BT Futurologist On Smart Yogurt and the $7 PC

WelshBint writes, "BT's futurologist, Ian Pearson, has been speaking to itwales.com. He has some scary predictions, including the real rise of the Terminator, smart yogurt, and the $7 PC." Ian Pearson is definitely a proponent of strong AI — along with, he estimates, 30%-40% of the AI community. He believes we will see the first computers as smart as people by 2015. As to smart yogurt — linkable electronics in bacteria such as E. Coli — he figures that means the end of security. "So how do you manage security in that sort of a world? I would say that there will not be any security from 2025 onwards."

Comments

Re:And flying cars and moonbases

[tambo]

The problem is that they can only detect trends and can't really predict real things. So when you see a futurist going out on a limb and claiming that X is only 10 years away, they are hedging their bets that you will forget they ever made such a silly prediction 10 years from now.

Some of these trends are predictably reliable, though. Moore's Law is by no means perfect, but it's extremely likely that computers will continue to grow in processing power at a steady, exponential rate, at least for the next few decades.

The problem is that some - including the typically brilliant Ray Kurzweil - believe that AI is limited by computational power. I don't believe that's the case. I believe that AI is limited by a woefully primitive understanding of several components of intelligence. It is impossible to produce artistic, emotive, sentient machines by applying today's AI models to tomorrow's supercomputers.

Reliable predictions:

1. Computers will continue to scale up in power.
2. AI models will continue to evolve.
3. Thanks to (2), We will eventually succeed at modeling the individual components of intelligence.
4. Thanks to (1) and (3), we will eventually produce truly intelligent machines.

That's the most any futurologist can tell you about AI. Anyone who promises more is trying to sell you their book. ;)

- David Stein

Re:Witch Doctors, Futurologists, and Cranks

[DocDJ]

Couldn't agree more with the parent. I used to work in the AI department of BT's research labs, and this guy was a constant embarassment to us with his ill-informed drivel. We'd try hard to build some kind of reputation in the field, and this moron would undo it all with his "robots will destroy humanity by the middle of next week" toss. He's like a less-scientific Captain Cyborg (if such a thing is possible).