Artificial Intelligence at Human Level by 2029?

Gerard Boyers writes "Some members of the US National Academy of Engineering have predicted that Artificial Intelligence will reach the level of humans in around 20 years. Ray Kurzweil leads the charge: 'We will have both the hardware and the software to achieve human level artificial intelligence with the broad suppleness of human intelligence including our emotional intelligence by 2029. We're already a human machine civilization, we use our technology to expand our physical and mental horizons and this will be a further extension of that. We'll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains through the capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons.' Mr Kurzweil is one of 18 influential thinkers, and a gentleman we've discussed previously. He was chosen to identify the great technological challenges facing humanity in the 21st century by the US National Academy of Engineering. The experts include Google founder Larry Page and genome pioneer Dr Craig Venter."

Comments

Oblig.

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our broadly supple, emotionally intelligent overlords.

Re:Oblig.

[flyingsquid]

I'll go Ray one better. We will have this before 2029.

Yes, but what do they mean by "human level intelligence", in particular, which human are we talking about? I mean, if "human level intelligence" means "as smart as George W. Bush", then I wouldn't trust that machine to handle my taxes, let alone any really critical tasks.

This is good news and bad news...

[zappepcs]

Good news: This could herald a lot of good stuff, increased unemployment, greater reliance on computers, newer divides in the class strata of society, further confusion on what authority is and who controls it, as well as greater largess in the well meaning 'we are here to help' phrase department.

Bad news: After reviewing the latest in the US political scene, getting machines smarter than humans isn't going to take so much as we thought. My toaster almost qualifies now. 'You have to be smarter than the door' insults are no longer funny. Geeks will no longer be lonely. Women will have an entire new group of things to compete with. If you think math is hard now, wait till your microwave tells you that you paid too much for groceries or that you really aren't saving money in a 2 for 1 sale of things you don't need. Married men will now be third smartest things in their own homes, but will never need a doctor (bad news for doctors) since when a man opens his mouth at home to say anything there will now be a wife AND a toaster to tell him what is wrong with him.

oh god, this list goes on and on.

Whatever Could They Mean?

[flyneye]

" Artificial Intelligence will reach the level of humans"
Buddy,I've been around more than four decades.I've yet to see more than a superficial level of intelligence in humans.
Send your coders back to the drawing board with a loftier goal.

Re:Hrmmmm

[Daffy Duck]

Maybe that's what Kurzweil is getting at: by the year 2029, AI will have achieved human-level abilities to make grossly inaccurate predictions of the future of AI.