Human versus AI; can we still compete?

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

In the infinite possibilities in space, I suspect many cognizant biological beings (like ourselves) have ceased to exist not long after they reached the technological capability that lies only a few years ahead of us.

If that were true, we would have been discovered by an alien robot race by now, and be at war, or just consumed by these alien robots. It's a good plot for a movie though.

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

Also isn't your Tag? "It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it."

[yclept]

"If that were true, we would have been discovered by an alien robot race by now, and be at war, or just consumed by these alien robots. It's a good plot for a movie though."

That's very, very unlikely given the vast distances between stars and galaxies and the rate at which they are accelerating away from each other. The chances of two civilizations (biological or machine-based) overlapping in time within a distance that could be traveled in the lifetimes of their respective suns is so small as to be negligible, though, of course, it has and will happen an infinite number of times. It is highly unlikely that our civilization will ever travel even to another sun within the Milky Way given the distance, time and fuel (of whatever nature) required (witness the fact that Voyager 1 has been traveling for almost 34 years and is only now reaching the outer reaches of our own solar system). Travel to another galaxy can safely be ignored as impossible.

The best chance of us detecting that another civilization once existed is through efforts like SETI (recently shut down the primary tool, the Allen Telescope Array due to lack of funding) which could have picked up radio signals transmitted long ago from a civilization now gone.

If space is infinite, then there are an infinite number of planets exactly like this one in solar systems identical to this one with every historical event (down to the movement of every grain of sand on a beach) replicated exactly. There are also an infinite number that are a second older than this one and an infinite number a second younger. Every other possible outcome of everything that has ever happened has happened somewhere and also has its infinite cousins. Every other possible form of planetary structure and life form exists in infinite numbers with infinite mirrors in time and space. But they are all too far away from one another to detect each other except by chance (such as the SETI experiment was set up to do).

So, there's little need to fear a biological or mechanical race of space invaders. If it should happen, we will have been infinitely unlucky!

Oh, and the quote about war is from Marse Robert.

This poem appeared in the
Southern Historical Society Papers
Volume XI
Richmond, Va.
June, 1883. No. 6.

The author, Miss S. B. Valentine, begins, "A Gray Coat relates to his friend, a Blue Coat, the following incident of the late war: General Lee, sorely fatigued by a hard day's march, sat down to rest at the roadside, when he soon fell into a deep sleep. His soldiers, who observed him as he slept, whispered warnings to their nearest comrades not to disturb him. The whisper was then passed from man to man along the line of march."

Marse Robert is Asleep!

Had you heard the distant tramping
On that glowing Summer day!
Had you seen our comrades running
To meet us on the way!
Oh! the wondrous, sudden silence,
Th' unmilitary creep,
As down the line that caution ran,
"Marse Robert is asleep!"

Give me your hand, Old Blue Coat,
Let's talk of this awhile,
For the prettiest march of all the war
Was this of rank and file!"
Was the passing of that army,
When 'twas hard, I ween, to keep
Those men from crying out, "Hurrah!
Marse Robert is asleep!"

There lay that knightly figure,
One hand upon his sword,
The other pressed above his heart,
A vow without a word!
Two laurel leaves had flutter'd down,
For flowers their vigils keep,
And crown'd him, though, I think, they knew
"Marse Robert was asleep!"

In glorious Old Westminster,
No monument of war,
No marble story, half so grand
As this, our army saw!
Our leafy Old Westminster
Virginia's woods -- now keep
Immortal that low whisper,
"Marse Robert is asleep!"

As we clasp hands, Old Blue Coat,
List, Brother of the North,
Had Foreign foe assail'd your homes
You then had known his worth!
Unbroken vigil o'er those homes
It had been his to keep:
Step lightly o'er the border then,
"Marse Robert is asleep!"

He's yours and mine, is Robert Lee,
He's yours and mine, Hurrah!
These tears you shed have seal'd the past,
And closed the wounds of war!
Thus clasping hands, Old Blue Coat,
We'll swear by th' tears you weep,
The sounds of war shall be muffled --
"Marse Robert is asleep!"

