The future of technology... who knows?

[DigitalBuddha]

Who cares about the cities. What about A.I?

I personally do not subscribe to the AI Vs Humans crisis in the future (aka The Terminator/Matrix storyline).

For a long time now I have been a transhumanist (human+).

Michio Kaku (above) in his excellent Sci-Fi Science where he attempts to use modern science to address Sci-Fi issues did cover the problem (episode called A.I. Uprising).

Now I was a little disappointed in this particular episode because he presented his conclusion as though it was an entirely new solution to the problem that he had just come up with.

His solution (in the TV program) is the only logical one. Evolve and accept technology into ourselves.

The Transhumanist ideal, man become machine.

There is unlikely to be any AI Vs Human conflict because the point at which the AI is able to think for itself (and not just use a lot of computing power to mimic very closely) we the human race will be so much sysnthesised ourselves that it will be difficult to tell the AI apart from the humans.

(see also Discover Magazine)

Hey M5 dude, great series!

[milnie]

Research into ai pops up in strange places. When there was a big fire about 8 years ago in the old part of Edinburgh, I was involved in checking out some buildings next to the damage to see if they were safe and one of them housed Edinburgh uni ai research department. Had to go through through all manner of security checks before we could go in. They were good men, and unfortunately very thorough!

[Caesar dude]

I know where that fire took place!

I was in England at the time...in case of any misunderstandings you understand!

[Abideist]

 

Here's a child like drawing I made with paint...I assume were all on the same page.


After reading some of your posts I had some opinions. Of course evolution may well be technological for humans, thats an oldie goodie, but some of the fear behind it doesn't make sense. They say AI grows more rapidly than we do, which is true because look at how irresponsible we are with technology, but the human mind is capable of doing things we arn't even conciously aware of.  DO androids dream of electric sheep? Really...Even if we get to a point where blade runner esque bots feel human, they will never be able to produce the way the human mind does. It will be survival for them, not creation.  Now that I wrote that, I'm wondering what's the difference. Kinda blury. Maybe I'm a robot. Maybe I'm a machine for experimental memory capture and were all just biologically engineered by some space jockey who used osmosis to implant progressive traits in us, and our solar system is just some big labratory and conciousness is just a signal to communicate information faster and has no individual meaning. Nah...

[DigitalBuddha]

Here's a child like drawing I made with paint...I assume were all on the same page.

Is that some kind of Eastern thing?

[Caesar dude]

"Going to plaid" well fuck me!

It's always Scottish tehcnology in the end!

[milnie]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17547694

documentary on AI to be aired tonight in the UK

[meekon5]

I think the major question has to be "What do you mean by Artificial Intelligence?"

All I see at the moment are the equivalent of our Autonomic functions, something happens and a preprogrammed response is executed. for instance in this film squeeze the robots hand and it shakes your hand, a little subtly on how hard it can squeeze back, but it's not a true learnt response.

It's more like a trained dog (blow the whistle and they jump through the hoop) than a true response to it's surroundings.

We're back to a lot of computing power mimicking functionality not instigating it independently.

IMDO of course.

[meekon5]

Oh no too late!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aqCmX5dMYHg#!

[milnie]

An interesting point made in the program I cited was at what point does action or thought change from automatic response to a conscious decision that would validate the use of the term ai. The human brain 99% of the time is on auto pilot so what quality of thought changes us from automaton to sentient ?

I agree with m5 that all we are doing just now is replicating human actions without independent determination, which is the hurdle to get over before true ai exists.

Ai is perhaps the wrong term for what is sought. Perhaps artificial sentience would be a truer goal? Imdo