Self-Awareness,a Singularity of AI

Self-awareness,or self-consciousness,refers to reflective recognition of the existence of“subjective-self”.Every person has a subjective-self from which the person observes and interacts with the world.In this article,we argue that self-consciousness is an enigmatic phenomenon unique in human intelligence.Unlike many other intelligent and conscious capabilities,self-consciousness is not possible to be achieved in electronic computers and robots.Self-consciousness is an odd-point of human intelligence and a singularity of artificial intelligence(AI).Man-made intelligence through software is not capable of self-consciousness;therefore,robots will never become a newly created species.Because of the lack of self-awareness,AI software,such as Watson,Alpha-zero,ChatGPT,and PaLM,will remain a tool of humans and will not dominate the human society no matter how smart it is.This singularity of AI makes us re-think humbly what the future AI is like,what kind of robots we are going to deal with,and the blessing and threat of AI on humanity.

Regarding Constituents of Subjective-Self

The kernel of human consciousness is self-consciousness. We in this article explore the issue about what subjective-self is composed of. A distinctive feature of "I" is uniqueness or un-duplicableness. By critically reviewing a few thought experiments, we reason that subjective-self must be composed of more than a blob of brain cells which are sophisticated enough to think reflexively and a bundle of memories and perceptions. There must be a third constituent for the existence of "I". We put forward two hypotheses for the third constituent. One is that it is something like dark matters or dark energy. Another is that it is something in the higher dimensional space. A person would lose his self-consciousness after death since the death takes away the two necessary constituents of subjective-self, his brain and memories. Where the third constituent would go after death remains a mystery.

On the Limit of Machine Intelligence

Whether digital computers can eventually be as intelligent as humans has been a topic of controversy for decades. Neither side of the debate has provided solid arguments proving this way or the other. After reviewing the contentions, we show in this article that machine intelligence is not unlimited. There exists an insurmountable barrier for digital computers to achieve the full range of human intelligence. Particularly, if a robot had a human’s sentience of life and death, then it would cause a logical contradiction. Therefore, a digital computer will never have the full range of human consciousness. This thesis substantiates a limit of computer intelligence and draws a line between biological humans and digital robots. It makes us rethink the issues as whether robots will remain forever one of the tools for us to use, or they will someday become a species competing with us;and whether robots can eventually dominate humans intellectually.

青藏铁路格拉段某断面冻土路基病害及防治措施分析

气候变暖的背景下,青藏铁路冻土路基稳定性面临严峻挑战,主要表现为路基出现沉降、开裂等病害。本文通过分析青藏铁路多年冻土区K1496+750路基断面地质条件,对本断面路基沉降产生原因进行分析,并通过分析长周期的变形监测数据,讨论了路基采取块石护坡和热棒等防护措施的作用效果,为多年冻土区路基病害防治提供借鉴。

Interface failure of segmental tunnel lining strengthened with steel plates based on fracture mechanics

Segmental tunnel lining strengthened with steel plates is widely used worldwide to provide a permanent strengthening method.Most existing studies assume an ideal steel-concrete interface,ignoring discontinuous deformation characteristics,making it difficult to accurately analyze the strengthened structure’s failure mechanism.In this study,interfacial fracture mechanics of composite material was applied to the segmental tunnel lining strengthened with steel plates,and a numerical three-dimensional solid nonlinear model of the lining structure was established,combining the extended finite element method with a cohesive-zone model to account for the discontinuous deformation characteristics of the interface.The results accurately describe the crack propagation process,and are verified by full-scale testing.Next,dynamic simulations based on the calibrated model were conducted to analyze the sliding failure and cracking of the steel-concrete interface.Lastly,detailed location of the interface bonding failure are further verified by model test.The results show that,the cracking failure and bond failure of the interface are the decisive factors determining the instability and failure of the strengthened structure.The proposed numerical analysis is a major step forward in revealing the interface failure mechanism of strengthened composite material structures.

Displacement and force analyses of piles in the pile-caisson composite structure under eccentric inclined loading considering different stratum features

A novel anchorage for long-span suspension bridges,called pile-caisson composite structures,was recently proposed by the authors in an attempt to reduce the construction period and costs.This study aims to investigate the displacement and force behavior of piles in a pile-caisson composite structure under eccentric inclined loading considering different stratum features.To this end,both 1g model tests and three-dimensional numerical simulations were performed.Two groups of 1g model tests were used to validate the finite-element(FE)method.Parametric studies were then performed to investigate the effects of groundwater level,burial depth of the pile-caisson composite structure,and distribution of soil layers on the performance of the pile-caisson composite structure.The numerical analyses indicated that the influence of the groundwater level on the stability of the caisson was much greater than that of the piles.In addition,increasing the burial depth of the pile-caisson composite structure can assist in reducing the displacements and improving the stability of the pile-caisson composite structure.In addition,the distribution of soil layers can significantly affect the stability of the pile-caisson composite structure,especially the soil layer around the caisson.