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

If space is infinite, then there are an infinite number of planets exactly like this one in solar systems identical to this one with every historical event (down to the movement of every grain of sand on a beach) replicated exactly. There are also an infinite number that are a second older than this one and an infinite number a second younger. Every other possible outcome of everything that has ever happened has happened somewhere and also has its infinite cousins. Every other possible form of planetary structure and life form exists in infinite numbers with infinite mirrors in time and space. But they are all too far away from one another to detect each other except by chance (such as the SETI experiment was set up to do).

So, there's little need to fear a biological or mechanical race of space invaders. If it should happen, we will have been infinitely unlucky!

So your ruling out the chance of it ever happening, yet saying that there is a chance. Got it.

However, your thoughts are not connecting. For something to be repeating and designed as you say on other planets, the word your looking for is limited. You know like you were saying:

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
--Albert Einstein--

Infinite, or infinity is:

Infinity (symbol: ∞) is a concept in many fields, most predominantly mathematics and physics, that refers to a quantity without bound or end.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity

You are using an example of 34 year old tech reaching the outer rim of our solar system as an example of why we won't reach other galaxies? That's a pretty week argument. If we could bring back some historical figures. What do you think these guys would say about space flight?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers 1903 First flight.

Or these guys
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bell
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Savery

Fact is that the possibilities are infinite, in our infinite universe. It's just a matter of having the idea and finding a way to make it work.


That's a great poem, it still doesn't change the fact that you believe strongly enough that...
It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it.

That your using that line as your tag, and BTW I agree with that. That is why your seeing people standing up for freedom. They are tired of war.

[yclept]

"So your ruling out the chance of it ever happening, yet saying that there is a chance. Got it."

Actually I'm saying an encounter with another cognizant civilization is infinitely small for any given civilization (such as ours). And yet given the infinite number of civilizations that would exist in an infinite universe, such contacts will and have happened an infinite number of times. And if the outcome was extinction for one or both, they were infinitely unlucky.

[Virgil Showlion]

If you get into a subject called "real analysis", you'll discover a very rigorous mathematical formalism that not all infinities are made equal. Some infinities are more infinite than others.

For example, it can be conclusively proven that there are precisely as many integers as there are (x,y) points where x and y are both integers. One might assume that there are more coordinate pairs than integers because for every integer x, you could conceive of an infinite number of points (x,1),(x,2),(x,3),...(x,infinity), and so of course there are more points than integers. But real analysis proves with considerable rigor that this assumption is false.

Equally surprisingly, one can use the same theory to prove that there are more irrational numbers (real numbers that cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers) than rational numbers. So even though I can take any part of the real number line and find an infinite number of rational numbers inside it, or--get this--even though I can divide any part of the real number line into an infinite number of pieces and could still find an infinite number of rational numbers inside each infinitely small piece--I can still prove to you that there are more irrational numbers in one of those infinitely small pieces than rational numbers on the whole number line.

And what's more, if I was to raise any number, say 10, to the power of the number of rational numbers on the whole number line (which would be 10 to the power of infinity), I could prove to you that the result would still not be as large as the number of irrational numbers in that infinitesimally small piece.

All of this comes with perfect mathematical consistency (and actually forms the basis for some very powerful statistical tools).

Boggles the mind, no?

Read up on "real analysis" if you ever have the time and wherewithal to stretch your imagination about the concept of infinity.

[yclept]

I hadn't expected this thread to morph into a discussion of infinity. I introduced it above (though whether the universe is infinite or bounded is not yet known and may never be) to assuage any concerns regarding alien invasion tomorrow or the day after (or ever). I suppose I should have just concentrated on the great distances known to exist between celestial bodies and the practical impossibility of interstellar travel (even within our galaxy, let alone between galaxies) without resorting to speculations about the ramifications of an infinite universe. As pointed out, my mathematical understanding of infinity is limited, though I don't think there were any fundamental errors in the speculations above as I tried to stay within the possibilities that I do understand. It's fine with me if that topic continues as a sidebar in this thread (not that that matters -- folks are going to post what they want to post!).

My interest in this thread is probable effects of the occurrence of singularity and when it is likely to occur (I believe it will be soon). In particular with respect to this newsgroup, I'm speculating as to how effective human intelligence will be in trading markets in the future.

