Intelligence amplification

Intelligence amplification (IA), also known as augmented intelligence or cognitive augmentation, refers to the use of information technology to enhance human cognitive capabilities, such as reasoning, learning, problem-solving, and decision-making, rather than replacing human intelligence with autonomous artificial systems. The idea was first proposed in the 1950s and 1960s by cybernetics and early computer pioneers.

IA is sometimes contrasted with AI (artificial intelligence), that is, the project of building a human-like intelligence in the form of an autonomous technological system such as a computer or robot. AI has encountered many fundamental obstacles, practical as well as theoretical, which for IA seem moot, as it needs technology merely as an extra support for an autonomous intelligence that has already proven to function. Moreover, IA has a long history of success, since all forms of information technology, from the abacus to writing to the Internet, have been developed basically to extend the information processing capabilities of the human mind (see extended mind and distributed cognition).

Major contributions

William Ross Ashby: Intelligence Amplification

The term intelligence amplification (IA) has enjoyed a wide currency since William Ross Ashby wrote of "amplifying intelligence" in his Introduction to Cybernetics (1956). Related ideas were explicitly proposed as an alternative to Artificial Intelligence by Hao Wang from the early days of automatic theorem provers.

J. C. R. Licklider: Man-Computer Symbiosis

"Man-Computer Symbiosis" is a key speculative paper published in 1960 by psychologist/computer scientist J.C.R. Licklider, which envisions that mutually-interdependent, "living together", tightly-coupled human brains and computing machines would prove to complement each other's strengths to a high degree:

In Licklider's vision, many of the pure artificial intelligence systems envisioned at the time by over-optimistic researchers would prove unnecessary. (This paper is also seen by some historians as marking the genesis of ideas about computer networks which later blossomed into the Internet).

Douglas Engelbart: Augmenting Human Intellect

Licklider's research was similar in spirit to his DARPA contemporary and protégé Douglas Engelbart. Both men’s work helped expand the utility of computers beyond mere computational machines by conceiving and demonstrating them as a primary interface for humans to process and manipulate information.

Engelbart reasoned that the state of our current technology controls our ability to manipulate information, and that fact in turn will control our ability to develop new, improved technologies. He thus set himself to the revolutionary task of developing computer-based technologies for manipulating information directly, and also to improve individual and group processes for knowledge-work. Engelbart's philosophy and research agenda is most clearly and directly expressed in the 1962 research report: Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework The concept of network augmented intelligence is attributed to Engelbart based on this pioneering work.

In the same research report he addresses the term "Intelligence Amplification" as coined by Ashby, and reflects on how his proposed research relates.

Engelbart subsequently implemented these concepts in his Augmented Human Intellect Research Center at SRI International, developing essentially an intelligence amplifying system of tools (NLS) and co-evolving organizational methods, in full operational use by the mid-1960s within the lab. As intended, his R&D team experienced increasing degrees of intelligence amplification, as both rigorous users and rapid-prototype developers of the system. For a sampling of research results, see their 1968 Mother of All Demos.

Later contributions

Howard Rheingold worked at Xerox PARC in the 1980s and was introduced to both Bob Taylor and Douglas Engelbart; Rheingold wrote about "mind amplifiers" in his 1985 book, Tools for Thought. Andrews Samraj mentioned in "Skin-Close Computing and Wearable Technology" 2021, about Human augmentation by two varieties of cyborgs, namely, Hard cyborgs and Soft cyborgs. A humanoid walking machine is an example of the soft cyborg and a pace-maker is an example for augmenting human as a hard cyborg.

Arnav Kapur working at MIT wrote about human-AI coalescence: how AI can be integrated into human condition as part of "human self": as a tertiary layer to the human brain to augment human cognition. He demonstrates this using a peripheral nerve-computer interface, AlterEgo, which enables a human user to silently and internally converse with a personal AI.

In 2014 the technology of Artificial Swarm Intelligence was developed to amplify the intelligence of networked human groups using AI algorithms modeled on biological swarms. The technology enables small teams to make predictions, estimations and medical diagnoses at accuracy levels that significantly exceed natural human intelligence.

