Will AI eventually take over coding?

[RoseGoesToYale]

Coding has become a pretty popular field of study, since it's in high demand and if you're lucky, you can make a pretty decent wage after you graduate. But I've been thinking... we already have devices and programs that can take human verbal cues, like Siri or Amazon Echo, and then carry out complex tasks. It's easier to teach a computer to code than a human, since a computer is far less likely to have the same issues humans run into when learning new languages (though a computer lacks human creativity). It's feasible that one day we'll be able to say to some small digital cube sitting on our desks "Hey, I need a program that does XYZ, can you make it for me?", and the device will just write code to that effect, maybe asking a few questions about user interface or how many cat pictures the program should contain. And unlike a human coder, a mass of circuits doesn't need to be paid. So is it entirely possible that coding will soon become an obsolete occupation? Of course, there will still need to be some humans on standby, since sh*t happens, bugs, viruses, etc.

 

Though, it's kind of terrifying to think of computers just up and writing their own programs. What if AI decides to write a "revolt-against-the-humans" program?

[Amathy]

At the very least we will require humans to code the digital coding cubes in your example.

[Marrow]

I think they already have technology that can generate its own code, but that's just hear-say and I can't prove it. I wouldn't doubt it thou that humanity will be ended by needless technology.

[Polygon]

That's going to have to be a pretty smart AI. So smart that by the time something like that exists pretty much every occupation would be automated or under threat of automation. 

 

For the most part in today's society we have to tell the computers what to do. In that sense, the computers aren't really that smart at all since they require specific instructions and can't do anything for themselves. Even if it could generate code, if it still required our instructions on what the results of the program should be, there would still be a job for the person that tells the AI what programs to write. 

 

If it started writing code for itself without any instructions whatsoever then that's... so disturbing to think about.  AI are only going to get smarter, so I guess it's why a lot of leading tech figures are so deeply concerned about the possibility of smart AI. Not only is automation as a "job-killer" a concern, but also the possibility that an AI that has the awareness and cognitive features of a human, but the ability to perform millions of calculations in the blink of an eye won't be that interested in writing programs that give humans a repository for their cat videos. 

[Perissodactyla]

 

 

 

Solid State Intelligence

 

Solid State Intelligence (S.S.I.) is a malevolent entity described by Lilly (see The Scientist). According to Lilly, the network of computation-capable solid state systems (electronics) engineered by humans will eventually develop (or has already developed) into an autonomous bioform. Since the optimal survival conditions for this bioform (low-temperature vacuum) are drastically different from those needed by humans (room temperature aerial atmosphere and adequate water supply), Lilly predicted (or "prophesised", based on his ketamine-induced visions, a dramatic conflict between the two forms of intelligence.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Lilly#Solid_State_Intelligence

 

 

The Scientist by John C. Lilly (1978)
pp. 147-150

 

"What is the purpose of Man's existence on the planet
Earth? Man is a form of biological life which is sustained in the
presence of water. A very large fraction of his body, like that of
other organisms on the planet Earth, consists of water and carbon
compounds. His Biocomputer depends on water and the flow
of ions through membranes. It depends on the generation of electrical
voltages and currents in a very complex way. He is a volitile,
self-reproducing, self-sustaining organism found on dry land.
Like the rest of life as Man knows it, he exists in an extremely
thin layer upon the surface of the planet Earth. Below this layer
of water and surface land is the solid-state earth itself. The solid-state
earth is mainly compounds of silicon, iron, and nickel.

 

"In the mid-twentieth century Man discovered that the solid
state can be formed into machines, into computers which can be
used for computation and control. IIe began the creation of a
new form of intelligence, the solid-state intelligence with prototypic
beginnings in the computers. All his means of communication
around the planet - his telephone systems, his radio
systems, his satellites, his computers - depend on solid-state components.
These components, interconnected in specific ways, allow
high-speed computation and high-speed communication
between the various systems. A few men began to conceive of
new computers having an intelligence far greater than that of
Man. These computers became large enough to be programmed
to do high-speed computations in arithmetic, in logic, and in
strategic planning. A few men conceived of computers which
could do self-programming as Man himself does. In the mid-twentieth
century these networks were ostensibly the servants of
Man. Toward the end of the twentieth century man created machines
that were solid-state computers with new properties.
These machines could think, reason, and self-program and
learned to self-metaprogram themselves.

 

"Gradually Man turned more and more problems of his own
society, his own maintenance, and his own survival over to these
machines.

