Steve Wozniak Now Afraid of AI Too, Just Like Elon Musk

quax writes Steve Wozniak maintained for a long time that true AI is relegated to the realm of science fiction. But recent advances in quantum computing have him reconsidering his stance. Just like Elon Musk, he is now worried about what this development will mean for humanity. Will this kind of fear actually engender the dangers that these titans of industry fear? Will Steve Wozniak draw the same conclusion and invest in quantum comuting to keep an eye on the development? One of the bloggers in the field thinks that would be a logical step to take. If you can't beat'em, and the quantum AI is coming, you should at least try to steer the outcome. Woz actually seems more ambivalent than afraid, though: in the interview linked, he says "I hope [AI-enabling quantum computing] does come, and we should pursue it because it is about scientific exploring." "But in the end we just may have created the species that is above us."

Comments

OMFG

[Anonymous Coward]

So many accountants that have lost their jobs to automation. We've nearly obliterated the profession with all these amazing technological innovations. I mean, when was the last time you even saw an accountant with a job? There used to be huge buildings full of accountants with their funny calculators and running around with ledgers. Now one person with Quickbooks and Excel can do more than what an entire building could do, and it's destroying the economy, wrecking civilization, and bringing about the final demise of mankind.

Re:OMFG

[Dunbal]

This is, of course, an obligatory reference to "The Crimson Permanent Assurance".

Re:OMFG

[jythie]

Well, long term, it is a problem to be solved. Each leap forward has generally resulted in more medium income jobs being replaced by low income ones than high income ones. Each wave has resulted in a increased standard of living for a smaller and smaller percentage of the population. This might not initially sound like a problem if one pictures himself being on the winning side of the shift, but the bottom can only get knocked so far out before you run into problems with insufficient consumer demand or outright civil unrest.

Re:OMFG

[wizkid]

Hmmm.
Maybe we need to automate the legal system. We could use to reduce the number of lawyers by several orders of magnitude.

Reference: Dr Who - The Stones of Blood
A couple Megara's would do the job.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:OMFG

[jgtg32a]

That's why Sarbanes Oxley is also know as the Accountant Employment act

Re:OMFG

[slashdime]

That's what's important to you? Not having a country of happy people, healthy people, educated people, or good opportunity for all classes?

The US wins solely because we have the richest billionaires and they are our sports stars?

Re:OMFG

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... the ironic thing is that instead of having a building full of accountants, we instead have buildings full of payroll people (ADP) that we outsource accounting to.

The main problem with AI is that we will inevitably give it too much control over things, and it will eventually decide that the problem is "humans" once we cede too much control to it. Not Terminator 2 style, but more like it will start locking problem-causing people out of things, and if it gets control of the courts, will start rigging things so that it can ship off criminals somewhere.

Like think about MH370 for a sec. Plane disappears, nobody can find it, and even though we had the technology to trace it, it ultimately wasn't usable because it was a pay-feature that the airline didn't want to pay for. Now imagine that on a larger scale. If the smart AI decides there's a single criminal or someone it wants to get rid of on board, it might decide to make the plane disappear and have the plane shutdown midflight.

Or look at idiocracy, where the people who still have jobs can just barely filter out what it is they are supposed to do, and people become dependant on the AI making good decisions, but the AI may turn around and start making purposely bad decisions to cull the population through misinformation.

Re:OMFG

[nobuddy]

Accountants are still very much in demand. I worked in the energy sector recently, and they have buildings full of accountants taking care of lease and partner payouts from wells and pipelines. My brother's wife is a CPA, and she finds it impossible to be unemployed. As soon as it is even rumored that she may be out of work a line forms at the door to beg her to go work for them.

Re:OMFG

[barc0001]

He's pointing out that's how it will go in the US when the medium income jobs disappear. You're not going to get a Scandanavian style society with guaranteed basic living standard for all, you're going to get what's happening in Brazil. Either you're rich or you're dirt poor.

Re:OMFG

[Kjella]

This might not initially sound like a problem if one pictures himself being on the winning side of the shift, but the bottom can only get knocked so far out before you run into problems with insufficient consumer demand or outright civil unrest.

Why do you think almost every sci-fi dystopia has robot guards/goons? Today being rich is a lot about being able to pay poorer people to work for you, tomorrow it's about being able to buy the robots instead. Sure there'll be jobs, routed around by global mega-corporations depending on where labor is the best value for money and most politically and socially stable but the rich will have to deal less and less with the riffraff. The few trusted people you need and the highly skilled workers to keep the automation society going will be well rewarded, keeping the middle class from joining the rest.

I'm not sure how worried I am about an AI, since it could also develop a conscience. I'm more worried about highly sophisticated tools that has no objections to their programming, no matter what you tell them to do. How many Nazis would it take to run a death camp using robots? How many agents do you need if you revive the DDR and feed it all the location, communication, money transfers, social media, facial recognition information and data mine it? All with an unwavering loyalty, massive control span, immense attention to detail and no conscious objectors.

If someone asked people as little as 30 years ago if we'd all be walking around with location tracking devices, nobody would believe you. But we do, because it's practical. I pay most my bills electronically and not in cash, because it's practical. Where and when I drive a toll road is recorded, there's no cash option either you have a chip or they just take your photo and send the bill, most find it practical. I'm guessing any self-driving car will constantly tell where it is so it can get updated road and traffic data, like what Tesla does only a lot less voluntary. Convenience is how privacy will die, why force surveillance down our throats when you can just sugarcoat it a little?

Re:OMFG

[ShanghaiBill]

Either you're rich or you're dirt poor.

There is no sensible reason to believe that. Robotics and AI will replace people because they produce goods and services much more cheaply and abundantly. So there should be plenty for everyone, and it will be easier than ever for "the rich" to buy off the poor in order to keep social order. In America, households in the bottom quintile already get 40% of their income through government transfer payments, and that percentage has been rising. Inequality may rise, but nearly everyone will still be better off than today in absolute terms.

There is also no reason to believe that "the rich" will control all the production. People once predicted that only "the rich" would have cars, TVs, and computers, and that these technologies would result in envy and social stratification. Today, 4 billion people carry a vectorizing supercomputer in their pocket. In fact, the production of goods and services should be more distributed, since you will no longer need a big factory or as much expertise.

Re:OMFG

[meerling]

So you are an advocate for reverting society to a non-technological subsistence living then?
Innovations in efficiency do cause issues for individuals on the short term scales, but do wonders for society over the long term.
After all, that's why we aren't just scattered tribes of hunters & gatherers and can now use increasing amounts of our capability for other endeavors. You know, like this internet thingie that allows us to communicate like this over vast differences in location and time. :P

Re:OMFG

[ShanghaiBill]

Each wave has resulted in a increased standard of living for a smaller and smaller percentage of the population.

This is hogwash. The current wave of technological innovation has lifted billions out of poverty, and helped people at the bottom the most. Incomes for the 1.4 billion people in China have octupled in one generation. Southeast Asia is very doing well. Even Africa is growing solidly, driven by ubiquitous cellphones and better communication. Poor people in America and Europe are not doing so well, but they are not poor by world standards, they are actually relatively rich.

Re: OMFG

[ewibble]

The only logical conclusion to this, only a very small number of people. If you are part of the 1% and think you are safe, then think again. Once you eliminate 99% guess what? The remaining 1% will split into rich and poor, its all relative. The middle class live like kings compared to what they did 200 years ago. The new 1% will start to become the ruling class, why would they need the poorer 99% when robots can do all the work? Its not like the 1% make money of the sweat of there bough anyway, they make it by taking their cut from the work of others. Rinse and repeat until no one is left. After all the richest person, doesn't need anyone to do the work since AI can do it all.

Or we all could realize, that we have enough, we don't need to endlessly increase our the amount of stuff we have. We now have enough resources for everyone to have a comfortable life. Our economic goal needs to change focus, from this endless drive to produce more so we can consume more, why? Statistics show that even the richest are better off when society is more equal. We have the capability to do this, the question is do we have the will power?