I'm already at the point where I often defer to screens I've written with respect to investment selection. Obviously the parameters those screens are using are the result of human design and are thus simply extensions, accelerators and magnifiers of my thoughts. But for how long will the human mind be a better source of the algorithms behind those screens? I suspect not for very much longer (if, in fact, it's still true even now).

Probably the greatest difficulty machines will have in developing highly efficient algorithms will be in trying to factor and weight illogical input to the markets by human participants. I'm sure each new AI will chew and spit out the output of the one that preceded it. It's the humans that will give them problems.

Stock selection and timing of trades is a relatively simple and natural task for AI to perform as the interface with the world is narrow and already contained within the realm of electronics. Systems that have to negotiate the physical world have a much more complex task (though if DARPA has its way, autonomous little tanks with .50BMGs will be running around all over the place blasting away all the black turbans and giving candy bars to the white turbans!).

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

Sorry Yclept I didn't mean to take the tread off topic. Although Virg does present some compelling arguments there. One thing we agree 100% on Y, is that we are both 99.9% sure that we have never been visited by an ET.

[Virgil Showlion]

I'm speculating as to how effective human intelligence will be in trading markets in the future

You seem to be imposing an artificial boundary between human capacities and machine capacities.

Anything my computer can do, I can do. Any incredible computational feat that can be performed by a machine can also be performed by a human, for the obvious reason that the human need only command the machine to perform the task for them.

If I use a CAD program to design an optimized circuit, by any reasonable standard I can consider the machine's "intelligence" to be a direct extension to my own intelligence. Furthermore, mankind has yet to invent a computer that does anything except what it's explicitly told to do. The notion of "singularity" is based on the (unfounded, possibly mythic) assumption that if we build systems that are large enough and mimic our anatomy enough, they'll suddenly go from executing code to making rational decisions. We're a decade away from even beginning to test this assumption, and I've seen no compelling reason to believe superhuman (or even remotely human) intelligence will magically appear. And I'm no slouch. I'm subscribed to the MIT Tech Review, the IJC, IEEE Spectrum Robotics, TED, at least a dozen robotics and machine intelligence journals during my lit reviews. We simply do not understand the nature of cognition well enough.

Gentlemen such as Mr. Kurzweil fall back on notions such as "neural nets are intelligent because they can learn, adapt, and eventually 'escape' the full understanding of their designers". But I assure you, they operate on known principles. They can be dissected, analyzed, understood. They have their own major weaknesses, just like human intelligence has its weaknesses. And there is no evidence at all to suggest we won't need to know vastly more about them before we can put them to impressive practical use. This isn't a matter of opinion, it's been an unfortunate reality from the 1940's persisting to present day.

Regarding market algos: We are never trading solely against a computer. We are trading against a human using a computer. Every learning algorithm, every optimization algorithm, every fuzzy net, every statistical inference is painstakingly placed there by an educated, dedicated, judicious designer--constructed as a tool to help him/her do his job. It's no different than a machine gun. True, the other market participants relying on momo strategies and "human intuition" are using swords compared to my machine gun in many cases. But to dissociate the tool from the designer(s) because of the complexity of the tool is a wholly artificial distinction.

Our tools are improving. I certainly agree with you that we all need to keep up with those tools. Kids in school are expected to know how to use Google, Facebook, e-mail. They have access to spell checkers, encyclopedias, graphics editors, databases, programmable calculators, "Reader Rabbit" games. Now many kids have tablet PCs. As a result, we expect assignments to be better-researched, formatted, spell-checked, graphically enhanced, and at a younger age than 20 years ago. It could be that in 20 years, we'll have "my lil' calculus" tablet computers in elementary school where those mathematical tools have also been absorbed into our toolkit.

But your exposition in #36 makes it sound as though we'll "release programs into the wild" and they'll suddenly start popping out tools and ideas totally beyond human comprehension. If we ignore for the moment that this notion is backed by nothing more than what Kurzweil et al. really, really hope will happen before they're dead and rotting in the ground in two decades, I might also point out that this is by no means the focus of current AI development. Research is humanistic. If it is funded, it is a tool--for diagnosis, or to build a better mousetrap, or to perform some specific function better than a human for a human. And certainly, just as computers have opened up new worlds to us, the new tools will enable us to explore and solve problems we've never looked at before. Extensions to our own intelligence.