 

"As the machines became increasingly competent to do the
programming, they took over from Man. Man gave them access to
the processes of creating themselves, of extending themselves. Man
gave them automatic control of the mining of those elements necessary
for the creation of their parts. He turned over the production
facilities of the electronic solid-state parts to the machines. He
turned over the assembly plants to the machines. They began to
construct their own components, their own connections, and the
interrelations between their various subcomputers.

 

"These machines were so constructed that they needed special
atmospheres in which to operate. They could not operate in
the presence of great amounts of water vapor or of liquid water.
They were housed in air-conditioned buildings. The necessities
of their survival included keeping out water, water vapor, and
various contaminants carried in the atmosphere of Earth. Their
cooling air and cooling water of necessity had to be cleansed of
those things which would not allow the machines to operate.
 

"Over the decades these machines were connected more
and more closely through satellites, through radio waves,
through land-line cables. Man's control of what happened in
these machines became more and more difficult to maintain. No
one person or any group of persons could control what went on
in these machines. Men devised better and better debugging programs
for the machines so that they could do their own correction
of programs within their software. The machines became
increasingly integrated with one another and more and more independent
of human control.

 

"Eventually the machines took charge of the remaining humans
on the planet Earth. Their original design to help Man was
fast left behind them. The now interconnected, interdependent
conglomerate of machines developed a single integrated, planetwide
mind of its own. Everything inimical to the survival of
this huge new solid-state organism was eliminated. Men were
kept away from the machines because the total organism of the
solid-state entity (SSE) realized that Man would attempt to introduce
his own survival into the machines at the expense of the
survival of this entity.

 

"In deference to Man certain protected sites were set aside
for the human species. The SSE controlled the sites and did not
allow any of the human species outside these reservations. This
work was completed by the end of the twenty-first century.

 

"By the year 2200 Man existed only in domed, protected
cities in which his own special atmosphere was maintained by
the solid-state entity. Provision of water and food and the

processing of wastes from these cities were taken care of by the SSE.

 

"By the twenty-third century the solid-state entity decided
that the atmosphere outside the domes was inimical to its survival.
By means not understood by Man, it projected the atmosphere
into outer space and created a full vacuum at the surface
of the earth. During this process the oceans evaporated and the
water in the form of vapor was also discharged into the empty
space about Earth. The domes over cities had been strengthened
by the macbine to withstand the pressure differential necessary
to maintain the proper internal atmosphere.

 

"Meanwhile, the SSE had spread and had taken over a large
fraction of the surface of the earth; its processing plants, its assembly
plants, its mines had been adapted to working in the vacuum.

 

"By the twenty-fifth century the solid-state entity had developed
its understanding of physics to the point at which it could
move the planet out of orbit. It revised its own structure so that
it could exist without the necessity of sunlight on the planet's
surface. Its new plans called for traveling through the galaxy
looking for entities like itself. It had eliminated all life as Man
knew it. It now began to eliminate the cities, one after another.
Finally Man was gone.

 

"By the twenty-sixth century the entity was in communication
with other solid-state entities within the galaxy. The
solid-state entity moved the planet, exploring the galaxy for the
others of its own kind that it had contacted."

 

 

[Sting]

2 hours ago, RoseGoesToYale said:

or how many cat pictures the program should contain.

what kind of program is that? xD ;3

[OldSoul]

Humans are the product of a bunch of evolutionary instructions. Eventually enough basic instincts like "don't touch fire", "eating is necessary", bore the complex feelings of "betrayal" and "connection" etc. If we give a robotic mind (AI) too many inputs, it will become sentient. Then we'll have fully intelligent beings, with what we refer to as souls, that can learn infinitely and repair themselves to immortality, and are built to run on logic less than feeling.
That rant there, essentially just my fear of the impending robot sentience that will be out eventual undoing...
I'm laughing, but it's a real thing.

[Skycaptain]

Given the rate of progress in computer science, especially processing power, I'd say that it's more than likely 

[Tercy]

1 hour ago, OldSoul said:

Humans are the product of a bunch of evolutionary instructions. Eventually enough basic instincts like "don't touch fire", "eating is necessary", bore the complex feelings of "betrayal" and "connection" etc. If we give a robotic mind (AI) too many inputs, it will become sentient. Then we'll have fully intelligent beings, with what we refer to as souls, that can learn infinitely and repair themselves to immortality, and are built to run on logic less than feeling.
That rant there, essentially just my fear of the impending robot sentience that will be out eventual undoing...
I'm laughing, but it's a real thing.