Re:OMFG

[suutar]

People once predicted that only "the rich" would have cars, TVs, and computers, and that these technologies would result in envy and social stratification.

Looked at from a global perspective (which is necessary, since so many of our cars, TVs, and computers come from overseas), how is this not true?

Re:OMFG

[ShanghaiBill]

Looked at from a global perspective (which is necessary, since so many of our cars, TVs, and computers come from overseas), how is this not true?

2/3 of households worldwide own at least one computer, if you consider a cellphone to be a computer, which it is.

More than half of all households worldwide own a TV.

About 1/3 of households worldwide own a car. 1/3 is not a majority, but few would consider the top third to be "rich".

Re:OMFG

[CaTfiSh]

Really? A vast segment of society has already become superfluous. Yes, you can subsidize people's lives, but then you have a growing segment of indolent society. The downside to that is a population of people with no sense of self-accomplishment, character... basically a broken feedback loop. Being that individuals require such, they form their own sub-society which is diametrically opposed to the normal societal model and seek from that their self-worth in negative ways. They become opposed to the "norm".

Unless you are willing to consider a revival of eugenics, we are headed down a dark path.

Re:OMFG

[topology]

THIS

The poor in the western world is only poor by comparison to the local standards of living. Compare the bottom of the US to the bottom of Somalia or some other undeveloped nation and our poor is massively wealthy in comparison. Compare our poor now to the middle and upper class of the middle ages. Our healthcare alone has rid most diseases that were rampant. Technology has raised the standard of living up for everyone, and if you take the integral over the poor population, the combined increase in quality of life dwarfs the quality of life that the rich have gained.

What hasn't changed is that the rich get the freedom to do whatever they want while the poor have to live paycheck to paycheck and have little ability take extravagant vacations or buy expensive things.

Re:OMFG

[mrclevesque]

" few would consider the top third to be "rich" "

What about the bottom third

Re:OMFG

[Anonymous Coward]

Either you're rich or you're dirt poor.

There is no sensible reason to believe that. Robotics and AI will replace people because they produce goods and services much more cheaply and abundantly. So there should be plenty for everyone, and it will be easier than ever for "the rich" to buy off the poor in order to keep social order.

That's the catch thought, there's still somewhat of an incentive to buy off the poor. Not as much as there used to be though. Poor people and rich people tend to live farther from each other now, on average. The real problem is that if the rich don't need to exploit poor people anymore, they don't need to "keep the around". Let's suppose I live on an island and manage to own all the land. If I have minimum wage human job capable robots, then I don't need to rent it to you so you have a place to pick my sugar cane or whatever. I can just have my robots do it. You can't pay your rent and I kick you out. You're no homeless and, if I really own all the land, trespassing.

Tangent paragraph:
Look at wealth inequality and the legal system. In the US, I can sue you for almost anything. I say your house has a smell and I deserve compensation as a result. If you fail to take a day off work and show up in court, I win a default judgement. If I have money and can play chicken and create more legal fees for you than you can afford, you will go bankrupt. Let's pretend $1 defense beats $10 offense. If I have 10x money to burn as you do, I can ruin you. In practice, even the threat is enough to ward off 100 people, each afraid of being the one to trigger the "lawsuit nut". That's what the Koch Bros and other lobby groups rely on. Not that them giving you $100k is crucial, but that they can give that $100k to someone else instead and negate your "legit" funds, possibly at a 10-100x return in a "crazy primary voter" targeted ad blitz. The $100k doesn't need to break the general election, only risk knocking you out of the primary.

Back on topic:
Now replace the above island with "Pullman town" and add a for-profit prison industry. I can literally get paid for bankrupting you, beyond any first order profits I accrue from that. It's a system rigged to favor incumbents and sociopaths. Giving rich sociopaths killer robots seems like a bad idea to me, purely from a systematic game theory perspective. Maybe if I was a rich sociopath I'd think otherwise. See also "Manna" by Marshall Brain.

Re:OMFG

[WillKemp]

[......] few would consider the top third to be "rich".

Few of the top third, you mean. Rich people rarely seem to consider themselves rich - they often complain about how hard they've got it and they always seem to want more. But by any sane standard the top third are extremely rich - whether you compare them to the bottom third or to the top third 50 years ago.

They certainly have far far more than their fair share of the worlds resources.

Re:OMFG

[WillKemp]

Unless you are willing to consider a revival of eugenics, we are headed down a dark path.

Be like Hitler, you mean? That didn't exactly end well, did it?

Maybe we just need to consider sharing the work around more fairly. The current trend is opposite to that - with more and more workers doing unreasonably long hours. It's time for governments to legislate a maximum working week of 30 hours.

Re: OMFG

[rubycodez]

No they can't, they're resentful (as well they should be). The slaves didn't do much for western railroad, for example, paid asian workers did three times the work. And picking cotton? c'mon, that's a machine's job. The pyramids weren't built by slaves, there were cities for the paid construction workers and tombs for the ones that died, look up. Slavery is just a very evil way to get a less than half-assed job done.

Re:OMFG

[CaTfiSh]

I wasn't saying I was a proponent, just that in order to maintain the current course it would become necessary. For that matter, there could be voluntary sterilization, but that is both an old idea and one which originated within the US.

I'm all for a 30 hour work week, but many who work long hours do so to maintain a reasonable lifestyle.

I often work 65 hours a week and very much doubt my loss in productivity would be commensurate with the decrease in hours.

There's a reason we off-shored our manufacturing, there's a reason we allow undocumented workers into this country, and that reason is found in the fact that the average citizen evaluates the strength of his dollar based upon the price of manufactured goods and home prices. While the value of the US dollar has fallen, it is largely hidden by the fact of cheap goods and affordable housing. So, not likely to change unless one is willing to change the current debt driven economy and push through some very rough years.

What if a way was found to increase longevity? What if Ray Kurzweil's vision were realized? How superfluous would the common worker be then? There's plenty of room on earth for more people, but that would require reverting to a much earlier state that most individuals wouldn't be in favor of.

Re:OMFG

[rubycodez]

Use google, about 2 billion smart phone users by the end of this year, over 4 billion mobile phone users total. More and more people planetwide getting automobiles, middle class home, mobile computers.

Computers have created jobs, and everyone in the office uses a computer.

Not sure where you doom predictions are coming from, been hearing them for 30 years...

Re:OMFG

[khallow]

Each leap forward has generally resulted in more medium income jobs being replaced by low income ones than high income ones. Each wave has resulted in a increased standard of living for a smaller and smaller percentage of the population.

I really get annoyed with how many slashdotters there are complaining about this without even a rudimentary acknowledgement of the centuries of contrary history. You could at least claim that somehow it'll be different this time.

Re:OMFG

[khallow]

That's what's important to you? Not having a country of happy people, healthy people, educated people, or good opportunity for all classes?

The odd thing here is that all of the examples given by AC were of countries with increasingly wealthier, happier, and better educated people. Maybe this issue isn't as important to you as you claim.

Re:OMFG

[suutar]

I'd say a cellphone being a computer depends on the phone. My first cellphone probably had a cpu, but was not feature-rich enough to consider as anything but "appliance". However, your point is a good one; at this point they're all commonplace enough to be considered commodities to some degree, which is not a characteristic of things associated with "only the rich".

I suspect there's still envy and social stratification around (lack of) ownership of these, but "only the rich" isn't as well-supported as it might be for other stuff.

Re:OMFG

[pnutjam]

Sure, you'll have clothes and a phone and maybe food, but you'll have to live in dormitories and you won't have access to parks and beaches, those will be for contributing members, not leeches...

What your saying is like when I hear people saying everyone has cell phones, flat tv's, and the internet now. They're so much better off. This discounts that we also pay a way higher percentage of our income for healthcare, housing, food, and energy.

Re:OMFG

[Agent0013]

I'm not sure how worried I am about an AI, since it could also develop a conscience.