I think there are some wonderful, incredible discoveries waiting ahead of us. We can't lose sight of the fact that the people actually doing the research and the futurists making "singularity is imminent" predictions are two very different groups of people. I think in a lot of cases the former group tolerates the latter group's unchecked enthusiasm because it helps maintain public interest and because it's impossible to disprove the future. But let's keep our eye on the ball, pay respect to the modest advanced that are being made and the incredible effort being put in to achieve them, and not get lost in scientific delusion.

My not-so-humble $0.02.

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

All I can say Virg, that was like the moon was made out of green cheese. I could't agree more, and this is very possible.

It could be that in 20 years, we'll have "my lil' calculus" tablet computers in elementary school where those mathematical tools have also been absorbed into our toolkit.

The school we send our 6 yr old to is amazing. By grade 4, he is going to be in a science lab that most people in high school didn't have when I was growing up.

Also..

I think there are some wonderful, incredible discoveries waiting ahead of us. We can't lose sight of the fact that the people actually doing the research and the futurists making "singularity is imminent" predictions are two very different groups of people. I think in a lot of cases the former group tolerates the latter group's unchecked enthusiasm because it helps maintain public interest and because it's impossible to disprove the future. But let's keep our eye on the ball, pay respect to the modest advanced that are being made and the incredible effort being put in to achieve them, and not get lost in scientific delusion.

That's exactly it. You deserve a little k for those $0.02, which IMO, is 1913 value, so that's got to be worth at least a loonie.

[uncle23]

...

If I could build an AI , I would pu together all kinds of sensors now available...then I would supply it with a source of energy, preferrably solar...then I would make it capable of movement and locomotion.....then i would equip it the latest CPU or neural network ( I don't know.. I'm not a techie )....then I will have a machine that can see, feel, taste, and hear better than a human....it can sense when it needs more power and act accordingly ....then I WOULD TEACH IT WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG BEFORE I TEACH IT TO LEARN BY ITSELF.....

am I dillutional ? can this machine be built now ?

[yclept]

I don't see the dependence of machine capability upon underlying human-dictated algorithms as being a permanent restriction on machines. I'm unfamiliar with your CAD program to optimize circuit design, but assume it is utilizes numerical techniques to simultaneously solve many parallel equations such as Finite Element Analysis programs like Solid Works (with which I was familiar, but only as a user, not a software designer). These programs are using predefined responses to react to inputs (and adjusting neighboring elements to do the same). As you say, it would be possible to manually calculate one's way through the maze. I don't see these types of programs as comparable to neural networks.
Even though the algorithms in the hidden layer(s) of a neural network are defined by the programmer, the feed-back loops are constantly adjusting the influence each path has on new input to the extent that the each following iteration is not predictable by the programmer. My investigation/use of neural networks is probably about 20 years old, but even back then it seemed to me that the next logical step in their development would be to have the feedback loop actually modify the form of the hidden layer(s) algorithms, rather than simply adjust it's "strength" on the next pass. I can't believe someone isn't doing that by now. At that point, the neural network truly becomes a "black box" -- the programmer no longer knows what is operating inside his net.
Neural nets are trained and learn as the result of the training data. Twenty years ago hardware restricted the possible number of layers and parallel paths, but I'm sure that's no longer the case. An evolving neural net is improving itself and simultaneously could be set to the task of designing the next iteration of itself (e.g. writing more effective hidden layer algorithms). As soon as one of them designs the next-better version of itself, I see the rate of improvement to be parabolic as each new mechanical mind designs the next.
Obviously I have drunk some of the Kurzweil Kool-Aid and have reiterated some of his postulates in the last paragraph. I do see him as primarily a futurist rather than a reporter of the present state of the art. But I don't think that should be an excuse to denigrate or reject his notions. He has, after all, received awards, degrees and accolades from people and institutions that are not altogether ignorant in the field of AI. It is not at all certain that the evolution will happen in the way he envisions. But I believe it will happen. I believe we are destined to see cognizant machines with intellect superior to that of humans, and I think we will see it sooner rather than later. After all, the Hunley did sink the Housatonic and some 5 or 6 years later Jules Verne (granted in a work of fiction) envisioned an underwater vessel powered by a mysterious force capable of remaining submerged for long periods of time. Now wasn't that a hoot in the 1860s!

