Will AI undergo the process of Darwinian evolution? And what will it mean for us if it does?

The fact that we are unaware of how our artificial creations will evolve to think and perform is both terrifying and fascinating

Feb 12 is the birthday of the English naturalist, geologist, and biologist Charles Darwin. 

In the 19th century, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the 19th century proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection. The main concepts centre on how all organisms develop or change over time. The idea also discusses how humans descended from other species, and has since been extended to trace the origin of life to the sea, where fish hatch from eggs and can survive without the help of their parents. 

Most creation-related beliefs before Darwin's landmark works centred on gods or divine entities, often featuring an all-powerful, all-knowing intelligent creator. Unlike the theory of relativity, the theory of evolution evokes critical reactions from a wider spectrum of society. There is broad scientific consensus that the central tenets proposed in the book On the Origin of Species, can be observed in nature.

The theory suggests that organisms produce more offspring so that some, which are physically better equipped to do so, may survive where others lacking in certain areas do not. Since the 'fittest' species would survive in their natural environment, Darwin's ideas came to be referred to by the term 'survival of the fittest'. It also means that the traits that allowed or enhanced survival in that environment will also gradually change, or evolve for the next generation. 

But what if we were to stretch the idea of the theory of evolution? The simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, particularly computer systems, is known as artificial intelligence, or AI. Specific applications can include machine visual perception, expert systems, decision-making, natural language processing and translation, and speech recognition. Much of this can be attributed to Alan Turing, who created the first modern computers, cracked the German Enigma code during World War II, and established the Turing Test, one of the first 'tests' for true artificial intelligence.

From a more modern perspective, AI has evolved rapidly in recent years. The 2019 AI Index research from Stanford University states that artificial intelligence processing performance doubles every three months, exceeding Moore's Law, which describes how processor speeds double every 18 to 2 years. ResearchAndMarkets.com believes that the market for AI's learning-from-experience jobs will expand to $3.1 billion by 2027, growing more than 17 percent annually. 

AI development has been driven by neural network models trained by back-propagation. These models use methods based on aspects of evolution, as observed in biology. The next step is artificial intelligence that will, one day, be able to comprehend its existence. 

What is a being if they cannot understand how far their capabilities can take them with absolute reasoning? AI, in most cases, is developed to make our lives easier and is being 'evolved' for that reason. But how far can they 'evolve' with our help? Will they eventually start evolving their own thought processes and become sentient? How long until these beings are able to survive on their own? 

Fiction is full of scary stories about the potential outcomes of the development of AI. In the Terminator series, a swarm intelligence called Skynet takes control of the US's defence system and launches a mass extinction of humans. In Ex Machina, an engineer evaluates a robot that can comprehend feelings, only to find dark answers about what feelings such a being could harbour. In The Matrix, a war between humans and AI leads to vast farms where humans are used as an energy source. We have thought of many chilling scenarios about the different ways AI can evolve and diversify, but one pressing question is how far these scenarios are from becoming reality. 

We must also consider the fact of decay. As in all biological circumstances, decay can occur mechanically and in terms of errors that cause breakdown or malfunction in operating systems that need to be updated gradually. This shows that there is still much work to be done.

Despite the use of complex algorithms, AI can, for the moment, only do as much as it is told to do, blindly following its programming. As such, AI is strictly tied to human intelligence. The AI scripts available online to the public have, controversially, already made life easier and a bit more diverse. Many argue that it is not organic and out of the natural equation due to the artificial building blocks that do not allow these AI to evolve on their own. We may be ignoring that evolution enables the refinement of traits such as consciousness and comprehension, which we are readily assisting AI in doing so by providing data. Will AI, at some point, go through a process of evolution by natural selection itself? 

If human beings have evolved through chance and developed into their current forms over time, there is the possibility of it happening again. AI is built to mimic nature. Even the slightest, random changes in an organism's genetic makeup can give it advantages and disadvantages. Neuroevolution attempts to recreate the processes that form the sections of the brain, that is, the process by which only the strong survive. In contrast, artificial neural networks mimic the process of learning specific concepts. Recently, much of this has been accomplished by searching archives for various viewpoints on machine learning. Big companies such as Google and Microsoft are already leading the race in the development of AI backed by vast amounts of investment

Evolution is inevitable, even if it is artificial instead of natural. Perhaps we need to comprehend that though AI is currently in early development, its hardware and software will change over time. It might eventually be possible for AI to develop itself both in terms of its physical and its intellectual capacity. If so, it will be a fascinating mirror to Darwin's theory of evolution. 

This article is part of Stripe, bdnews24.com's special publication focusing on culture and society from a youth perspective.