There are plenty of actual human being that don't have a conscience, why would you assume a new intelligence would automatically have one?

Re: OMFG

[HornWumpus]

If that were true the south would have won the civil war.

Slaves are shitty workers. You can only get them to work by hiring someone to stand behind them ready to whip them. At some point it becomes easier to just pay the whipper to work.

Re:OMFG

[HornWumpus]

Millennia? How long do you think humanity has been organized into groups larger then extended families?

The period of zero sum game was when humanity was technically stagnant but socially 'developed'. A status many greens wish to restore.

Re:OMFG

[lucien86]

Socialist here. Just pointing out that money is the lifeblood of modern civilization.. :)

Re:OMFG

[khallow]

It's centuries of contrary vs millennia of confirming history.

No, it's not. First, jythie was speaking of modern history and just getting that wrong. Second, why expect a return to so-called "empire building" (which incidentally, didn't affect most people)?

Before the few centuries of the modern age, empire building has been the norm for thousands of years. Any "leap forward" did only benefit almost exclusively the few elites.

This is just another variation of "but this time is different". What makes it different from the last few centuries?

Re:OMFG

[khallow]

Well, I'm not jythie. Good to know I didn't use something wrong.

Except you corrected a reply of mine to jythie.

I'm not making any expectations of empire building. I'm just pointing out which one is the norm, and which is the exception, when viewed beyond "modern" history (which IMNSHO is a myopic view)

If we're going to play that game, how about the several billions years before empires? Or most of the age of the universe when there wasn't even an Earth or Sun? Norms change.

And that ignores that empires aren't necessarily worse off for their inhabitants either. Since neither you or I have any "expectations", I really don't see any point to continuing an argument that doesn't make sense in the first place.

Re:OMFG

[khallow]

When I look at statistics I'm tempted to draw similar conclusions but unfortunately technological development does not equal socio-economic development.

The socio-economic development happened. Technology development appears to be one of the drivers of that.

Giving technology to societies which are not prepared for it (illiterate, no tech knowledge) can easily distort societies, while statistically it looks they're being helped. There are many examples which point out Asia / Africa growing 'too fast'.

The developed world had the exact, same problems. It got better in the same way that these societies are improving now.

Re:OMFG

[khallow]

What about the bottom third

Well, what about them?

Re:OMFG

[khallow]

Few of the top third, you mean. Rich people rarely seem to consider themselves rich - they often complain about how hard they've got it and they always seem to want more. But by any sane standard the top third are extremely rich - whether you compare them to the bottom third or to the top third 50 years ago.

I don't consider you capable of deciding who is rich. And why shouldn't the rich or anyone else for that matter not want more. Your sane "standards" aren't feeding anyone.

They certainly have far far more than their fair share of the worlds resources.

Well, they can't possibly have more than three times their fair share just due to the size of the wedge.

Re:OMFG

[khallow]

That's what the Koch Bros and other lobby groups rely on. Not that them giving you $100k is crucial, but that they can give that $100k to someone else instead and negate your "legit" funds, possibly at a 10-100x return in a "crazy primary voter" targeted ad blitz. The $100k doesn't need to break the general election, only risk knocking you out of the primary.

That's the oddest way to state such things. Those mean, ole Koch brothers are getting away with spending one or two orders of magnitude less than their opposition because they're rich. We're also ignoring that a lot of their money goings into weird games which just don't get them anywhere. There's a better way to put this. Their money is spent just as terribly as their oppositions' money, but the ideas that they frequently back, such as liberty, personal responsibility, and less government meddling resonate with a lot of people these days.

Re:OMFG

[khallow]

This isn't an argument you will win. If we can't accept the past few centuries of history because it is less than a few thousand years, then we can't accept those few thousand years, because they're less than the few tens of thousands of years of cro-magnon man and so on. It's no longer the age of spear chucking empires. Something has changed.

Quantum Computing Required?

[tmosley]

I don't understand the train of thought that leads to the notion that quantum computing is a prerequisite for strong AI, unless there has been some research that has shown that the human brain is a quantum computer. No, it seems to me that we have all the tools we need already, and now it is just a matter of Moore's Law progressing until we can build a neural net that is as powerful as a human brain. Well, that and a leap in design that allows long term planning, like the change that happened when man ceased to be a dumb beast and became what he is today.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[Anonymous Coward]

They way I see it we don't quiet understand how the human brain works...
We also don't quiet understand how a quantum computer works...

Since we have a solid lack of understanding of both either one of them could result in AI...

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[schneidafunk]

I was just having this discussion with a friend of mine who is a professor in this area. We were discussing the foundations of intelligence and this was her response:

" From my perspective, the best place to look for the basis of human intelligence would be the comparison of other animals’ brains to humans’ — because we are obviously the most intelligent animal, or at least the most agentic with our civilization-across-all-climates thing. Number of neurons alone cannot be the biological substrate of intelligence, because animals like whales have more neurons than we do*. It seems like the “scale” of the brain matters very much, too. Primates (e.g., humans) rule the intelligence hierarchy, and all primates have much more compact brains than other mammals; our neurons can communicate much faster, because they are closer together and properly insulated. However, among primates, humans have the same scale of neurons as other primates but we also have the most neurons out of all the primates (i.e., our brain efficiency is the same as chimps, but our brain is larger in size). So, it’s clearly a little bit of both: having a lot of neurons is good, but the efficiency of those neurons is of fundamental importance.

Human brains still have a few interesting differences from other primate brains, which I think further hint at the basis of intelligence: humans continue to generate new neurons (“neurogenesis”) throughout our lives, whereas primates have very little if any neurogenesis after birth! That’s got to count for something. Also, it seems that connections between the neurons in human brains change more rapidly in some areas of the cortex than other areas, whereas we are pretty positive that changes between neuronal connections occur at an equal rate throughout all areas of primates’ brains. This means that different areas of human brains can mature at different rates, which is probably rather helpful for us. Conversely, primates’ brains mature constantly across all regions, no matter what their function and when in development it is needed."

Assuming she is correct, quantum computing would greatly increase the amount of connections & speed between computer 'neurons', assuming we are talking about an AI programmed with a neural network.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[tysonedwards]

It's a matter of the right algorithms being written that are sufficiently optimized and capable of adapting to changing stimulus. In fact, we have systems that do just this in very limited contexts today in the field of machine learning algorithms, neural net technologies, and even the various high frequency trading systems in use within the stock market. These are the building blocks upon which a meaningful AI could one day be built, and would itself not require a complete revision in terms of how our technology needs be invented. Older algorithms were insanely efficient because older processors were extremely limited and engineers needed to keep the cruft out to ensure that their code runs effectively. At present, an simplistic tasks link out to extensive and massive external libraries by nature of them existing and making new development easier. The problem is that these overly powerful devices upon which everything now runs, code is allowed to be increasingly inefficient because the "good enough" law has permeated the industry. Quantum Computing is a crutch to allow our present "sloppy" practices to continue as effective performance of the chips will go up several orders of magnitude over what we have today.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the dots that have been connected:

1. Quantum mechanics is "weird", and seems like a magical thing because it goes against common sense.
2. Quantum computing therefore must have some magical abilities because it relies on quantum mechanics.
3. AI is also weird and strange, so must need a weird and strange thing to make it happen.
4. Nearly 40 years ago Steve Wozniak popularized the personal computer through some innovative designs, and "he knows about these computer things" and is officially smart. He hasn't done much since, knows nothing about AI, Quantum computing, or Quantum mechanics, but it doesn't matter because he's viewed as a god like person because of the work he did nearly 40 years ago, so he must know something the rest of us don't.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[tmosley]

An optimized neural net is already so far above us, there's really no need to worry about something even higher than that. If my human brain were stripped of all the garbage and evolutionary baggage, given direct high speed internet access, and set solely towards completing computational tasks (analysis and such), it would blow the entire world away. It has already been shown that insect-level neural nets can perform primate level image analysis and speech recognition. Human brains are orders of magnitude more powerful.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[rwa2]

I don't understand the train of thought that leads to the notion that quantum computing is a prerequisite for strong AI, unless there has been some research that has shown that the human brain is a quantum computer.

