Hugo de Garis (born 1947, Sydney, Australia) became an associate professor of computer science at Utah State University. He is a researcher in the sub-field of artificial intelligence known as evolvable hardware which involves evolving neural net circuits directly in hardware to build artificial brains. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ... The Sydney Opera House on Sydney Harbour Sydney (pronounced ) is the most populous city in Australia, with a metropolitan area population of over 4,200,000 people, and 151,920, in the city limits. ... Computer science, or computing science, is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. ... Utah State Universitys main campus is located in Logan, Utah. ... Hondas humanoid robot AI redirects here. ... Use of evolutionary algorithms (EA) to create electronics. ... A neural network is an interconnected group of neurons. ...

He is more recently notorious for his view of the eventual dominance of Artificial Intelligence over human intelligence, which has sparked debate and criticism, particularly among the more media-friendly members of the AI research community.

De Garis's early studies were on theoretical physics, but he abandoned this field of research in favour of AI and artificial life. He received his PhD at Brussels University, Belgium. He recently joined the advisory board of Novamente, a commercial company aimed at Strong AI. Theoretical physics employs mathematical models and abstractions of physics, as opposed to experimental processes, in an attempt to understand nature. ... Artificial Life, (commonly Alife or alife) is a field of study and art form that examines systems related to life, its processes and its evolution through simulations using computer models, robotics, and biochemistry [1] (called soft, hard, and wet approaches respectively[2]). Artificial life complements traditional Biology by trying to... PhD usually refers to the academic title Doctor of Philosophy PhD can also refer to the manga Phantasy Degree This is a disambiguation page — a list of pages that otherwise might share the same title. ... In the philosophy of artificial intelligence, strong AI is the supposition that some forms of artificial intelligence can truly reason and solve problems; strong AI supposes that it is possible for machines to become sapient, or self-aware, but may or may not exhibit human-like thought processes. ...

Evolvable Hardware

This technique, involving development and use of neurons using a 3D cellular automaton, seems to have been used with success to build simple functionalities like the xor function, but, up to now, failed to evolve anything that could be considered as a brain, or even a serious robot control system. His current project is to assemble thousands of these 'brains' into a larger artificial intelligence architecture to make a functioning AI. A cellular automaton (plural: cellular automata) is a discrete model studied in computability theory, mathematics, and theoretical biology. ... Exclusive disjunction (usual symbol xor) is a logical operator that results in true if one of the operands (not both) is true. ...

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 project would develop a billion-neuron brain capable of simulating a cat brain. De Garis received a US$1.4 million grant to develop this. The first "CAM-Brain" was delivered to ATR in 1999; it appears that no intelligent system was ever created with it. After receiving a further US$1 million grant at Starlab de Garis failed to deliver a working "brain" before Starlab's bankruptcy. As head of USUs "Brain Builder" group de Garis has announced his intention to create a 2nd generation "CAM-Brain", but no progress appears to have been made towards this goal.

Critics find that de Garis tends towards "quantity not quality" in asserting that the degree of complexity displayed within his evolved hardware is a breakthrough in itself, without acknowledging that the harder problem is to create systems whose complexity is actually functional and fit for its purpose.

Employment History

de Garis original work on the CAM-Brain machines started in the early 1990s and was carried out 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 28th of 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. de Garis then became head of the Brain Builder Group at the Computer Science Department of Utah State University. Currently he is employed as a full triple professor in Wuhan University's International School of Software, teaching graduate level Pure Mathematics, Theoretical Physics and Computer Science to convert computer scientists into mathematical physicists, so that they can understand the Topological Quantum Computing (TQC) revolution now under way. He continues his artificial brain research work as well, using a Celoxica electronic accelerator board to evolve neural network modules 50 times faster than on a PC. By downloading up to 50,000 such evolved neural net modules, interconnecting them in interesting ways, he can build artificial brains for less than $3000. The Iwashimizu Hachimangu, a Shinto shrine in Yawata. ... Starlab NV/SA was a privately funded, blue sky research center based in Brussels, Belgium, initially funded by venture capitalist and entrepreneur Walter de Brouwer (CEO)in 1998. ... During May 1989 at the interdisciplinary Starlab in Brussels, Belgium, Europe, Hugo de Garis wrote a paper in Revue Internationale de Philosophie in 1990. ... Utah State Universitys main campus is located in Logan, Utah. ... Wuhan University (WHU) (Simplified Chinese: 武汉大学; Traditional Chinese: 武漢大學; Pinyin: Wǔhàn Dàxué; colloquially 武大, Pinyin: Wǔdà) is a key university directly under the administration of the Education Ministry of the Peoples Republic of China. ...

