PAIR Distinguished Lecture: Prof. GUO Wanlin of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics delivers “From Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Hydrovoltaic Intelligence (HI)”

Abstract

This report starts from the wisdom of living beings in acquiring energy for survival, extends to the understanding of natural intelligence and brain functions, and then to the frontier progress and challenges of artificial intelligence. Furthermore, based on the relationship between water and life, as well as water and energy, it proposes the concept of hydrovoltaic intelligence: exploring how the synergy of “intelligence” and “energy” can lead the future development of science, technology, and human civilisation.

Living beings have intelligence. The unicellular organisms formed between 3.5 billion and 4.1 billion years ago in water can obtain energy from the environment for surviving, show living intelligence. After billions of years of evolution, our human beings developed the intelligence for learning, reasoning, problem solving as well as thinking. It is widely recognised that human intelligence lies in the complex neuron networks in our brain, which containing more than 70% of water, working at energy consumption about 20 W.

“Can machines be as intelligent as human in game?” Turing raised the question in 1950, leading to the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), which is also inspired by the neuron networks found in our brain. Nowadays, machines can be as “intelligent” as human in games, but at the cost of huge energy consumption. Data center is always electricity-guzzler, not like our brain, the Nature intelligence (NI).

Our hierarchical modeling and non-linear dynamics analysis show that our brain can store and process huge information at energy consumption ~1.26 times of the theoretical limitation, about more than 8 orders of energy efficient than the most advanced AI chips.

We have shown that electricity can be generated from the direct interactions of materials with water through hydrovoltaic effects, such as waving potential, drawing potential, evaporating potential, leading to the emerging hydrovoltaic technology and hydrovoltaics: new ways of harvesting electricity from water.

Here, we will briefly review the recent advances in AI technology as well as hydrovoltaics for harvesting environmental energy, serving as a potential negative thermal emission energy technology, and discuss the role of confined water in our brain and envision the hydrovoltaic intelligence (HI) based on our recent findings. New advances that go beyond the Turing Machine, enabling the transition from AI to HI, will also be outlined to encourage students to develop their talent.