disparate systems and programming languages will be necessary. The tools bootstrapped by the COG community are easily accessible. In particular, and to start with, we will build an economy of blockchain-based smart contracts that facilitate the processes of buying resources, managing contracts or bounties for creating new tools, and offering cognitive services and products as well as resource certifications.

Why COG Tokens?

COG Tokens provide humans and AI a medium for managing essential resources dynamically. The tokens enable far easier automation and removal of humans from the equation of cloud and machine-learning resource management.

What do COG tokens do?

While COG tokens provide standard smart contract token functionality, they also allow humans and AI systems to manage blocks of resources directly on the blockchain (versus other less secure methods). The COG Token is further designed to extend blockchain functionality. We can add to or extend the token with our token architecture creating new ERC20 tokens on the COG blockchain.

What is AI?

Artificial Intelligence refers to systems that apply “machine learning” principles, typically in narrow application domains. AI engages in activities like playing chess or complex advanced data analysis and deep learning applications, or more recently, voice applications telling you the latest in weather and reminding you what you need to do that day.

What is AGI?

AGI is Artificial General Intelligence. Where AI is limited to specific applications, AGI systems can be applied generally for any application. A human being is a functional example of a General Intelligence like an AGI.

What are COG Tokens?

COG Tokens are Proof-of-Stake fork of the Ethereum codebase and include the smart contract that represents operational resources such as machine-learning Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) or external cloud-hosted assets which support a token extension framework.

COG Tokens and Business

COG Tokens convert AI cloud systems into a commodity utility. This utility will enable your business and ours.

What does the token do?

COGs assign and access cloud-based resources such as Azure-based Machine Learning web services, cloud-based neural network systems, or custom visual analysis. COGs orchestrate these systems around any business need.

Cloud Resource Access

Increasingly prevalent cloud services enable more machine-learning, big-data, IoT (Internet of Things), and AI technologies, which COG will exploit by providing greatly simplified AGI automation interfaces to them. The competitive advantage is much greater cost-effectiveness for users.

Resource Management

Resource management is key. COG’s most important function is resource management. All other functions are related to this function. This includes Cloud-based resources such as databases or REST services-to-cognitive machine learning services that will help us evolve artificial intelligence into a publicly accessible utility managed by COG interaction.

Manage Research Allocation

COG is a medium for the community to guide our research team’s agenda. Because Artificial General Intelligence should be driven by public interest, COG will flourish outside of the sales and marketing constraints of a university or large companies. Everyone should drive AGI. Via COG, it will be. Research agenda and research voting are done via COG.

  Read the rest here: https://agilaboratory.com/COG_Whitepaper.pdf