[yclept]

uncle23,
Stanley (and other vehicles that completed the course) did the locomotive part of what you are envisioning in the DARPA challenge: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_(vehicle)

I WOULD TEACH IT WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG BEFORE I TEACH IT TO LEARN BY ITSELF.....

There's the rub! It's one of the thorniest issues regarding granting autonomy to war robots. It probably first has to be self aware and cognizant before "right and wrong" can be extendable. For example, it has to know that running over baby carriages is just as wrong as running over crawling babies, and in the real world, the myriad of possibilities precludes having specific programmed responses to every possible encounter.

Then there's the problem of whose "right and wrong". I would suspect that unlike a Taliban, you would not approve of shooting a female for showing her face or for going to school. Whereas the Taliban would probably consider those to be perfect exercises of "right". Machines probably can't solve ethical issues that humans have been unable to.

[yclept]

A new little gift to the world:

www.computerworld.com/s/article/9218034/Massive_botnet_indestructible_say_researchers?taxonomyId=82&pageNumber=1

At least this bot destroys competitors, so if one has a multiply infected machine, catching this might actually improve overall performance!

[Trongersoll]

Can we compete with computers? It depends on your definition of being competitive. I'm sure that there are a lot of "also ran"s that feel they are competitive.

First rule: A computer program is never any smarter than those that created it.

Second rule: The stock market is a crap shoot.

Third rule: It is really hard to out perform the S&P 500.

So, what benefits would a computer have over a human?

Well, speed is a given. There are computer programs out there doing transactions of pennies per share. Because they deal with large amounts of money, they make money by repeatedly making pennies per share many times a day.

A computer can deal with huge amounts of data. They might have an advantage in that they can monitor a lot more stocks than a person can. but, determining which will go up and which will go down is a whole other ball of wax.

There is more to current and future performance than past performance and how a few real world factors affect a price. If you think about it determining tomorrow's price of any given stock pretty much falls under Chaos Theory and that stupid butterfly in China.

The value of a stock is what someone else is willing to pay for it. What we all are doing is trying to out guess the other guy while while riding a wave of continuous growth. Will a computer ever be better at guessing what the other guy may do? perhaps if the other guy is a computer as well, but that is about it.

As much as we try to crunch the numbers, look for patterns, etc. There will always be enough exceptions to any rule that one will question the rule's existance. Computers may trade as good as people, but i doubt that they will far surpass people.

Unless, computer traders become so prolific that they start creating patterns where none existed before. Then all bets are off, but is suspect that if that happens the Gov. will step in and change the rules.

[yclept]

Your response ignores much of the information previously covered in earlier posts. But to address your points, I submit the following:

First rule: A computer program is never any smarter than those that created it.
This statement ignores even existing technology. For a long time neural nets have been trained and learned to further modify their output based upon feed-back loops. Strictly speaking, the programmer has no idea what weights are being given to various paths after the first pass through the net. You further assume that the next AI will always be programmed by humans. I do not believe that to be true. Once the first AI writes code to produce the next AI and that product being "smarter" than itself, then exponential improvement becomes a certainty as each new AI is written by the last-best AI.

Second rule: The stock market is a crap shoot.
Well, that's the opinion of random-walk advocates, but is yet to be proven or even argued convincingly. If this is so, then all technical analysis is bogus. But it's certainly not a given.

Third rule: It is really hard to out perform the S&P 500.
I don't believe that to be true. The market is basically a zero-sum game with some participants regularly taking money from others. The index averages are a measure of the average overall market level. The losers under perform the averages, the winners over perform.

Unless, computer traders become so prolific that they start creating patterns where none existed before. Then all bets are off, but is suspect that if that happens the Gov. will step in and change the rules.
Computers already trade 73% of all market volume. So the "prolific" statement exists now. And they do feed into (if not create) patterns where none existed before, nor should have ever existed (witness the May 6 "flash crash", which, while it seems to have been initiated by a human error, was greatly magnified in extent and condensed in time by programmatic trading). The computers were tearing the guts out of one another and human traders were too slow to do anything except go along for the ride. In the end, the computers got the money that the humans lost, albeit while experiencing many small losses (relatively speaking) as they garnered many slightly larger gains.

