Another vivid sign that we have entered the dawn of the age of post-biological intelligence: NASA and General Motors announced on Tuesday that they planned to send a robot to the International Space Station, with the eventual goal of having it help the astronauts there.
Although there are already several robots in space — including the famous now AI-enhanced Mars Rovers, which have been zipping around the red planet for years — NASA and G.M. said this would be the first human-like robot to leave Earth.
Software uploaded this winter is the latest example of NASA taking advantage of the twin Mars rovers' unanticipated longevity for real Martian test drives of advances made in robotic autonomy for future missions. Now in its seventh year on Mars, it has a new capability to make its own
choices about whether to make additional observations of rocks that it
spots on arrival at a new location.
"It seems plausible that with technology we can, in the fairly near future create (or become) creatures who surpass humans in every intellectual and creative dimension. Events beyond such an event -- such a singularity -- are as unimaginable to us as opera is to a flatworm."
Vernor Vinge -SciFi great
The Singularity is an apocalyptic idea originally proposed by John von Neumann, one of the inventors of digital computation, and elucidated by figures such as Ray Kurzweil and scifi great Vernor Vinge.
Artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence after 2020, predicts Vernor Vinge, a world-renowned pioneer in AI, who has warned about the risks and opportunities that an electronic super-intelligence would offer to mankind.
"It seems plausible that with technology we can, in the fairly near future," says scifi legend Vernor Vinge, "create (or become) creatures who surpass humans in every intellectual and creative dimension. Events beyond such an event -- such a singularity -- are as unimaginable to us as opera is to a flatworm."
"Let an ultra-intelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultra-intelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultra-intelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make."
This headline isn't hyperbole, or overextension, or us rearranging the idea to make it punchier: a group of cognitive science researchers are intentionally building an evil artificial intelligence. Which raises a lot of important questions: what is true evil? What are the ethics of creating evil? And how do so many people get jobs as scientists without ever seeing a scifi movie?
What could a criminal do with a speech synthesis system that could masquerade as a human being? What happens if artificial intelligence technology is used to mine personal information from smartphones?
AI is becoming the stuff of future scifi greats: A robot that can open doors and find electrical outlets to recharge itself. Computer viruses that no one can stop. Predator drones, which, though still controlled remotely by humans, come close to a machine that can kill autonomously.
Artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence after 2020,
predicts Vernor Vinge, a world-renowned pioneer in AI, who has warned
about the risks and opportunities that an electronic super-intelligence
would offer to mankind.
The rise of the robots hasn't resulted in a murderous rampage quite yet, but it has reaped an enormous toll on low-level jobs. Assembly lines, farms, factories - the machines have taken over millions of man-hours, but now the scientists have surpassed those systems and begun to make themselves obsolete. Because Adam is online - and he's a scientist.
Remember Michael Crichton's science-fiction novel, "Prey"? Well, researchers at the University of York have investigated large swarms of up to 10,000 miniature robots which can work together to form a single, artificial life form. The multi-robot approach to artificial intelligence is a relatively new
one, and has developed from studies of the swarm behavior of social insects
such as ants.
Swarm robotics is a field of study based on the supposition that simple, individual robots can interact and collaborate to form a single artificial organism with more advanced group intelligence.
Another vivid sign that we have entered the dawn of the age of post-biological intelligence: NASA and General Motors announced on Tuesday that they planned to send a robot to the International Space Station, with the eventual goal of having it help the astronauts there.
Although there are already several robots in space — including the famous now AI-enhanced Mars Rovers, which have been zipping around the red planet for years — NASA and G.M. said this would be the first human-like robot to leave Earth.
Software uploaded this winter is the latest example of NASA taking advantage of the twin Mars rovers' unanticipated longevity for real Martian test drives of advances made in robotic autonomy for future missions. Now in its seventh year on Mars, it has a new capability to make its own
choices about whether to make additional observations of rocks that it
spots on arrival at a new location.
"It seems plausible that with technology we can, in the fairly near future create (or become) creatures who surpass humans in every intellectual and creative dimension. Events beyond such an event -- such a singularity -- are as unimaginable to us as opera is to a flatworm."
Vernor Vinge -SciFi great
The Singularity is an apocalyptic idea originally proposed by John von Neumann, one of the inventors of digital computation, and elucidated by figures such as Ray Kurzweil and scifi great Vernor Vinge.
Artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence after 2020, predicts Vernor Vinge, a world-renowned pioneer in AI, who has warned about the risks and opportunities that an electronic super-intelligence would offer to mankind.
"It seems plausible that with technology we can, in the fairly near future," says scifi legend Vernor Vinge, "create (or become) creatures who surpass humans in every intellectual and creative dimension. Events beyond such an event -- such a singularity -- are as unimaginable to us as opera is to a flatworm."
"Let an ultra-intelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultra-intelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultra-intelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make."
This headline isn't hyperbole, or overextension, or us rearranging the idea to make it punchier: a group of cognitive science researchers are intentionally building an evil artificial intelligence. Which raises a lot of important questions: what is true evil? What are the ethics of creating evil? And how do so many people get jobs as scientists without ever seeing a scifi movie?
What could a criminal do with a speech synthesis system that could masquerade as a human being? What happens if artificial intelligence technology is used to mine personal information from smartphones?
AI is becoming the stuff of future scifi greats: A robot that can open doors and find electrical outlets to recharge itself. Computer viruses that no one can stop. Predator drones, which, though still controlled remotely by humans, come close to a machine that can kill autonomously.
Artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence after 2020,
predicts Vernor Vinge, a world-renowned pioneer in AI, who has warned
about the risks and opportunities that an electronic super-intelligence
would offer to mankind.
The rise of the robots hasn't resulted in a murderous rampage quite yet, but it has reaped an enormous toll on low-level jobs. Assembly lines, farms, factories - the machines have taken over millions of man-hours, but now the scientists have surpassed those systems and begun to make themselves obsolete. Because Adam is online - and he's a scientist.
Remember Michael Crichton's science-fiction novel, "Prey"? Well, researchers at the University of York have investigated large swarms of up to 10,000 miniature robots which can work together to form a single, artificial life form. The multi-robot approach to artificial intelligence is a relatively new
one, and has developed from studies of the swarm behavior of social insects
such as ants.
Swarm robotics is a field of study based on the supposition that simple, individual robots can interact and collaborate to form a single artificial organism with more advanced group intelligence.
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