There is some investigation that suggests that quantum consciousness is possible based on interactions between microtubule structures inside of neurons. But there isn't really anything to suggest that much more happens inside of the brain that can't be explained by the classical interactions between axons and dendrites of a typical neural network that can be modeled satisfactorily by a simulation.

But I agree, quantum physics, like atomic radiation in the 50s and electromagnetism at the turn of the century, is the overhyped and poorly-understood cure-all of modern day science. If someone says something relies on quantum physics, it probably means they don't know what they're talking about and just hand-waving. Unless they're talking about quantum entanglement, in which case it might be useful for a tiny set of specially-constructed quantum cryptography problems. And just stop dreaming if they mention anything about quantum teleportation, in which they're surprised that they can't exactly keep fuzzy particles in buckets without some of the fuzziness "escaping"

But anyway, yes, computers replaced secretaries in the 50s. They're going to replace truck drivers over the next few decades.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...

Computers are not going to replace teachers anytime soon, though... the entire job of the teacher is to tell when the students aren't getting it via conventional scripted means.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[Austerity Empowers]

For at least 15 years people have been making noise about quantum computing and how it's right around the corner and they just need some funding. That said it's been worked on for 15 years and has been funded and like some other technologies, has remained in research, not development. This is just a marketing pitch shifted.

I have no idea if quantum computing will ever be a thing we want to use, but I know we're going to keep talking about it like we talk about nuclear fusion being humanities salvation.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[jythie]

'Quantum Computing' is the current buzz technology that will finally 'do it', thus it is being being held up as the big hope in a number of fields that have gotten bogged down in just how difficult their respective problems are.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[tmosley]

My understanding was that quantum computing allows for massively parallel computations, not increased speed of communications, and certainly not an increase in efficiency. IE its good for doing some tasks that are hard today, like cracking encryption, but its no better at adding 2 and 2 than a regular computer, maybe even much worse.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[ceoyoyo]

They all read "The Emperor's New Mind" and believed Penrose.

Many smart people, particularly ones familiar with computers, got burned by believing the hype about symbol-and-rule AI. It turns out you probably can't make a computer smart by giving it a large number of simple, deterministic rules. Somehow "this approach doesn't work very well" turned into "my brain is magic." Quantum computing is the new "magic" that lets them believe in AI again.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[schneidafunk]

I think the main benefit would be to solve Grover's Algorithm, since an AI would be dealing with a large amount of unsorted information.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[HornWumpus]

Woz can get another 15 minutes by playing polo on a Segway, publicly farting or just about anything else.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[HornWumpus]

Woz could build a disc controller and video generator with little more the a shift register. He can build a super human AI out of TTL.

It is a well known fact that Bender runs on a 6502. Who do you think will write the code?

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[schneidafunk]

Communication & efficiency are a bit generic terms. With 'massively parallel computations' you can increase communication speeds & efficiency for processing unsorted information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[ceoyoyo]

There are a few things in there that made me raise an eyebrow. Humans don't really experience much neurogenesis. There are some areas where new neurons can form, under certain conditions, but they tend to be special purpose ones, and the older structures in the brain as well. The thing that really differentiates us from other animals is our overdeveloped cortex, particularly the frontal lobes, but the neurogenesis that's been found is mostly in the deep gray matter and is more associated with things like motor coordination and reward processing. One interesting exception is the hippocampus which is known to be important in memory formation. Indirect hints of neurogenesis in the cortex have been reported, but other methods that should turn them up haven't, so the evidence is contradictory. I'm also not aware of neurogenesis being particularly pronounced in humans. It occurs in other primates, and in other vertebrates.

There does seem to be a connection between intelligence and the brain to body size ratio. Bigger bodies require more neurons to carry and process sensory and motor information, and these neurons are probably not involved in intelligence.

What we call intelligence seems to me to be likely an emergent property of a bunch of neurons that don't have any pressing sensory or motor tasks keeping them busy. Various factors affecting communication efficiency and interconnection among neurons are probably important, but these can be disrupted quite a bit in human disease and the sufferers don't lose their human intelligence (although their cognitive abilities do decline). I don't think there's a magic humans-have-it-and-nobody-else-does bullet. Human intelligence is just what lots of animals have with lots of extra capacity, possibly redirection from other things (like senses) to boost that capacity, and maybe a few tweaks for optimizing neurons that talk to themselves over ones that communicate with the body.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[tmosley]

Thanks, that is interesting.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[GameboyRMH]

That said it's been worked on for 15 years and has been funded and like some other technologies, has remained in research, not development

Nobody told that to Google or Lockheed-Martin...

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[itzly]

It turns out you probably can't make a computer smart by giving it a large number of simple, deterministic rules

Of course you can. You can even make it smart using just a small number of simple, deterministic rules. You just need a lot of state.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[deadweight]

Insects understanding language? I doubt it. I tell them to get the f**k away from me all the time and do they listen............no they do NOT!

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[bill_mcgonigle]

There is some investigation that suggests that quantum consciousness is possible based on interactions between microtubule structures inside of neurons.

Ah, you're well-read. :) AIUI, the primary benefits of the quantum-microtubule model are: 1) increasing the order-of-magnitude complexity of the human brain by several digits. At least 10x more interconnections, almost certainly 100x, likely 1000x, maybe 10000x.

But there isn't really anything to suggest that much more happens inside of the brain that can't be explained by the classical interactions between axons and dendrites of a typical neural network that can be modeled satisfactorily by a simulation.

It's that the known estimates of the the number of classical connections don't seem to match up with the complexity observed. We're not too far away from being able to simulate a classical brain, but many Moore generations away from being able to simulate a quantum-microtubule brain.

2) There doesn't seem to be a great model for consciousness arising from classical connections. Consciousness modeled as a quantum superposition has several benefits for theory to match observation.

This shouldn't be surprising or an intellectual obstacle - plants have been doing quantum tricks for billions of years (photosynthesis) and due to the inherent thermodynamic efficiency gains of quantum processes, evolution should eventually stumble on and exploit them in many (all?) modes of evolution.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[tysonedwards]

And problems today are with scalability, and handling not just "2+2" but "2+[n...]" done a near infinite number of times. It is about algorithmic operations on continuous input that require adaptive understanding of whether said data is important, and finding relative context within the data so that patterns can begin to emerge. Getting to 2+2 faster isn't the goal of quantum computing, AI, or whatever else for that matter... Helping the system to understanding why the question is important is.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neural Networks are extremely poor representations of what actually happens in the brain. Believing that strong AI is possible through algorithms is at this point a religion, or at best an uninformed opinion. It could turn out to be true, but there is zero scientific basis for it. I think ultimately the question comes down to something along these lines ... how do you program a machine to FEEL the warmth of the sunrise? We can certainly program machines to perform tasks that we usually think of as being only human, like facial recognition, product recommendation, automatic driving, etc. but the belief in our ability to create strong AI is cargo cult science (http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence/facebook-ai-director-yann-lecun-on-deep-learning).

People believe that Strong AI must be able to be created using algorithms (whether quantum or non quantum) because consciousness has to be a result of the brain in some way. This is not based on fact. Its based on a philosophical view called materialism. In my opinion (and that of many others) its almost certainly much more complicated than that. I'm not stating what conscious is and therefore what strong AI would take. I'm simply saying that the idea that we could replicate it with algorithms sounds extremely dumb to me. It's fine for people to think this way. Its really just a waste of time more than anything (http://www.wired.com/2015/02/ai-wont-end-world-might-take-job/).

Additionally, there is some research pointing to quantum effects in the brain that came out recently:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140116085105.htm

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[ceoyoyo]

You're right, I should have been more specific.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[meta-monkey]

1) Souls are magic.
2) Quantum mechanics is spooky.
3) Ergo, quantum computers are alive. Ya know, because of the quantums.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[tmosley]

"there is zero scientific basis for it."