Cosmists and Terrans

De Garis predicts that one day intelligent machines (or 'artilects', as he calls them, after 'artificial intellects' to distinguish them from current forms of AI) will be far more intelligent than humans and threaten to dominate the world, resulting in a conflict between 'cosmists,' or supporters of the artilects, and 'terrans,' those who oppose the artilects (both of these are terms of his invention). He describes this conflict as a 'gigadeath war,' because presumably it will take place in the late 21st century using weaponry developed during that era, which will presumably be much more potent than weaponry from the beginning of the century. This scenario is somewhat similar to common science fiction themes, such as found in the 1984 movie The Terminator and Frank Herbert's Legends of Dune trilogy, leading some to criticise him as an alarmist and a sensationalist. He has recently authored a book describing his views on this topic entitled The Artilect War. The Terminator (also known as Terminator in some early trailers and posters) is a 1984 science fiction/action film featuring former bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger in what would become his best-known role, and also starred Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn. ... Frank Patrick Herbert (October 8, 1920 – February 11, 1986) was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. ... The fictional Dune universe, or Duniverse, is the political, scientific, and social setting of author Frank Herberts six-book Dune series of science fiction novels. ...

Cosmism, according to de Garis, is a moral philosophy that favours building or growing strong artificial intelligence and ultimately leaving the planet Earth to the Terrans (e.g. Bill Joy, Ken MacLeod) who oppose this path for humanity. In his essay "The Artilect War," De Garis 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-independant 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. In the philosophy of artificial intelligence, strong AI is the supposition that some forms of artificial intelligence can truly reason and solve problems; strong AI supposes that it is possible for machines to become sapient, or self-aware, but may or may not exhibit human-like thought processes. ... Hondas humanoid robot AI redirects here. ... The eight planets and three dwarf planets of the Solar System. ... Adjectives: Terrestrial, Terran, Telluric, Tellurian, Earthly Atmosphere Surface pressure: 101. ... Bill Joy (left) with Paul Saffo. ... Ken MacLeod (born August 2, 1954), an award-winning Scottish science fiction writer, lives near Edinburgh. ... Trinomial name Homo sapiens sapiens Linnaeus, 1758 Humans, or human beings, are bipedal primates belonging to the mammalian species Homo sapiens (Latin: wise man or knowing man) under the family Hominidae (the great apes). ... An essay is a short work of writing that treats a topic from an authors personal point of view. ...

Terrans (an early draft of the essay named them "terrestrialists"), on the other hand, will have a more "terrestrial" (earth-centred), less catholic (universal), view of history, in which the fate of the Earth and specifically the fate of the species of the Earth (like humanity) are seen as being all-important. To terrans, a future without humans is to be avoided at all costs, as it would represent, in many ways, the worst-case scenario. As such, terrans will find themselves unable to ignore the possibility that super intelligent machines might one day cause the destruction of the human race -- being very immensely intelligent and so cosmically inclined, these artilect machines may have no more moral or ethical difficulty in exterminating humanity than humans do in using medicines to cure diseases. So, claims De Garis, terrans will see themselves as living during the closing of a window of opportunity, to disable future artilects before they are built, after which humans will no longer have a say in the affairs of intelligent machines.

