Luis Martín Moreno: "We must live up to the science we produce"

The CSIC researcher at the Institute of Nanoscience and Materials of Aragon read his entrance speech at the Royal Academy of Sciences of Zaragoza this Wednesday. 

Congratulations on your admission to the Royal Academy of Sciences of Zaragoza. What does it mean for you?
Apart from the recognition of colleagues, which is pleasant, it means being able to promote science in Aragon and the transfer to society through a series of conferences. In addition, the academy, with more than 100 years of existence, awards annual awards to the youngest people, and for them it is motivating.

And what really is artificial intelligence?
The name is a good marketing product. In fact, artificial intelligence almost means anything that a computer does and that we find surprising that a machine has done. But it catches my attention that things I learned in my first year of college are considered artificial intelligence (laughs). In other words, all that glitters is not gold. It is true that the machine learning part now stands out: instead of doing traditional programming by telling the code what to do in each case, it is given a series of examples and the computer is expected to learn autonomously.

What if it gets out of hand?
We are all concerned, in literature there is the myth of the Golem, the Frankenstein, the Terminator of the movies, what it means to be human, how we are going to coexist with intelligences that may be superior to us... But we must be optimistic. We scientists usually provide solutions. Ethical problems vary with the eras of humanity and now an era of very rapid change awaits us, but not only due to artificial intelligence, but also due to bioengineering and many other technological developments that can be for better or worse. It is up to us to live up to the science we produce.

Because human beings can be very creative but also very destructive...
Of course, it is another of the possible axes of artificial intelligence, which perhaps machines will also begin to create and it will scare us, because we do not know what intelligence is. In fact, it is very scary that the moment of the singularity will arrive, when a machine will be able to design another machine better than the one humans make. That can lead to exponential growth, which is called that because we don't know where it can go. We don't know what can happen with other types of intelligence.

So there are no limits when it comes to replicating via algorithm?
There are the laws of physics, which place restrictions on what is materially possible, but today we do not know what limits can be placed on intelligence because we do not know what intelligence is, and that is one of the fascinating things at the level. philosophical. Today we are very far from having machines that develop the so-called "general intelligence", that are capable of facing different problems like us. So far they are only very good in specific cases. Science always produces knowledge, knowledge produces control over nature and that control can be used for good or evil.