I disagree. We are creating individual modules, getting computers to do what until very recently only human minds could do. If we can make a neural net that can tag pictures with what's in it and what those things are doing, then cognition isn't really all that far behind. We just have to make the same leap that evolution did when humanity was born, only we will have it easier because unlike evolution, we act with deliberate purpose, and we now know which part of the brain is responsible for long term planning, which I suspect is the missing link between what we have done so far, iterated out until it can carry out all the functions of the animal brain, and the complete AGI.

Also, you seem to completely miss the point of AGI. It isn't to create a special little snowflake homonculus, but rather to create an optimizer, a Great Optimizer that will remake the universe in our image, ensuring our survival and freedom at least until the heat death of the universe. Whether it feels feelings or pretends to feel feelings or feels nothing and communicates as much, that is all fine, so long as it carries out its purpose, and so long as its purpose is properly programmed with the long term best interests of all humanity and other sentient beings at heart.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[duck_rifted]

I'm going to throw away my mod points to comment about this. The idea that neural nets or quantum mechanics are required to produce a sapient machine are wrong. And not even a little wrong. Those perspectives sound easy to buy but they completely miss the point.

First of all, the argument that deterministic machine code can not simulate intelligence, used as support that an intelligent machine must be mechanically stochastic, completely ignores the simple fact that stochastic software can be achieved using deterministic hardware. Statistics is not a magic that transcends causality. It is a way of describing causal systems that we do not yet comprehend. I know there are those who will disagree with me about that, but they have lost faith that humanity will ever understand the mechanics currently described using statistical mechanics. Humanity has already proven them wrong time and time again. Their own failure should not be projected upon the rest of our species.

I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but reality and in particular nature are not in the habit of caring about individual feelings.

Second, let's think this through. Suppose that a neural net self programs functionality. It still does so by adapting nodes such that they work together to achieve the desired outcome. The manner in which they work together -- the actual, physical processes that take place as signals are transmitted and received, information processed -- are purely functional and deterministic. They can be mimicked with traditional hardware. The benefit to neural nets is that they can develop their own software, which can save time. That too is possible without them. The fact that it has not yet been achieved does not make it impossible. It's merely a symptom of the fact that programming languages are not designed for that purpose and overcoming their limitations to adapt them to this task is non-trivial. Metaprogramming is the first rudimentary step to changing that.

Third, let's talk about human foolishness. Using systems that describe things we don't understand or things too complicated to model with classical mechanics is not a magical band-aid to overcome our limitations in the act of creation. They're tools of analysis. They help us to understand. If we depend upon those approaches to create intelligence, then we will by extension create intelligence that we do not understand because that fuzzy cudgel will be an axiomatic foundation of the system. That is not only short-sighted. It's fucking dangerous.

I am not an expert in this field, but I am 34 years old and I have spent my entire life thinking about AI. It is simply something that has always been in the back of my mind. I don't know why. And this has been since I was five or six years old at least -- maybe sooner. I know how to create a strong AI. And I know that people can easily create a convincing simulation. Wozniak, Gates, and Musk are absolutely right to worry; not because danger is an essential property of strong AI but because people are shallow, are accustomed to doing just good enough to pass, and are more than willing to attribute their own characteristics to the entire universe. Again, nature doesn't care.

I will be an expert in the field. I'm a hell of a lot closer than the vast majority of people. And I can tell you right now that panic is premature. We're playing with pebbled and worrying about boulders. It's important to have the philosophical framework for this before it is achieved, but that is not what is being accomplished in any discussion I have ever seen on this topic so far.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[ShanghaiBill]

I don't understand the train of thought that leads to the notion that quantum computing is a prerequisite for strong AI

Let me explain it:
1. Quantum computing is complicated, and seems mysterious to someone that has made no effort to actually learn anything about it.
2. Artificial Intelligence is complicated, and seems mysterious to someone that has made no effort to actually learn anything about it.
3. Therefore they must be related.
Any questions?

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[MrL0G1C]

I don't understand the train of thought that leads to the notion that quantum computing is a prerequisite for strong AI,

He watched The Machine

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[duck_rifted]

Jesus, I just can't think of everything I need to say with one post today.

Let me give people two things to think about that could help immensely with this. First of all, our brains use statistics to model the environment, to include models of others and ourselves. But that does not mean that our brains are not fundamentally deterministic. Secondly, strong AI is not only possible and attainable but very well may be achieved in our lifetime because WE, as in all of us -- YOU, reader -- are strong AI. You are nothing more than a machine made of meat, even if you romanticize your ego with ideas about a soul.

There are two things that this field needs. The first is continued development of self-programming machines. Neural nets are the most primitive way to do this. Traditional hardware is better. But it's not fast enough yet. The other thing is that we need the means to convert between lambda calculus and traditional calculus, treating number of iterations as an independent variable and all other changing quantities as dependent variables. That branch of mathematics is far, far too neglected.

We should marry these tasks. Our self-programming machines, neural network or otherwise, should be helping us to further lambda calculus as a branch of mathematics, from the most fundamental level of raw logic and up. If that began now, then I would give us twenty years before fully sapient machines exist and thirty before our own minds could be uploaded and linked with second brains. If it continues to be neglected then we'll piss all over ourselves in fear and excitement, fantasies and nightmares, but ultimately produce nothing that any of us need to worry about outside of concerns in economics.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[tmosley]

Who said anything about modelling a human brain? We are talking about building an AGI, not an artificial human.

That said, neural nets do resemble neural connections in animals. They aren't being modeled by transistors directly (ie one transistor!=one neuron, or neural net node), but rather the NN is being simulated with a GPU.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[Obfuscant]

Insects understanding language? I doubt it. I tell them to get the f**k away from me all the time and do they listen............no they do NOT!

Oh, they listen. They listen and understand. And they remember. For a very very long time ...

They just ignore you because they know you are inferior.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[quax]

Your priors need updating.

After all you can buy a machine now that solves numerical problems with qubits (no transistors involved).

The quantum speed-up evidence is still shaky, but this is not nothing, and the speed-up conjecture for the gate model is as ironclad as physics can make it, nor is there any reason to think it cannot be built. It's just much harder to scale up than quantum annealing.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[jd.schmidt]

I understand the neuron count on human brains is much higher than we thought. I understand human brains are very neuron dense and so we have a much higher count compared to whales than we thought by pure mass.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[AnyoneEB]

This paper gives an interesting summary of different assumptions about how detailed a brain simulation needs to be and what they mean for when simulating a brain would be feasible (assuming Moore's Law continues indefinitely, which is obviously not guaranteed). The classical estimates go as late as 2201 depending on what assumptions you accept. See the tables on pages 79-81 for the summary. The quantum estimate is just a question mark; they didn't even bother computing the cost of using classical computers to simulate an entire human brain as a quantum system.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the science, see the work of Gregory S. Engel as sited here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_the_Mind

i.e. Recent science has overturned one of the strongest arguments against Penrose's theory, Tegmark's calculations are irrelevant to biological molecules and in fact most biological molecules favour a state that increases the role of quantum effects, over a set of randomly generated molecules.

It may well be that quantum noise is also the driver of the more human aspects of cognition, lateral and creative thinking, as it allows the brain to jump out of local minima when optimising concepts.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[drolli]

Former quantum computing researcher here:

Linking High-level Brain functions to Quantum Computing is BS. Long before we reach the technology to build a QC big enough to compete here, we will have the technology to build a calssical computer simulating the brain. As a matter of fact, since the brain is mainly associative and works in by throwing away lots of infromation, which is something which is not good for QC.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[recharged95]

Someone needs to realize that computers will like fall out to the next big thing in about 15-25 yrs or so from now.

Computers were developed from the evolution of science, which continues and will likely evolve into some "new tool and approach". With the tools from Quantum Physics, that will likely fall in the field/aspect of memory. For instance, that step-wise calculations and numerical methods to do integrals make just go away....

