Хьюго де Гарис: от искусственного интеллекта к предсказаниям о войне машин и человечества.

Australian AI researcher

Hugo de Garis (born 1947) is an Australian retired researcher in the sub field of artificial intelligence (AI) known as evolvable hardware. He became known in the 1990s for his research on the use of genetic algorithms to evolve artificial neural networks using three dimensional cellular automata inside field programmable gate arrays. He claimed that this approach would enable the creation of what he terms "artificial brains" which would quickly surpass human levels of intelligence. He has been noted for his belief that a major war between the supporters and opponents of intelligent machines, resulting in billions of deaths, is almost inevitable before the end of the 21st century. He suggests AI systems may simply eliminate the human race, and humans would be powerless to stop them because of technological singularity. This prediction has attracted debate and criticism from the AI research community, and some of its more notable members, such as Kevin Warwick, Bill Joy, Ken MacLeod, Ray Kurzweil, and Hans Moravec, have voiced their opinions on whether or not this future is likely. De Garis originally studied theoretical physics, but he abandoned this field in favour of artificial intelligence. In 1992 he received his PhD from Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. He worked as a researcher at ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, 国際電気通信基礎技術研究所), Japan from 1994–2000, a researcher at Starlab, Brussels from 2000–2001, and associate professor of computer science at Utah State University from 2001–2006. Until his retirement in late 2010 he was a professor at Xiamen University, where he taught theoretical physics and computer science, and ran the Artificial Brain Lab.

From 1993 to 2000 de Garis participated in a research project at ATR's Human Information Processing Research Laboratories (ATR HIP) which aimed to create a billion neuron artificial brain by the year 2001. this idea was rejected by Igor Aleksander, who said "The point is that these puzzles are not puzzles because our neural models are not large enough." Though it was initially envisaged that these cellular automata would run on special computers, such as MIT's "Cellular Automata Machine 8" (CAM 8), by 1996 it was realised that the model originally proposed, which required cellular automata with thousands of states, was too complex to be realised in hardware. The design was considerably simplified, and in 1997 the "collect and distribute 1 bit" ("CoDi 1Bit") model was published, and work began on a hardware implementation using Xilinx XC6264 FPGAs. This was to be known as the "CAM Brain Machine" (CBM). Reproducing the XOR function. Generating a bitstream that alternates between 0 and 1 three times (i. e. 000 111 000 ). Generated a bitstream where the output alternates, but can be changed from a majority of 1s to a majority of 0s by toggling an input. Discriminating between two square wave inputs with a different period. Discriminating between horizontal lines (input on a 2D grid) and random noise. Ultimately the project failed to produce a functional robot control system, and ATR terminated it along with the closure of ATR HIP in February 2001. The original aim of de Garis' work was to establish the field of "brain building" (a term of his invention) and to "create a trillion dollar industry within 20 years". Throughout the 90s his papers claimed that by 2001 the ATR "Robokoneko" (translation: kitten robot) project would develop a billion neuron "cellular automata machine brain" (CAM brain), with "computational power equivalent to 10,000 pentiums" that could simulate the brain of a real cat. De Garis received a US$0.4 million "fat brain building grant" to develop this. The first "CAM brain" was delivered to ATR in 1999. After receiving a further US$1 million grant at Starlab de Garis failed to deliver a working "brain" before Starlab's bankruptcy. At USU de Garis announced he was establishing a "brain builder" group to create a second generation "CAM brain".

De Garis published his last "CAM Brain" research paper in 2002. He still works on evolvable hardware. Using a Celoxica FPGA board he says he can create up to 50,000 neural network modules for less than $3000. Since 2002 he has co authored several papers on evolutionary algorithms. He believes that topological quantum computing is about to revolutionize computer science, and hopes that his teaching will help his students to understand its principles. In 2008 de Garis received a 3 million Chinese yuan grant (around $436,000) to build an artificial brain for China (the China Brain Project), as part of the Brain Builder Group at Wuhan University. Hugo de Garis retired in 2010. Before that he was director of the artificial brains lab at Xiamen University in China. In 2013 he was studying Maths and Physics at PhD level and over the next 20 years plans to publish 500 graduate level free lecture videos. This is called "degarisMPC" and some lectures are already available.

De Garis's original work on "CAM brain" machines was part of an 8 year research project, from 1993 to 2000, at the ATR Human Information Processing Research Laboratories (ATR HIP) in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. De Garis left in 2000, and ATR HIP was closed on 28 February 2001. De Garis then moved to Starlab in Brussels, where he received a million dollars in funding from the government of Belgium ("over a third of the Brussels government's total budget for scientific research", according to de Garis). Starlab went bankrupt in June 2001. A few months later de Garis was employed as an associate professor at the computer science department of Utah State University. In May 2006 he became a professor at Wuhan University's international school of software, teaching graduate level pure mathematics, theoretical physics and computer science. Since June 2006 he has been a member of the advisory board of Novamente, a commercial company which aims to create artificial general intelligence.

Hugo de Garis believes that a major war before the end of the 21st century, resulting in billions of deaths, is almost inevitable. This scenario has been criticised by other AI researchers, including Chris Malcolm, who described it as "entertaining science fiction horror stories which happen to have caught the attention of the popular media". Kevin Warwick called it a "hellish nightmare, as portrayed in films such as the Terminator". Cosmism is a moral philosophy that favours building or growing strong artificial intelligence and ultimately leaving Earth to the Terrans, who oppose this path for humanity. The first half of the book describes technologies which he believes will make it possible for computers to be billions or trillions of times more intelligent than humans. He predicts that as artificial intelligence improves and becomes progressively more human like, differing views will begin to emerge regarding how far such research should be allowed to proceed. Cosmists will foresee the massive, truly astronomical potential of substrate independent cognition, and will therefore advocate unlimited growth in the designated fields, in the hopes that "super intelligent" machines might one day colonise the universe. It is this "cosmic" view of history, in which the fate of one single species, on one single planet, is seen as insignificant next to the fate of the known universe, that gives the Cosmists their name. Hugo identifies with that group and noted that it "would be a cosmic tragedy if humanity freezes evolution at the puny human level".

"Humans should not stand in the way of a higher form of evolution. These machines are godlike. It is human destiny to create them." — as quoted in New York Times Magazine of 1 August 1999, speaking of the 'artilects' of the future. "I believe that the ideological disagreements between these two groups on this issue will be so strong, that a major "artilect" war, killing billions of people, will be almost inevitable before the end of the 21st century." He is a believer in anti semitic conspiracy theories and has written (and presented on YouTube) a series of essays on the subject. Because of the danger of generalized anti semitism (as manifested in Nazi Germany from 1932 to 1945), de Garis is not opposed to "all Jews," just those whom he denotes as "massively evil" (ME) or "ME Jews," which he claims are "a small subset of overall Jews who have sought totalitarian power," much as the Nazis were a small subset of "overall Germans who had attained totalitarian power," and one does not properly call "anti Nazi conspiracy theorists" by the name "anti German conspiracy theorists."