AI

Ben Goertzel on Singularity 1 on 1: The Future Is Ours To Create

October 26, 2010

Today my guest on Singularity 1 on 1 is Ben Goertzel. During our 40 min conversation we cover a wide range of topics such as: Ben’s original interest in time travel and science fiction; his decision to start working on artificial general intelligence and his views on the potential time-line thereof together with his evaluation of the software vs hardware requirements for building it; scientific funding for AI research in both the USA and China; the technological singularity and our chances of surviving it. (You can listen to or download the audio file above or you can scroll down and watch the full video of the interview below.) As attested by his short bio below, Ben is a brilliant AI scientist with an incredibly wide spectrum of interests and talents. Even more, I can’t help it but mention that he [...]

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Michael Anissimov at Foresight 2010: Don’t Fear the Singularity, But Be Careful

April 7, 2010

This is an interesting video of Michael Anissimov at Foresight 2010. Michael is Media Director for the Singularity Institute and Fundraising Director, North America for the Lifeboat Foundation.  He is a science/technology writer and “futurist”, which, as stated on his popular blog Accelerating Future, means someone who makes educated guesses about speculative technological probabilities. Related articles by Zemanta Top 10 Singularitarians of All Time (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com) Webcast: Foresight Institute conf on nanotech and artificial intelligence (boingboing.net)

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Artificial Intelligence: Its Meaning and Its Future

January 20, 2010

Professors Noel Sharkey and Kevin Warwick discuss what AI is, and what it might become… Video: Artificial intelligence: Will machines ever out-think us? | silicon.com Related articles by Zemanta the Rise of Robotic Artificial Intelligence (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com) Call for debate on killer robots (news.bbc.co.uk) Military killer robots ‘could endanger civilians’ (telegraph.co.uk)

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The Rise of Robotic Artificial Intelligence

January 13, 2010

Here is a fascinating video interview with Prof. Noel Sharkey Sheffield University professor of robotics and AI. Prof. Sharkey discusses the rise of robots and Artificial Intelligence and the implications thereof. One particularly important area is the ethical issues of arming robots and using them in armed conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan. (This interview raises questions that were previously discussed in the Dawn of the Kill-Bots series.) Artificial intelligence: Noel Sharkey on the inexorable rise of robots | silicon.com Related articles by Zemanta Call for debate on killer robots (news.bbc.co.uk) Call for debate on killer robots (innovationtoronto.com) Military killer robots ‘could endanger civilians’ (telegraph.co.uk) Expert Warns Of ‘Terminator’ Robot Threat (news.sky.com)

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Best of Singularity Blog

December 31, 2009

Even though it has been only a bit more than a month since the beginning of this blog I am happy to note that there is already a tight group of people who have subscribed to my feed and continue to come back and read my posts on a regular basis. I want to take this opportunity to do 2 things: First and foremost I want to thank you all for the generous gift of your interest, your time and your moral support. I cherish those dearly and promise to do my best to provide you with more interesting, more relevant and better written singularity content during the new 2010. In the end, without you — my readers, both the Singularity Weblog and the Singularity Symposium website will be not only pointless but will cease to exist. It is your [...]

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Dawn of the Kill-Bots: the Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Arming of AI (part 5)

December 20, 2009

Part 5: The Future of (Military) AI — Singularity While being certainly dangerous for humans, especially the ones that are specifically targeted by the kill-bots, arming machines is not on its own a process that can threaten the reign of homo sapiens in general. What can though is the fact that it is occurring within the larger confluent revolutions in Genetics, Nanotechnology and Robotics (GNR). Combined with exponential growth trends such as Moore’s law we arguably get the right conditions for what is referred to as the Technological Singularity. In 1945 Alan Turing famously predicted that computers would one day play better chess than people. Fifty years later, a computer called Deep Blue defeated the reigning world champion Gary Kasparov. Today, whether it is a mouse with a blue-tooth brain implant that directs the movements of the mouse via laptop, [...]

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Dawn of the Kill-Bots: the Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Arming of AI (part 4)

December 18, 2009

Part 4: Military Turing Test — Can robots commit war-crimes? Now that we have identified the trend of moving military robots to the forefront of military action from their current largely secondary and supportive role to becoming a primary direct participant or (as Foster-Miller proudly calls its MAARS bots) “war fighters” we have to also recognize the profound implications that such a process will have not only on the future of warfare but also potentially on the future of mankind. In order to do so we will have to briefly consider what for now are assumed to be broad philosophical but, as robot technology advances and becomes more prevalent, will eventually become highly political, legal and ethical issues: Can robots be intelligent? Can robots have conscience? Can Robots commit war crimes? In 1950 Alan Turing introduced what he believed was [...]

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Dawn of the Kill-Bots: the Conficts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Arming of AI (part 2)

December 17, 2009

Part 2: The Past — Robot Etymology, Brief History and Military Classification Contrary to what popular intuition may dictate the idea of thinking machines or artificial beings has existed for millennia. Some of the first examples can be found in the ancient Greek myths and legends such as the bronze giant Talos of Crete and the golden mechanical servants of Hephaestus. Artificial mechanical beings or, as we now commonly call them, robots have appeared in numerous forms and functions in modern popular culture: as a servant – R2D2 in Star Wars, as a fellow comrade – Data in Star Trek, and as both an exterminator and saviour – in the Terminator series. Of course, it is not hard to notice that all of the above cases are entirely fictional for they are either ancient Greek Mythology or modern Hollywood science [...]

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