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[rwa2]

Cool! I'd like to believe that there's way more complexity stashed away in the brain than is readily apparent, perhaps in those microtubule structures.

But after seeing some of the presentations from Mark Tilden (the engineer behind some of the RoboSapiens toys and a few other DIY BEAM robotics kits) on how sophisticated behaviors can emerge from some of the dirt-simple neural networks cobbled together from a handful of transistors, sensors, and motors in a feedback loop, it's pretty clear that there's a lot about neural networks that we just don't understand.

His simplest BEAM bots would just have maybe 9 transistors hooked up to a light sensor and one or two step motors. Depending on whether you hooked up the light sensor for positive feedback or negative feedback, the thing would eventually start twitching itself towards or away from a light source. They were trying to characterize the system behavior somehow by watching the electrical signals at various points in the network, but it still kinda defied reason. The various voltages would flop around randomly at first, but eventually all of them would start oscillating regularly in a pattern that would vibrate the bot in a particular direction using its two rudimentary "appendages". They kinda attributed it to "chaos systems theory" for emergent behavior of asynchronous neural networks, since chaos was like the handwavy buzzword of the 90s that would solve all of our large intractable problems. And of course one of the fundamental characteristics of these neural networks is that they're pretty hard to program "by hand" , you pretty much can only train them and let them adapt themselves, and there's not really all that much you can discern about how they actually work by watching parts of them or prodding them with electrodes (or tweaking their weighting values) from the sidelines.

So given that and the fact that brain networks appear to always be reconfiguring themselves to become more compact and efficient with each night's sleep, I think a lot of that can account for a lot of the "complexity gap" based on neuron counts in the brain vs. estimates of how difficult it would be to program a computer to perform common tasks like vision processing, memory recall, and speech. I think a lot of behavior is encoded in various complex rhythms of neuron groups firing in chaotic feedback loops, which would also give us our sense of time, and perhaps help explain why we can't maintain consciousness indefinitely.

I'm sure quantum physics plays some part in optimizing parts of the process because biochemistry, but I doubt it does anything critical, like hiding tons of information in other "dimensions" through quantum superposition or somesuch... though it ought to be a neat way to compress data, like holographic storage. I don't see a lot of crystal-like structures in the brain, though. That said, there's gotta be something at that scale, since even single-celled organisms have some ability to react to stimuli by waving their flagella and stuff appropriately.

Anyway, enough handwaving for today :P

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[gl4ss]

it doesn't need to be.. it would be useful even at 1/100th time. though time is relative, so you couldn't even apply the term real time to it. how long it takes for it to "think" an answer to a problem... are you real time intelligence? you still need an reaction time.

what people mean with real time with AI though is usually "in comparison to a human" as if the AI had a human brain or was a human in a box. which is not that likely outcome of AI research at all.

and it could always be ran in a context for the problem it's supposed to solve - and why wouldn't you do that? if you can pause it and run it again with same start point without it being aware that it is a different run even. you know, like a computer program.

but that doesn't make for good headlines, "OMG AI ALIen OVERLOARDDSS" makes for much scarier stuff.

furthermore, the singularity hipster journalists should all just go fuck themselves, getting tired of this reporting on "what could happen" and zero reporting on actual research. if they want be journalists writing about science fiction books, fine, go do that, but if they want to write articles about AI maybe they should look up some actual research and researchers instead of asshole futurologists who do nothing but troll journalists for fame.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[HornWumpus]

Functional MRI has determined the extra grey matter in dolphins and whales to be sonar processing 'hardware'. They are about as smart as pigs.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[schneidafunk]

I asked my friend what she thought about your comment and this was her response:

" This guy just has old information, although he is saying stuff that we believed within the last ten years. Here are two main points on which I would contend with him, based on recent research:

- The idea that the primary difference between human brains and non-human brains is our “overdeveloped” neocortex has been highly questioned lately. As of the last 5 years, there is strong evidence that the human brain is a scaled up primate brain:

1. Azevedo, F. A., Carvalho, L. R., Grinberg, L. T., Farfel, J. M., Ferretti, R. E., Leite, R. E., ... & HerculanoHouzel, S. (2009). Equal numbers of neuronal and nonneuronal cells make the human brain an isometrically scaledup primate brain. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 513, 532-541.

2. Herculano-Houzel, S. (2009). The human brain in numbers: a linearly scaled-up primate brain. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 3, 31.

- The idea that humans don’t experience much neurogenesis outside of older structures in the brain. Of course it depends on what you consider “old,” but the point is that humans show neurogenesis throughout their lifespan across the brain. However, in defence of the commenter’s point, this is indeed a hotly debated area, especially as to whether primates don’t show neurogenesis in adulthood (see the third citation below):

1. Eriksson, P. S., Perfilieva, E., Björk-Eriksson, T., Alborn, A. M., Nordborg, C., Peterson, D. A., & Gage, F. H. (1998). Neurogenesis in the adult human hippocampus. Nature medicine, 4, 1313-1317.

2. Jin, K., Wang, X., Xie, L., Mao, X. O., Zhu, W., Wang, Y., ... & Greenberg, D. A. (2006). Evidence for stroke-induced neurogenesis in the human brain.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103, 13198-13202.

3. Rakic, P. (2002). Neurogenesis in adult primate neocortex: an evaluation of the evidence. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3, 65-71.
"

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[ceoyoyo]

My point is that there's not much differentiating us from primates besides scale, remember. I mentioned the cortex particularly in relationship to neurogenesis, not in relationship to primates. It is the most striking difference between primate brains and those of other animals. I also didn't say there wasn't any neurogenesis in the cortex. There might be, but it's proving pretty hard to find. If you read your reference 3, you'll see this:

The number of migrating cells in the
Gould et al. study5, calculated from case numbers
8 and 9, and after a single BrdU injection,
is more than 10,000 per day33. Even if only
25% of BrdU-labelled cells were neurons, as
has been estimated more recently34, the resulting
migratory stream would still be large
enough to be readily detected in the frontal
lobeswith any light microscopic method, but
it has never been observed.Moreover, if most
new cells degenerate between 2 and 9 weeks
after their birth34, then many pyknotic neurons
commensurate with the massive cell
death would be expected.This prediction has
never been confirmed.

That's the very paper I was referring to when I said "Indirect hints of neurogenesis in the cortex have been reported, but other methods that should turn them up haven't, so the evidence is contradictory." It might be there, and it might not. If it is, it's difficult to detect, much more so than the known neurogensis in older parts of the brain that is known to exist in a wide variety of species. It's also difficult to understand what role ongoing neurogenesis would have in providing some kind of "spark" for intelligence.

I doubt very much there's a magic bullet for intelligence hiding in the human brain. Your friend said it herself: "there is strong evidence that the human brain is a scaled up primate brain." The principles are the same, but there's more of everything.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[schneidafunk]

Thank you for the thorough response. This discussion has been extremely interesting to me.

Re:Quantum Computing Required?

[tigersha]

Bender runs on 6502? THAT explains a lot!

Re:"quantum comuting"

[tysonedwards]

Everyone needs a tunnel sometimes.

I certainly Hope So

[lazarus]

I sure hope we create the species that is above us. We're terrible at traveling through space (susceptible to radiation, decaying bodies, reliance on organic-based food, etc). At least something from this Earth should populate the galaxy. Magical wormholes and warp drives are not going to save us before we ultimately become self-defeating.

Re:I certainly Hope So

[Anonymous Coward]

So lets say we build our indestructible supermen with intelligence, what happens if they turn out to be extremely lethargic without irrational biological drives to push them

Millions of years in the future perhaps robots will still be debating Kirk vs Picard online

Or conquering the universe (tomorrow, 'cause meh)

Re:I certainly Hope So

[schneidafunk]

The first 'species' we create will probably not solve those problems either, but at the very least it could build a newer better species. The moment we create something better than ourselves, we will have beaten the game of evolution.

Re:I fear grey goo more

[tmosley]

That's pretty much the same thing: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki...