It is these two extreme ideologies which De Garis believes may herald a new World War, wherein one group with a 'grand plan' (the cosmists) will be rabidly opposed by another which feels itself to be under deadly threat from that plan (the terrans). The factions, he predicts, may eventually war to the death because of this, as the terrans will come to view the cosmists as "arch-monsters" when they begin seriously discussing 'acceptable risks,' and the probabilities of certain per centages of Earth-based life going extinct. In response to this, the cosmists will come to view the terrans as being reactionary extremists, and will stop treating them or their ideas seriously, further aggravating the situation, possibly beyond reconciliation. A faction is a special interest group. ... Look up war in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

De Garis relates that "just out of curiosity, I asked Kevin (Warwick) whether he was a Terran or a Cosmist. He said he was against the idea of artilects being built (i.e., he is Terran). I was surprised, and felt a shiver go up my spine. That moment reminded me of a biography of Lenin that I had read in my 20s in which the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks first started debating the future government of Russia. What began as an intellectual difference ended up as a Russian civil war after 1917 between the white and the red Russians." Kevin Warwick is a cybernetics professor at the University of Reading, England. ... Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ( Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин  listen?), original surname Ulyanov (Улья́нов) ( April 22 (April 10 ( O.S.)), 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a... Bolshevik Party Meeting. ... Leaders of the Menshevik Party at Norra Bantorget in Stockholm, Sweden, May 1917. ... A civil war is a war in which parties within the same culture, society or nationality fight against each other for the control of political power. ... Year 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar (see: 1917 Julian calendar). ...

It should actually be noted, however, that Warwick is really not a Terran at all, but would in fact be a member of another party De Garis predicts will emerge between the two. He colloquially refers to this third party as "cyborgians", because they will not be opposed to artilects as such, but they will desire to personally participate in the artilect colonisation of the universe, rather than fall into obsolescence. They will seek to become artilects by gradually merging themselves with machines, which is the main focus of Professor Warwick's cybernetics research. Natasha Vita-Mores Primo is an artistic depiction of a hypothetical posthuman of transhumanist speculation. ... Cybernetics is the study of communication and control, typically involving regulatory feedback in living organisms, machines and organisations, as well as their combinations. ...

Accordingly, the war might be said to have begun at a debate in Zurich on March 22, 2000.^[1] Some technologists, such as Bill Joy, Ray Kurzweil, and Hans Moravec;^[2] a few physicists and mathematicians, such as humanist Roger Penrose, have taken positions in this "war".^[3] Debate (North American English) or debating (British English) is a formal method of interactive and position representational argument. ... Location within Switzerland   Zürich[?] (German pronunciation IPA: ; usually spelled Zurich in English) is the largest city in Switzerland (population: 366,145 in 2004; population of urban area: 1,091,732) and capital of the canton of Zürich. ... March 22 is the 81st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (82nd in leap years). ... 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... In many countries, Technologists are synonymous with applied scientists or engineers. ... Bill Joy (left) with Paul Saffo. ... Dr. Raymond Kurzweil (born February 12, 1948) is a pioneer in the fields of optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic musical keyboards. ... Hans Moravec (born November 30, 1948 in Austria) is a research professor at the Robotics Institute (Carnegie Mellon) of Carnegie Mellon University. ... ... Leonhard Euler is considered by many to be one of the greatest mathematicians of all time A mathematician is the person whose primary area of study and research is the field of mathematics. ... This article discusses Humanism as a non-theistic life stance. ... Sir Roger Penrose, OM, FRS (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematical physicist and Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College. ...

Quotes

• Humans should not stand in the way of a higher form of evolution. These machines are godlike. It is human destiny to create them.

The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... August 1 is the 213th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (214th in leap years), with 152 days remaining. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...

References

1. ^ Gigadeath Artilect War first shot
2. ^ Stanford University AI Symposium
3. ^ Roger Penrose#Books

• "First Shot in Artilect War fired - "De Garis (Cosmist) Fires the First Shot in a Gigadeath Artilect War

at Professor Kevin Warwick (Terran) in Zurich Switzerland, 22 March 2000."