Market perception is largely attitudinal. The market is an imponderable chaos to those who lose their money to it. To those who regularly extract wealth it appears more like a cow-for-the-milking. Neither one is completely right. Neither completely wrong (but those are just my opinions).

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

Good points everyone. This is what a couple of us are saying yclept. We just don't built things as great as we envision..

Robot, drone fail to help Japan nuke-plant missions
post.jagran.com/robot-drone-fails-on-japan-nukeplant-missions-1308941675

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

LOL, great thought DI, that is where the .1% comes in for me.

[yclept]

The robot failures at the Fukushima Daiichi plants were mechanical failures which would hardly ever be attributable to the operators; the robots were remotely controlled by humans, and thus not autonomous.
As to ET visitations, I don't see it germane to the question of whether human intelligence will be able to compete against "artificial" intelligence. I would, again, point out the vast distances involved (where distance represents time spent voyaging) and the futility of the journey. The closest star Alpha Centauri is 4.24 light years from us. Assuming one could travel at even 1/100 the speed of light, it would take 424 years to get there with no reason to think there would be a habitable planet once there. Why would anyone embark on such a journey with only the prospect that one's great-great-great-great-great grandson (assuming lifespan of 80 years) would get there? I don't think even an intelligent machine would waste its life on such a fool's journey. If true for us (and the intelligent machines soon to evolve), why would any other intelligent life form consider it any differently? Especially considering that it would be a much, much, much longer journey. I don't know where the nearest intelligent life is to us (surprise, surprise!), but I'd be willing to bet that if they started off to visit us today, they could not get here before the sun enters its red-giant phase and incinerates the earth.

[uncle23]

.....

what i know is finite.....what i don't know is infinite....therefore nothing for me is inconceivable...

[yclept]

A few articles I consider relevant to this topic:
spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/john-dulchinos-adept-do-robots-take-peoples-jobs
www.kurzweilai.net/autonomous-machines-networks-and-robots-will-self-improve-in-the-future-by-publishing-their-own-upgrade-suggestions?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=793912a21f-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email
www.kurzweilai.net/nsf-funds-18-5-million-effort-to-create-mind-machine-interfaces?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=793912a21f-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email

[yclept]

More progress:
www.kurzweilai.net/high-speed-photonic-neuron-devices-blend-fiber-optic-signal-processing-and-neuroscience?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=0e34c2e863-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email

www.technologyreview.com/computing/38083/?a=f

[Trongersoll]

Even losers compete, I think that the real question is "Do we have a chance of winning?".

[uncle23]

....

you are correct Trong....however if i have no chance of winning i can't and i won't compete...but i will play along...

[yclept]

Possible building block of an artificial biological computer:
www.kurzweilai.net/artificial-neural-network-created-from-dna?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a40a06de5c-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email

Progress towards quantum computing:
www.kurzweilai.net/researchers-use-high-magnetic-fields-to-suppress-decoherence-paving-the-way-for-quantum-computing?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a40a06de5c-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email

And a contrary view to Kurzweil's with respect to biological interface timing:
www.kurzweilai.net/the-singularity-is-far-a-neuroscientists-view?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a40a06de5c-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email

[kadee79]

I'm not a techie and I'm not a fan of science fiction...which is what much of this thread sounds like to me.
But just to throw a clinker in here, the reason I even looked at the thread, in another world (area) where animals are generally involved AI has a totally different meaning. Artificial Insemination! ;D

Boy, was I disappointed to read all this!

And some folks even do it with squash plants when there aren't many pollinators available...using a paint brush or a q-tip! ;D

[yclept]

"I'm not a techie and I'm not a fan of science fiction...which is what much of this thread sounds like to me."

Nope, it's real and you have a very big surprise in store in about another 20 years from now, unless you don't plan to be around that long. As with all attempts to predict the future, some of these speculations won't pan out, but a lot of them are already well on there way, and should no longer be considered speculative.

If you were around then, think back to, oh, say 1980. If someone were to have told you that computers would be ubiquitous and easily portable ones would have more power than the most powerful existing mainframes, would you have believed it? What if they had told you they would almost all be linked together and capable of passing programs and messages back and forth? Or how about that remotely piloted drones would be able to target and destroy enemies half a world away from the operator? 1980 was only about 30 years ago, and the rate of progress and change is exponential. What used to happen in about 30 years now happens in 3 or 4.