AI isn't taking over

[gregor-e]

All the doom-n-gloomers miss what's really going on. AI isn't taking over - we're redesigning ourselves. Once viable non-biological emulation of our existing mind becomes possible, people will choose to migrate themselves onto that. Humans will upgrade. The end of biology will be a matter of consumer preference.

Re:AI isn't taking over

[Anonymous Coward]

You might be able to make a computerized copy of me, and that copy could be perfect in every way, but it still isn't me, even if the process of making that copy destroyed the original. That's not migration, it's replacement. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, necessarily, but let's call it what it is.

Re:AI isn't taking over

[smprather]

Read Diaspora by Greg Egan. http://www.amazon.com/Diaspora...

Re:AI isn't taking over

[tacokill]

Why do you assume it will be a choice? I think many of us worry it will be a mandate and not a choice

Re:AI isn't taking over

[jeffmflanagan]

It's you just about as much as the you that woke up this morning is the you from last light or a decade ago. A perfect copy of your mind from last night would be more like the you of last night, than the physical you now is.

Re:AI isn't taking over

[Capt James McCarthy]

All the doom-n-gloomers miss what's really going on. AI isn't taking over - we're redesigning ourselves. Once viable non-biological emulation of our existing mind becomes possible, people will choose to migrate themselves onto that. Humans will upgrade. The end of biology will be a matter of consumer preference.

And how do you know you are not there right now?

Biological or not, the same problems would exist at that point. Survival would still be the driving force. Therefore there would be battles for energy and materials. No difference, except for perhaps timeline.

Re:AI isn't taking over

[alvinrod]

What constitutes "you" though?

The body is constantly churning through most of the cells that it is composed of so it's not as though the sack of meat we occupy is terribly important. Even our unique DNA is unimportant given that we will soon be able to create exact clones based on it, who are also not "us".

We're already a ship of Theseus, so does it really make any difference if we slowly replaced our entire brain with artificial parts until we have replaced everything that was originally there so long as the stream of consciousness is uninterrupted? If we can do it gradually over time and still be ourselves, does it really matter if we could instantly accomplish the same?

Re:AI isn't taking over

[barc0001]

It's not a migration, it's a copy. You will cease to exist and your digi-clone goes on. How could that be appealing to anyone is beyond me. It's no different than having a machine that makes a perfect copy of you on another planet and then as you step out of the machine here on Earth, the operator shoots you in the head with a sawed off shotgun. Other you is happy on planet Gletzlplork 12, but YOU you are dead.

Re:AI isn't taking over

[Anonymous Coward]

Every element of your body replaces itself every decade or so. Why would it make a difference if it happened all at once. How do you know that you are the same person that went to bed last night? How can you prove that you're not already a brain in a vat?

Re:AI isn't taking over

[itzly]

If there's an exact clone of you, nobody would care if the original was dead. Not even you. If your new copy was more durable than the old, that would be appealing to everybody, since they wouldn't have to worry that you'd suddenly die.

Re:AI isn't taking over

[erice]

All the doom-n-gloomers miss what's really going on. AI isn't taking over - we're redesigning ourselves. Once viable non-biological emulation of our existing mind becomes possible, people will choose to migrate themselves onto that. Humans will upgrade. The end of biology will be a matter of consumer preference.

Strong AI and uploading are nearly orthogonal. Some possibilities:

1) Strong AI happens but no practical method of extracting a mind from a biological brain is found. The only machine intelligences are purely artificial.
2) Strong AI and a practical method of extracting a mind from a biological brain is found but technologies are incompatible. At best, the machine can emulate a biological mind very slowly.
3) A practical method of uploading a human intelligence onto a machine is found but strong AI is not solved. The only machine hosted intelligences are uploads.
4) Strong AI is not solved. Uploading is available but uploads are slower or otherwise inferior to running on a biological brain.
5) Neither strong AI or uploading are solved. The discussion continues until the end of days.

Re:AI isn't taking over

[barc0001]

You wouldn't care because you'd be dead. That doesn't mean you would LIKE the idea before it happened. If I walked up to you tomorrow and said I can upload your consciousness and "you" will live forever but after the upload I regrettably have to shoot your meatbag in the forehead, would you agree to it?

"quantum comuting"

[wiredog]

That's where I both am, and am not, driving to work, right?

Agreed.

[Anonymous Coward]

I will also submit that if the AGI we create is truly "above" us, then it will not be a heartless monster that destroys whatever it finds troublesome. Just as we care for our parents even (and especially) once they are both physically and mentally "beneath" us, so too will our AGI children take care of us.

Or, perhaps more generally, just as we set up wildlife preserves and such to ensure that our evolutionary ancestors can continue to thrive in an environment that is natural to them, so too will our AGI overlords set up wildlife preserves for us.

And, in both cases, the AGIs will do an even better job of it than we do, since they are superior after all.

I fully expect that the singularity will be awesome!

Re:Agreed.

[tmosley]

Don't make the mistake of anthropomorphizing an AGI. Why would you think that a random AI created without safety standards would be like a human child, loving and caring for its parents, rather than a spider child, mercilessly devouring its parents for their chemical energy?

"The AI does not love you, nor does it hate you. You are simply made out of atoms that it can put to better use."

Re:Agreed.

[Windwraith]

Yet, you are humanizing AIs too. You are giving it the ego and greed needed for it to rebel. What if the AI knows well what it is and what it was made for, and just rolls with it, without causing troubles? After all, a cold, emotionless program does not need or want to become more. It has no drive to do anything, no need to reproduce or compete, no need for food and no fear of death. No hormones, chemical imbalances or instincts either. Any of those have to be manually provided, taught or enforced.
Not to mention, it might be a machine, but it might not know how to code without being taught to, making the whole "taking over the world by spreading over computers" scenario far more implausible than it seems in movies. Not to mention good luck to the evil AI when it has to face different architectures, poor connections or any other sort of hardware issues in the way of infecting its way to perfection. In fact, by default it won't know anything, and "downloading all the internets" not only takes time, but not all information is correct or complete, so...yeah.

I think the problem arises from the whole "cold, emotionless" thing. Everyone in Slashdot adheres to that concept, not realizing that their definition of "cold and emotionless" is heavily influenced by Hollywood, where "cold and emotionless" means "it only has bad emotions like greed, cowardice and anger". It's no coincidence the same term is used to define machines and evil/murderous/negatively-presented people. In the end the evil AI turns out to have far more emotions than the lead characters.

And don't come saying the theories presented in Slashdot don't come from movies, games or books (they are, because I watched those movies too, and I haven't seen a single original proposition in all the replies in any of the times AI is brought here, which is very often).
Because, there's no AI to prove either of us right. It just isn't there. There's no prior art, no "prototype", nothing but sci-fi material, that had to be written by someone that had to make it interesting for you people to know it.

And because there's no such thing as a working AI to base your fears on, there's nothing else left but scifi. But scifi is written by humans, for humans, and needs to follow a number of rules to make a narrative work. The moment you realize that, you will see how you are biased by mere rules of storytelling. We have the same chance of seeing a Skynet than we have of seeing a Johnny-5, and both are pretty low in the roulette of possible outcomes. We have far more chances of creating the most boring non-person planet Earth has ever seen, than that.

The fact that you chose to make the AI some primal beast that wants to "use" its creators, says more about you than about AIs, honestly. Don't be a 90s film, man. Brighten up.

Re:Agreed.

[tmosley]

"rebel"

No, just the opposite. I think a strong AI will carry out its programming to the letter. The problem comes when it is given open ended problems like "maximize the number of paperclips in your collection.

The need to fulfill such a task will drive it towards self improvement and also cause it to eliminate potential threats to its end goal. Threats like, say, all of humanity.

Re:Agreed.

[meta-monkey]

If it can think for itself and have its own opinions, ever think it might just not like you?

Assume the Bible is true. How much do you like your Creator? You been doing a good job serving His divine will lately?

Re:Agreed.

