Artificial Intelligence

You Can’t Spell Paranoia Without AI: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and to Love Evil Artificial Intelligence

by Matt Swayne

I have a theory: It wasn’t capitalism and democracy that won the Cold War. Popular Science won the Cold War. Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines — as well as other journals and magazines that took an awe-inspired, jaw-dropping look at science and technology — paid particular interest to military technology developed by Soviet block engineers in the 1950s and 1960s. The stories typically depicted Soviet military might as growing and unbeatable. Sort of like runaway artificial general intelligence (AGI). Soviet tanks had better armor. Soviet planes were faster and more maneuverable. Soviet subs dived deeper and plowed through the water more silently. Soviet nuclear ICBMs were poised to strike more accurately and more powerfully. (A great place to check out the above claims is the Popular Science Archive Search.) We can argue how the military industrial complex easily co-opts [...]

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Smart Homes: Is AI the Ghost in the Machine?

by Nikki Olson

When we conceptualize AI, we often forget that it is not something that has to operate in a single location, or have intelligence qualities like our own. We are already surrounded by AI systems that are nothing like our own intelligence, that utilize many machines spread out over large distances, and are equally ‘present’ in many locations. In the future we will bring AI systems like these into our homes in the form of ‘smart environments.’  In doing so we introduce new and interesting relationships between man and machine. However, there may be some limits as to how ‘alive’ we want our AI homes to be. One of the most well-known depictions of the potential ‘terror’ of intelligent environments,  which happens to be a parody of 2001’s HAL and Dean Koontz’s Demon Seed, is the Simpson’s ‘Treehouse of Horror XII’ [...]

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Human Rights for Artificial Intelligence: What is the Threshold for Granting (Human) Rights?

by CMStewart

It is the year 2045. Strong artificial intelligence (AI) is integrated into our society. Humanoid robots with non-biological brain circuitries walk among people in every nation. These robots look like us, speak like us, and act like us. Should they have the same human rights as we do? The function and reason of human rights are similar to the function and cause of evolution. Human rights help develop and maintain functional, self-improving societies. Evolution perpetuates the continual development of functional, reproducible organisms. Just as humans have evolved, and will continue to evolve, human rights will continue to evolve as well. Assuming strong AI will eventually develop strong sentience and emotion, the AI experience of sentience and emotion will likely be significantly different from the human experience. But is there a definable limit to the human experience? What makes a human [...]

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Change of Plans: Kill All Humans

by Socrates
Thumbnail image for Change of Plans: Kill All Humans

The singularity is often equated with a Terminator or Matrix type of a TechnoCalyps based on the presumption that once artificial intelligence becomes sentient then supposedly the most likely action they will undertake is to exterminate us. The following cartoon has been circulating for a while around the general singularity and transhumanist community, but because it is so funny, I thought I’d post it anyway. Even if you may have seen it before you may still find it funny again… I know I laugh every time I read it, and I’ve read it a dozen times by now Hat tip to Singularity 2045 for finding the cartoon first. Related articles Singularities Happen: Alan Watts explains the Singularity… (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com) The Best of Singularity Weblog 2010 (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com) Why I Am an Optimist (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com) A Transhumanist Manifesto (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com)

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Funny Or Serious: Are We Giving Robots Too Much Power?

by Socrates

Automated machines, intelligent software and robots are all playing greater and greater role in our society - they play games with us, clean our floors, connect our phone calls, tell us where we are and how to get where we want to be. Soon enough they will drive our cars, teach our kids, grow all of our food, provide care for the sick and the elderly, guard us when we sleep and fight in our wars. At least in theory, there is hardly anything at which humans are likely to retain their superiority forever. Optimists, such as Ray Kurzweil and Kevin Warwick believe that robotics is one of the 3 super technologies (the other 2 being nanotechnology and genetics) that could enhance out intelligence, improve our physical capabilities and eventually even bring about immortality. On the other hand, pessimists such [...]

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Ben Goertzel: 10 Years To The Singularity

by Socrates

Recently I interviewed Ben Goertzel for Singularity 1 on 1. During that interview Ben argued that the technological singularity is not necessarily inevitable and that The Future Is Ours To Create. Interestingly, in the video below Ben argues that it may not be absolutely ridiculous to consider that the singularity may actually happen as yearly as 10 years from now.

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Kevin Warwick on Singularity Podcast: You Have To Take Risks To Be Part Of The Future

by Socrates
Thumbnail image for Kevin Warwick on Singularity Podcast: You Have To Take Risks To Be Part Of The Future

In today’s edition of Singularity Podcast I had the privilege of doing an hour long interview with the first cyborg — Prof. Kevin Warwick. I enjoyed talking to Prof. Warwick immensely and got him to share his views on a wide variety of topics such as human and artificial intelligence, robotics, the technological singularity, God, the beginning of the universe and so on. Also, during the interview Kevin Warwick threw a friendly challenge towards Ray Kurzweil by asking: “Why is it that Ray hasn’t experimented with implant technology yet?” Enjoy! Who is Kevin Warwick? Kevin Warwick is Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, England, where he carries out research in artificial intelligence, control, robotics and cyborgs. As well as publishing over 500 research papers, Kevin’s experiments into implant technology led to him being featured as the cover story [...]

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Kevin Warwick: The First Cyborg

by Socrates
Thumbnail image for Kevin Warwick: The First Cyborg

This is another cool video of Kevin Warwick (aka the first cyborg). In 2002, under the heading Project Cyborg, a British scientist and university professor, Kevin Warwick, had an array of 100 electrodes fired into his nervous system in order to link it to the internet. Then he successfully carried out a series of experiments including extending his nervous system over the internet to control a robotic hand, a loudspeaker, amplifier and to communicate with his wife. That neural connection is a form of extended sensory input and the first direct electronic communication between the nervous systems of two humans. (For more watch the documentary Building Gods) Related articles by Zemanta Kevin Warwick’s Cyborg Experiments (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com)

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