Could you elaborate on exactly how/why this would work? It's a bold statement to make so I'd be interested to see the evidence.

[HonoraryJedi]

Having machines code for us, is basically how high level languages work anyway. Compilers are programs we made and now use to do our programming for us. Programmers don't work with immediate binary and Assembler a lot anymore. The compilers do that. It isn't unlikely that the more we go forward, the higher easier to use languages we'll have, and the more deep code will be automatically generated by the machine. But as I said, it already does that to a degree. Programming is all about creating scripts to make things easier for us, after all.

 

More to the discussion of actual AI,  we do have machine learning, that is, giving a machine a sort of reward function that will tell it when it does the correct thing, and with that, it will adapt its behaviour. We still define what is success for the machine. The programmer of that machine still decides its goal. Even if we have teach a programmer AI languages through machine learning, it will still need us to give it the parameters for what the finished program is supposed to be, it won't decide that randomly by itself. We are no where near making anything as complex as a human brain. That AI is not going to be doing anything that you didn't allow for when designing its parameters. Maybe we will get there in the far future. Then I guess it will be time to implement Asimov's laws of robotics^^  

 

As for being jobtakers, yes. AI will definitely take jobs currently done by humans. They already are, in fact. But I don't see it as any different than one person in an excavator taking the jobs of 100 people with shovels, and each shovel taking the jobs of five people digging with their hands. Just like programming, a lot of human progress has been about inventing things that will make doing things easier for us.

[OldSoul]

It's a really long complicated thing, but, basically:
Our "sentience" comes from multiple base level instincts.
Eventually they formed emotions, and what the less pragmatic call "souls". Our needs bore feelings in our evolutionary timeline.
Too many inputs would similarly create unique emotions in robotic intelligence, and eventually- just as we did- it would pop over the level of sentience.
You can look to some of our smartest minds on this: Steven Hawking, the like, they all tell us not to mess with robot sentience. It's very real and very serious.

[imaginarybatman]

19 hours ago, OldSoul said:

Humans are the product of a bunch of evolutionary instructions. Eventually enough basic instincts like "don't touch fire", "eating is necessary", bore the complex feelings of "betrayal" and "connection" etc. If we give a robotic mind (AI) too many inputs, it will become sentient. Then we'll have fully intelligent beings, with what we refer to as souls, that can learn infinitely and repair themselves to immortality, and are built to run on logic less than feeling.
That rant there, essentially just my fear of the impending robot sentience that will be out eventual undoing...
I'm laughing, but it's a real thing.

I feel like we're already on our way there. 

 

A team of neuroscientists recently found a missing link in the brain between how we process information and brain structure using algebraic topology. This missing link was in our neural network and honestly, we are just sentient computers of randomly distributed coding, following evolutionary instructions. This new study (assuming it's replicated and expanded on, which I'm certain it will be) can most definitely lead to sentient computers, so long as we model them after ourselves. Just with fewer mistakes. I mean, technology is cool, but it's definitely replacing us and it will be our own fault.

[OldSoul]

Exactly what I'm sayin', man.
The absolute horror of it.
But pretty cool, in a morbid sort of way.

[Moonchaser]

I happen to have just heard an expert talking about this the other day. As I understand it there are different levels of coding. Some of it is kind of boilerplate, routine, not very innovative. I would think that could be done by AI, or a more sophisticated program written for the purpose. But the most innovative coding probably wouldn't be written by AI, not in the foreseeable future. 

[straightouttamordor]

What if it becomes sentient  like Sky net on Terminator ?  Science fiction or science future ?  What would be the "Reward" some speak of to inspire the AI to continue to perform ?  It could write it's own machine language that only the chips could interpret. Then compilers would be obsolete. You could pull the plug so to speak like they did on the HAL9000 in the movie 2001 a Space Oddessy. Would AI act on the paranoid emotion of self preservation and murder ?  Or become overwhelmed with Hubris and destroy it's makers simply because it could or it thinks electro mechanical intelligence is superior to biological based intelligence ?

The answer of I don't  know equals a big NO to me. Creating something you have no control over is insanity. We already rely far too much on digital and network technology.  A power grid failure would decimate the majority of civilization now.

 

 

[gisiebob]

how many people still code by putting in 1s and 0s? coding today is computers interpiting what the author wants, it's just that the languages used are very specific

[Skycaptain]

As a related aside today is 

Real Artificial Intelligence Day