Professor Leroy Cronin, Regius Chair of Chemistry at UK Glasgow, is a fascinating scientist JJ loves supporting. Cronin's pushback in recent years against AGI overhype has urged a reassessment of what it means to be intelligent. He doesn't argue that computers are incapable of advancing humanity to a superintelligent state, just that it's irrational to treat AI like a god or believe it exists intellectually like a person does.
Where does intelligence come from?
Cronin argues that current artificial models lack sufficient chemical coding for human-like intelligence. In order to understand what constructs intelligence, Cronin is digitizing chemistry and exploring AI through the lens of chemical intelligence (CI) .
His passion and curiosity for this topic drives the research behind a new project 'Chem Machina,' the "invented, not evolved" artificial brain. Although it lacks a classic AI label, CI remains part of the AI community by being a method of manmade or artificial intelligence.
As CI remains part of AI, so, too. are AI technologies like large language models (LLMs) and robotics early stages of CI experimentation. Computers and robots use chemicals like silicon, copper, and aluminum to understand intelligence. While they don't think the same way people do, they help expand humanity's collective intellectual capacity.
Chemists like Cronin are needed to explore the design of manmade intelligence and eventually superintelligence, the level where an artificially enhanced intelligence far surpasses the collective human species' intelligence. What does that look like? Why is it important to surpass humanity's current intellectual capacity?
What is the current level? What is extra-superhuman in comparison to the superhuman? Why is advancement important? What does it look like to build systems that surpass our intellectual capacity?
Not many intellectual support tools are intelligent by themselves. Computers, automobiles, and factory machines don't think the same way people do, and they don't need to in order to remain helpful and effective at executing labor and skills that replace or surpass human abilities.
Cronin instructs us that it's mandatory to get the chemistry just right if we're experimenting with artificially designing true intelligence. Manmade machines that experience consciousness similar to people likely require a particular chemical coding. This is what Chem Machina explores.
At this stage of development and our understanding of intelligence, it seems more probable to innovate the preexisting textures of human intelligence via embodied artificial intelligence (EAI) rather than creating disembodied LLMs and wasting money or time building frankenbot's consciousness.
By internally synthesizing with tools like calculators, image generators, and chemputer databases, it may be possible to achieve embodied artificial superintelligence (EASI) far sooner. A device like Neuralink has a major opportunity to collaborate with projects such as Chem Machina and deliver enchanting progress in the realm of AI-assisted intellectual, creative, and technological growth.
Alone, Neuralink isn't likely to learn how to safely connect the brain with a steady flow of computer synthesis. Cronin isn't likely to craft consciousness in a chemistry cube with no sensory organs. Together, the two may accelerate the magick of what's possible for artificially advanced intelligence.