[kadee79]

yclept...
Since I learned to cook on a wood cook stove, lived in a house with no running water & no indoor toilet, Dad farmed with a matched set of white mules until I was about 6, didn't have tv until I was 7, wore clothes (plus other uses) before velcro, learned to type on a manual typewriter, lived without a/c, used a wringer washer (even on occasion a wash tub & board), mowed the lawn with the old hand mower (no motor), put up loose hay (before hay balers were popular), learned to roller skate w/clamp on skates....I might not be to surprised at newer things coming along.
I even remember the first time a "JET" went over our house, everyone held their ears!

And look at my screen name...that is my present age. We were just poor farmers who didn't have all the convinces that people who lived in town had. I never knew I was poor until I started going to school in town...I always had plenty to eat & lots of things to keep me busy.
BTW, my first school was a 2 room school...1, 2, 3 & 4th grades there then you went to town. School had outhouses too! After 2nd grade for me, they decided to build a new school and closed that one. It took them 3 yrs. to get it open so I was in town 3, 4 & 5th then back to the country for 6th!

Thought I should add....
I remember how far fetched we used to think some of the things shown in the Dick Tracey comic were....but we have already surpassed most of those! And another comic that was about outer space...can't remember the name...it has happened too!

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

That is awesome kadee! Thanks for sharing.

I won't lie. I do believe in 20-30 years we will see some VERY good robots. They will solve probles like the fields being plowed under bacause there are no workers I also believe that artificial limbs will be amazing by that time.

However, what isn't being addressed much in this thread is that Kurzweil, where the majority of the singularity movement is really coming from. Wants to live forever, he sees robots and tech as helping humans evolve to the next step. A lot of others twist his work and say it will lead to the terminator.. Kurzweil performs blood transfusions on himself, I think daily, takes hundreds of supplements a day, and drinks cup after cup of tea.

So not everyone sees it like the killer robots are on the way.

[Virgil Showlion]

It's comically ironic. If Kurzweil's techtopian future pans out, he'll be rotting in the grave while my intelligence grows a billionfold and I ascend to glorious immortality. ;D

"Exponential growth" is a convenient myth. Futurists redefine what's "growing" so often, it's barely worth keeping track of. Space travel ground to a halt. We have no bases on the Mars or the moon. We've never left our solar system, let alone our galaxy. Our means of energy generation is largely the same as 30, 40, even 50 years ago. Cars have many new conveniences but they're still cars (and despite the many safety features, accident/fatality rates are only marginally lower). No transporters. No antigravity. No androids. No intelligences that are anything more than collections of useful algorithms. Personal computing is moving into low-power computing since most people can get by with 10 and even 15-year-old computers--which would have been unheard of from 1980 to 1985, or 1985 to 1990, or 1990 to 1995, or 1995 to 2000. Supercomputers are barely keeping up with Moore's law, but the sophistication of algorithms is by no means growing "exponentially", and their costs and energy requirements are driving them into fewer and fewer institutions.

We haven't cured any major diseases since the 1980's. We haven't reduced world hunger. We haven't improved the stability of our economies, or reduced the number of active conflicts, or reduced the magnitude of disease outbreaks. Airline travel is notably worse. Traffic is more congested. Highway and municipal infrastructure had degraded. According to climate scientists, the environment ain't getting any better. Video games from the early 1980's are still just as popular as the ones being released today, despite being technological dinosaurs. In fact, much of the revenue currently being made on console systems is from re-released of old games from 1985-1990. The tip-top games being released take teams of thousands 4+ years to create. Fewer and fewer studios can compete, and fewer and fewer titles are being released.

The world is pushing for more efficient, less-energy, less-consuming, and almost regressive technological advances.

Call that "exponential growth" if you want, but I maintain my skepticism. When Moore's law finally drops off in a few years (and it will, if the HPC symposium I just visited is any indication), they'll change "exponential" to refer to the number of blinking apps people have on their iPhones. Then to the number of pixels they can stuff per inch into Super HHD Blu-Ray monitors when all we really want is a half-decent movie, even if we had to watch it on a fuzzy analog black-and-white.