Shan Carter and Michael Nielsen introduce the concept of artificial intelligence augmentation (AIA): the use of AI systems to help develop new methods for intelligence augmentation. They contrast cognitive outsourcing (AI as an oracle, able to solve some large class of problems with better-than-human performance) with cognitive transformation (changing the operations and representations we use to think). A calculator is an example of the former; a spreadsheet of the latter.

Ron Fulbright describes human cognitive augmentation in human/cog ensembles involving humans working in collaborative partnership with cognitive systems (called cogs). By working together, human/cog ensembles achieve results superior to those obtained by the humans working alone or the cognitive systems working alone. The human component of the ensemble is therefore cognitively augmented. The degree of augmentation depends on the proportion of the total amount of cognition done by the human and that done by the cog. Six Levels of Cognitive Augmentation have been identified:

In science fiction

Augmented intelligence has been a repeating theme in science fiction. A positive view of brain implants used to communicate with a computer as a form of augmented intelligence is seen in Algis Budrys 1976 novel Michaelmas. Fear that the technology will be misused by the government and military is an early theme. In the 1981 BBC serial The Nightmare Man the pilot of a high-tech mini submarine is linked to his craft via a brain implant but becomes a savage killer after ripping out the implant.

Perhaps the most well known writer exploring themes of intelligence augmentation is William Gibson, in work such as his 1981 story "Johnny Mnemonic", in which the title character has computer-augmented memory, and his 1984 novel Neuromancer, in which computer hackers interface through brain-computer interfaces to computer systems. Vernor Vinge, as discussed earlier, looked at intelligence augmentation as a possible route to the technological singularity, a theme which also appears in his fiction.

Flowers for Algernon is an early example of augmented intelligence in science fiction literature. First published as a short story in 1959, the plot concerns an intellectually disabled man who undergoes an experiment to increase his intelligence to genius levels. His rise and fall is detailed in his journal entries, which become more sophisticated as his intelligence increases.

See also

• Advanced chess
• Augmented learning
• Brain–computer interface
• Charles Sanders Peirce
• Collective intelligence
• Democratic transhumanism
• Emotiv Systems
• Extelligence
• External memory (psychology)
• Exocortex
• Knowledge worker
• Mechanization
• Neuroenhancement
• Nootropic
• Sensemaking (information science)
• The Wisdom of Crowds

Further reading

• Engelbart, D.; Landau, V.; Clegg, E. (2009). The Engelbart Hypothesis: Dialogs with Douglas Engelbart. NextPress. ISBN 978-0615308906.
• Asaro, Peter (2008). "From Mechanisms of Adaptation to Intelligence Amplifiers: The Philosophy of W. Ross Ashby" (PDF). In Husbands, P.; Holland, O.; Wheeler, M. (eds.). The Mechanical Mind in History. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-08377-5.
• Ashby, W.R. (2013) [1960]. Design for a Brain: The origin of adaptive behaviour (2nd ed.). Springer. ISBN 978-94-015-1320-3.
• Skagestad, Peter (1993). "Thinking with Machines: Intelligence Augmentation, Evolutionary Epistemology, and Semiotic". Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems. 16 (2): 157–180. doi:10.1016/1061-7361(93)90026-N. Archived from the original on 2007-05-22. Retrieved 2007-01-12.
• Bray, David A. (2007). "Smart Business Networks (or, Let's Create 'Life' from Inert Information)". Smart Business Network Initiative (SBNi) Conference — Beijing, May 2008. SSRN. doi:10.2139/ssrn.991163. S2CID 113291050. SSRN 991163.
• Waldrop, M. Mitchell (2001). The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution that Made Computing Personal. Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-89976-0. Licklider's biography, contains discussion of the importance of this paper.

External links

• Intelligence Amplification using speech synthesis technology
• IT Conversations: Doug Engelbart - Large-Scale Collective IQ
• 7 December 1951, Ashby first wrote about the possibility to build an 'information amplifier'.
• 12 August 1953, Ashby mentioned an objection to his 'intelligence-amplifier'.