(http://www.cs.usu.edu/~degaris/news/zurich)

• "Will Spiritual Robots Replace Humanity by 2100?"

Saturday, April 1, 2000, 1pm - 5:30pm, a symposium at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California

Teaching Center, Science and Engineering Quad (TCSEQ), room 200, free and open to the public.

Primary speakers: Ray Kurzweil, Hans Moravec, and Bill Joy.

Panel members: Ralph Merkle, Kevin Kelly, John Holland, Frank Drake, and John Koza.

Symposium organizer and panel moderator: Douglas Hofstadter.

• Suggested readings

Michael Anissimov - Working Towards Apotheosis

The Artilect War by Hugo de Garis

The Emperor's New Mind and Shadows of the Mind by Roger Penrose ...

Sir Roger Penrose, OM, FRS (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematical physicist and Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College. ... The Artilect War is a future war predicted by Professor Hugo de Garis, the head of Starlabs Artificial Brain Project, who believes it may be fought in the 21st century between people trying to construct artilects (artifical intellects) to replace humanity, and those trying to stop them. ... A Cosmist, according to Professor Hugo de Garis at Starlab in Belgium, is an individual who favors building or growing artificial intelligence, and ultimately leaving the planet Earth to the Terrans, e. ... Terran means of Terra, i. ... It has been suggested that April Fools Day be merged into this article or section. ... 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University (or simply Stanford), is a private university located approximately 37 miles (60 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco and approximately 20 miles northwest of San José in an unincorporated area of Santa Clara County. ... Location of Palo Alto within Santa Clara County, California. ... Ralph C. Merkle (born 2 February 1952) is a pioneer in public key cryptography, and more recently a researcher and speaker on molecular nanotechnology and cryonics. ... Kevin Kelly Kevin Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine, and former publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog. ... John Holland is the name of several notable persons in history: John L. Holland is a psychologist who developed the RIASEC model (or Holland Codes) for career development [1] John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter (1352?–1400), was half-brother to Richard II of England and second husband of Elizabeth... Professor Frank Drake Frank Drake (born May 28, 1930, Chicago, Illinois) is an American astronomer and astrophysicist. ... John R. Koza is a computer scientist and a consulting professor at Stanford University, most notable for his work in pioneering the use of genetic programming for the optimization of complex problems, and for the evolution of computer programs which solve them. ... Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945) is an American academic. ... Michael Anissimov is a transhumanist who has been active in transhumanism-related organizations since late 2001, including the Immortality Institute and the World Transhumanist Association. ... Look up Apotheosis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Emperors New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics is a 1989 book by mathematical physicist Roger Penrose. ... Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness is a 1994 book by mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, and serves as a followup to his 1989 book The Emperors New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics. ...

See also

• Artificial General Intelligence Research Institute
• Artilect
  • Friendly artificial intelligence
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) philosophy perspectives
• Cosmism - early 20th century, similar expansiveness.
• List of transhumanists
• Technological singularity

Founded in 2001, the Artificial General Intelligence Research Institutes (AGIRI) mission is to foster the creation of powerful and ethically positive Artificial General Intelligence. ... AI, see Ai. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Eliezer Yudkowsky. ... ... Russian cosmism is a philosophical and cultural movement that emerged in Russia in the early 20th century. ... This page contains a list of notable individuals who have identified themselves or been identified by others as advocates of transhumanism (in alphabetical order). ... When plotted on a logarithmic graph, 15 separate lists of paradigm shifts for key events in human history show an exponential trend. ...

External links

• American mirror web site at Wuhan University (International School of Software)
  • Engineering Letters Editorial Board - Editors
  • Search Utah State - de Garis
• Prof. de Garis AGIRI.org Presentation
  • Man vs. Machine
• Building Gods - the rough cut of a documentary which details, amongst other things, the personal beliefs of Hugo de Garis and Kevin Warwick on the possibilities of artificial life
• Interview with Hugo de Garis
• Human v 2.0: Ray Kurzweil vs. Hugo de Garis
• Cosmism and the deGaris Brain Project