Slashdot Mirror
Online Book About Nano/AI
Jonathan Desp writes: "The book is available here, written by Frank Wayne Poley, in the same line as
Bill Joy's article, "Why the future don't need us." Here you will learn about "Robo sapiens" vs. "Homo sapiens",
Robot as president, Nanotechnology, Nanosystem,Internet robots, Cyborgs, the neurochip, Microsoft, Biomechanics and computing history as well. The book raises some important questions such as:
Technology, is it always good?
"
I could see biology as the home of artificial life, but until recently CI's interactions with biology have been restricted to useful metaphors. Traditionally CI has worked at a higher level, and I feel it appropriate to respect this. You're the first person I've seen suggest that biology is foundation for CI, or even that it's an significant contributor, except by way of neuropsychology.
-jcl
MSK
Oh, wait.
Oh, wait.
Got Rhinos?
As far as I'm concerned, let's keep pushing the boundaries as much as we can. So we might run into troubles down the road; big deal. I for one would rather have an uncertain yet possibly exciting future than a dull, secure one. Nanotech might kill us, but it also might also introduce us to a new and better way of doing things. Let's keep stretching the boundaries of thought and human existence; I mean, that's what we're here for.
Hello?
Anyone?
With all the fears and paranoia about intelligence in computer systems(I refuse to say "robots"--there's no reason intelligence needs to be confined to something that can enact physical changes against its environment), are people not realizing that machines have absolutely no reason to want the same things we do?
There ain't going to be Robotic Teenage Male Sex-Daemons roving the streets looking for tasty Human Teenage Girls to impregnate with their Metal/Carbon Hybrid CoDNA. Why? Because robots aren't interested in sex. It's *humans* that are *afraid* of an alien species/race/tribe/gender/income group coming in and impregnating their daughters, and that traces back to the beginning of human evolution where control over the genetic line essentially defined one's own mortality.
Technology just hasn't been growing the same way.
Maybe intelligence will emerge, but if it will, it'll emerge out of what the systems have been programmed to do--in general, retain robust connectivity over unreliable media, recognize unauthorized accesses, and so on. You will have systems whose defense systems are so well developed that the valid users who wish to shut them down will have difficulty doing so--because, to be blunt, that's what these "intelligent systems" will have been designed to do--prevent unauthorized disabling of the system. But most of the human fears which we obsess about just aren't going to transfer in.
Does this leave quite a bit to be worried about? Sure. But lets not forget that self-guiding code that learns from failures and suffers from overcompensation--in other words, code that can even evolve under feedback loops--is pretty rare, even among the best attack detection systems. Attack signatures and virus signatures are always hand-developed--you never see, for example, a penetration at one company automatically causing all other companies to be alerted to look for the specific pathogen that caused the failure. Worse, if you did, you'd have entire styles of attacks that worked to abuse the system's natural ability to transmit attack signatures--it's a ridiculously effective attack against the human body, and it'd do nasty things to any automated virus signature agent as well.
But in the end, no matter *what* the systems were programmed to do, that'll be, for the forseeable future, all they're going to do--what some *human* has programmed them to do. Tank or Pokemon, it's made by us. This intense fearmongering almost seems like a way of disavowing the creators from what their systems happen to do--in some sense, it's as if we expect the future of AI to come from Microsoft, and we've decided they'll lie their way out of any bug.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Why? Because WE ARE THE MACHINES. Every single one of us is already a machine, and has been since the first RNA strand found a mate. The only difference is what our bodies are made up of -- but the truth is, we've been changing our bodies since the dawn of man. Our ancestors were short and strong. Modern man is tall and weak. Our ancestors were dark-skinned. Today we have many skin colors.
See, here's the kicker - we don't have to surrender to our machine masters. While it is nearly inevitable that machines will surpass human brains in complexity and even problem-solving ability, it is foolish to think that we will fail to incorporate these attributes into ourselves. Our future is in machines, because our future selves will be machines - just different machines than we are now. We are destined to remake our own bodies, and become, ourselves, the machine masters. Which means we will depend on the silicon and relays and software that we have created, yes -- in the same way that increased complexity of the genome required us to depend on our lungs, and our spinal cords, and finding complex proteins to use as food. Increased complexity in our brains, and our technology, will necessitate this further step up the ladder.
We'll probably continue to look the same because sex sells and big metal faceplates aren't sexy. But we'll move better, think better, be better. Is that so bad?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
In 1980, it was believed that by 2000 we would have electric cars and be colonizing Mars with at least one full-duty and colonized space station. It was believed that the world would be centered around space and all that could be done out there. It was seen as the new frontier to be discovered and conquered.
... No matter what books you read, or what sci-fi novels you read, or what delusions of "self-aware" machines you have, technology will always only be as smart as those who made it, never smarter. When you can pull intelligence out of nowhere, we can talk. Until then, this is the equivelent of vaporware.
Tell me, do you know when the last space shuttle took off? Neither do I. And neither do I own an electric car. Nor do I see us on Mars or in space stations. I keep seeing "we'll all be using electric cars in 10 years" every year. It's what I call the Unattainable Future. We all say it will happen eventually, but underestimate the time it will take and fail to factor in human nature.
We will not have electric cars in mass production and use anytime soon because auto makers can make so much more money on gas-powered cars, and people are used to being able to go 90 MPH if they wanted to, which no electric could dream of hitting. We are not in space because the excitement wore off as computers hit us as insanely amazing machines.
And today our current Unattainable Future is no longer world-peace, as it was during the wars of the 1960s and 1970s, no longer space exploration as it was during the birth of our space program from the 50s to the 80s . No, today the delusion rests squarely on technology and the rate of advancement.
Let me be the first here to scream out that this is insane. There is research and even progress in this sector, but it will not happen. It will not happen because people will not let machines become smarter than them; they will revolt before that happens. There will be no mass-produced nanobots because people are scared of what they cannot see and it's just not possible to make that kind of thing in quantity. You're resting your thoughts on technology that hasn't even started to be invented if you're talking mass-produced nanobots. If the technology to make them in quantity does not exist. Shouldn't that be your first unattainable dream, rather than them being used everywhere?
And an AI capable of human thought
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