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Comparing Clarke/Kubrick's 2001 To Now
angkor wrote us about a recent Economist article
that explores and compares the differences between Clarke/Kubrick's vision of 2001, and what we've got. Of course, I'd point out that the literary one wasn't meant to be a literal 2001; but this an interesting comparasion nonetheless.
What do you mean, it wasn't literal? Clarke and Kubrick obviously thought about things they thought would be happening in the near future. I seem to recall Clarke being pessimistic about an AI as smart as HAL, but that's not quite enough to label the date of 2001 as "not literal." In the book, the events clearly happen in the year 2001 AD (or most of them, anyway). 2001 is much more specific and literal than a dystopian book like 1984 (where I would agree the date is more symbolic).
Science fiction is never completely accurate, obviously. But Clarke was one of the most accurate and scientifically rational writers of the century. We haven't gotten to convenient interplanetary travel quite yet, but you can be sure that it will happen much like he describes: a large space station using 'centrifigal force' to simulate gravity, and rockets using the station as a waypoint so the same spacecraft doesn't have to be capable of lifting off from Earth as well as travelling to and landing on another planet or moon.
Now, being able to phone from the station to America for only a few dollars, that's probably a little over-optimistic...
The Economist article outlines three distinct eras of AI research and concludes that none of them had any real hope of success because none mimiced the true nature of the human brain - billions of neurons, each making connections with 10,000 others, for a wiring complexity that is far beyond mere bulk transistors on a 2D spread like current microprocessors. But I wonder - with all the current research about qbits and quantum computing, where a handful of qbits could factor prime numbers of amazing complexity - perhaps the REAL source of artificial consciousness in the future won't be achieved by physical hardwiring of any complexity, but with some sort of "quantum ghost in the machine". Or maybe something even weirder - remember what Clarke said, the future is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we CAN imagine....
Then again, what's stranger than three pounds of meat reciting "twinkle, twinke little star..."?
. . . is so full of diversity, and what we have come up with in the past several years has been amazing, to say the least. Science Fiction writers are generally accurate with regards to the underlying technologies that come about, but often miss the mark with the specifics, and therefore the spinoffs. I'm not saying that's bad, on the contrary, Sci Fi writers are often great inspirers of the scientists of the futute - and that's good!
Every time I read a good Sci Fi book, I am amazed by what I read, but, then, I look around, and I see things that are not even remotely considered by the writers:
Composite Materials
Polymers
VIDEO GAMES
MP3s!
Post-It-Notes
Of course, some of those things are quite frivolous (or are they?), but, that's what makes the human race so beautiful: we come up with things that are truly amazing, in their diversity and simplicity. We are an unruly and unpreditable crew of warriors, writers, diplomats, scientists, researchers, dreamers, and a myriad of other vocations - we are beautiful.
I hope we continue to pave the path of peace and progress for ever and ever.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
In the real 2001, we don't have shit for a manned presence in space. Let's face it, compared with the vision in "2001", the ISS is a complete joke, and we've basically just been sitting on our asses for the past 30 years when it comes to space.
But the real bummer of it all is that I don't think we'll have a permanent, independent manned presence in space for at least the next thousand years. Why? Because such a group of people represents a greater threat to the U.S. (or any large, power-greedy government) than any other country on Earth. Think about it: such a group of people could literally drop rocks the size of a football field on any place on the planet, and do so with relative immunity. Such a group would be more or less untouchable, and no government on the face of this planet that cares anything about power could handle that.
That's why I think the government will regulate any private manned space venture out of existence.
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A great book about the role of science fiction is Thomas Disch's "The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of." The science fiction of the past often shapes our present by informing the imaginations of the people who created it. How many AI researchers cite HAL as an inspiration, goal, or benchmark?
I am an atheist but I do not want my answer to be based on purely that assumption, I've being drawn into some religious battles but normally I try to stay away, it really is none of my business if someone believes in something. Atheism is in itself a system of believes, no doubts about that, of course atheists have rejected faith de facto and are trying to regain understanding of the world based on a different system of believes - so called scientific approach.
Are people just complex machines? Well, we know that no matter what else we are, we are also complex machines in some sence. We also benefit from symbiosis with other creatures (microorganisms that live inside our bodies) and we consume products that came from other organisms of this planet (I am a vegetarian, to me tomato is one of such products)
Now, let us assume that we do not know whether we just complex machines or we are some special creatures breeded by super-powerful God (or Gods, depending on your religion) So we have two cases to look at: first - we are very complex machines. If this is assumed, then it is not inconcievable that at some point in time we should be able to produce non-organic organisms that somehow imitate our own behaviour and even the train of thoughts. To duplicate our thought patterns, the creature will have to posses qualities that are shared by all living organisms on this planet (ability to see, hear, feel a touch, necessities for food or fuel) and qualities specific to human race - sex drive and necessity to socialize and some others. If we are just very complex machines, duplicating the environment for robots capable of all the above mentioned will probably drive these robots to become more like humans, will teach them to think in abstract ways, will force these robots to evolve (the merits of this evolution are questionable)
Now let's assume we are not simply complex machines, that for us in order to think in an abstract manner we need some divine intervention. In this case we still should be able to produce robots with above mentioned traits, but these robots will not amount to anything beyond social structures found in bee or ant colonies. At best in this case we could hope to produce intelligence comparable to that of a primate ape, a gorilla maybe, but even that would be a major break through. However, if it is completely and totally impossible to create intelligence comparable to human in a manner that humans can comprehend, we can still simulate it. You see, Alan Turin left specifications that allowed many to devise tests that can be used to find out whether you are communicating with a real human or with a machine. In fact, there are already today some AI programs that are capable of fooling some people and make us think that we are talking to a human rather than a machine. But the catch is that it does not really matter what or who you are talking to if you cannot tell the difference between it and an identifiable human. So, we could in principle have machines that would run simulated versions of ourself convincinly.
About us being unique - we are unique on this planet, we are the only creatures capable of handling tools and more importantly of producing a large number of different sounds that can be combined into complex speech. This is our main advantage and not something unidentifiable (if it were identifiable, we would have identified it already, otherwise it does not make any difference if it is there or not.)
You can't handle the truth.
Most progress has been made by hammering on specific areas as engineering problems. Symbolic integration, chess, fingerprint recognition, and speech recognition each yielded, after heavy effort. But no broadly useful approach has emerged.
Compute power isn't the problem. We don't have good algorithms that just run too slow. We really have no idea what to do next to get to strong AI.
I went through Stanford CS during the "strong AI is right around the corner" enthusiasm of the mid-1980s. Today, you can go up to the second floor of the Gates Building and see the empty cubicles, and obsolete computers below the gold letters "Knowledge Systems Lab".