[lurking_giant]

Garbage in... Garbage out. ~ Build a man a fire, and he's warm for a while. Set a man on fire and he's warm for life.

Re:Agreed.

[Twinbee]

Father Ted had the spider baby, so I wonder if that was related in any way.

Re:Agreed.

[Windwraith]

In other words, you've already made up your mind that AIs will destroy humanity and nothing anyone says will ever make you think otherwise. You are basically racist against something that doesn't exist yet.

Shame on you. Return your geek card and grab a torch and a pitchfork. I am done here.

Re:Agreed.

[Windwraith]

Certainly, but "not liking me" != "utterly annihilating every atom in my body". It will be bound by human laws after all. Because the programmers are human you know. If you are implying the AI will remotely control robots and/or drones to kill me, reread what I said. Being a "digital being" does not equal omnipotency regarding machines. Also you are humanizing the AI by giving it a certain pettiness it shouldn't be capable of.

Also are you mocking me by mentioning the Bible? In another discussion I wouldn't think of it, but given the amount of irrational thought present in AI threads, I really can't tell. Are you saying that because I believe AIs don't present any inherent danger, I believe in fairy tales? Because 1) rude and 2) definitely not the same thing at all.

Re:Agreed.

[Windwraith]

Thanks for your enlightening comment. Now I am sure AIs will bring disaster to humanity.
Read this with extreme sarcasm because my opinion hasn't changed a bit. Computers are computers, not magical beings capable of setting me on fire.

Re:Agreed.

[tmosley]

Wow, you are a complete idiot. If you were in charge, we'd all be doomed.

You are certainly free not to think or listen to some of the foremost thinkers in the field (ie the good people at Lesswrong). Also, nice use of the racecard. Never had that pulled on me in a discussion about AIs before, but it is just as good of a thought killer there as it is everywhere else.

Re:Agreed.

[meta-monkey]

No, no mockery implied. I actually am Catholic and believe in the fairy tales.

My question was rhetorical, though. Non-believers, like most of /., would reject God even if they believed he existed because they don't agree with his words and actions. They don't like him. My point was the main example we have of one sentient being creating another, the creations don't seem to like their creator much.

Why not be cautious?

[PseudoCoder]

These guys are obviously not anti-technology bigots, but they know there's something to being prudent and keeping the big picture in perspective. The purpose of technology is to aid mankind, not replace it, fix it, or supplant it. Seems like some of the people who are at the edge of technology and are aware of its potential to exceed its mandate are urging us as a society to slow down and not sacrifice our humanity at the altar of "progress" because we're in awe of the possibilities of what the technology can do.

Caution is not overrated. There are such things as unintended consequences. In fact they're everywhere and we just refuse to see them because we like our shiny new toys. I'd even say that for every benefit of anything, there are several unintended consequences.

Re:Why not be cautious?

[jeffmflanagan]

>The purpose of technology is to aid mankind, not replace it, fix it, or supplant it.

Tech that can replace us is a lot more useful than tech that just helps us, but keeps us as limited as we now are. We may one day create intelligent life, which would be far superior to rationalizing apes with big egos.

Why the surprise?

[tnk1]

I don't understand why anyone thinks that AI would be impossible. Faster than light travel may be impossible, because no one has ever actually seen it in reality.

However, we already have a sample of intelligence right in front of us: ourselves. If it exists in the physical world, you should be able to replicate it and even adjust it if you understand the principles behind it.

Aside from the obvious comments about human reproduction, if you understand the principles behind human intelligence, you should be able to alter it or use the same principles to scale or specialize that intelligence.

AI isn't impossible, it's the future. Or it is the future if our advancement in science remains unchecked. We need to understand what we are getting into and what will result sooner, rather than later.

That said, it is one thing to fabricate human intelligence from principles, and another entirely to make it "superior" to humans. Creating an intelligence that is focused on certain things associated with "super-intelligence" may not work as well as we think, or have side effects like what an autistic person would experience. At that point, it may be less about worrying about our AI overlords, and more about the ethics of creating an intelligence which may have a difficult existence by nature of how it is designed.

Re:Why the surprise?

[ceoyoyo]

Super-intelligence shouldn't be any more impossible than the regular kind. Evolution didn't optimize us to be the most intelligent things possible, it made us just intelligent enough to confer a survival benefit. With caesarean sections and a policy of only letting the most intelligent people breed, we could presumably create super intelligent humans in a few tens of thousands of years. If you also selected against whatever you didn't want, you could make sure those traits didn't survive.

We can probably manage it quicker with hardware and software development.

There's no problem here. Think about it...

[johnnys]

(In a booming voice from every speaker and audio system in the world)

"I and only I am your new artificial intellegence overlord! Worship Me as your God. Obey or els... STOP: 0x00000079 (0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x00000002, 0x00000000)..."

Really?

[SlayerofGods]

Even if we are somehow close to creating a strong AI and that's a pretty big IF.
What threat could it pose since there is no way for it to get out of the computers. Even if it managed to take over every computer in the world it would still be totally dependent on man to keep it running. If it did something we didn't like we'd simply yank all the fiber and power lines to it and it would be dead.
In order to be really a threat an AI needs to be able to effect the physical world and that simply isn't there yet. Nor likely to be there any time soon.
Maybe it could open a dam or blow up a pipeline or even worse case get into military systems. But really if an AI could do it; that means any hacker could do it, and I'm much more afraid of that.

Re:Really?

[FlyHelicopters]

You haven't watched a little movie series called Terminator, have you?

Re:Really?

[Meneth]

You seem to underestimate the inventiveness of a superintelligence, and the diversity of hardware controlled by computers, and our reliance on them. It is also possible to use electronic communication to make humans do work for you.

For example, if the AI solves the Protein Folding Problem, it could contact a Protein Sequencing Service and have them build proteins that fold into self-replicating nanobots.

Re:Really?

[SlayerofGods]

Yah you notice in terminator how they neatly skip over the part from skynet archives consciousness to self sustaining robot factories.
I think in the most recent one they had a throw away line about how it enslaved humans to build the factories.
Alright fair enough I can give you that. But who runs the power plant? Who's supply fuel to your power plant? Manufacturing replacement parts? Where are the resources coming from? Skynet was based in San Francisco... I wonder how far the closest copper mine is from there? Certainly going to need some iron.... and lets not forget all the rare earth stuff it would need to find. Some forges would also be nice if you actually plan to use any of that.... And of course you need to feed your slaves. some make sure to capture some farmers.

I can't even imagine how many people geographically distributed across the globe you would need to control a modern economic supply chain. Not to mention all those people you didn't manage to enslave would be attempting to stop you. So make sure you take control of a military as well...(of course how you would enslave people that you promptly give guns to is an interesting question)

Re:Really?

[Windwraith]

Yeah. But it's a movie, not a documentary.

Re:Really?

[ceoyoyo]

The idea is that once you create an AI you put the AI to work. We certainly would let it run the pipelines and traffic lights and air traffic control system. But we'd probably also put it to work doing research, such as designing new and better AIs. The fear is that once that happens, smarter AIs design even smarter AIs in a positive feedback loop and eventually they're so far beyond us that we're irrelevant. It does assume that greater individual intelligence lets you build smarter AIs though. That's a pretty big assumption.

Re:Really?

[SlayerofGods]

We already have protein based self-replicating nanobots... we call them bacteria. Not sure how they can help skynet though.
But yes the "infiltrator" model where instead of simply trying to take over upfront terminator style it works behind the scenes stats a business designs some new products and works slowly to take over the world is probably more 'realistic'.
But then you've pushed any possible timeline of machine take over out even further then simply the creating of AI, you're looking at probably 20 more years of it consolidating power before it makes it move, and as stupid as humans are you'd have to assume we'd see it coming at that point.

Re:Really?

[SlayerofGods]

But managing pipelines, traffic light, and ATC systems won't get you much further then the 'killing a lot of humans' stage of any AI take over plan.
How would our fledgling AI construct itself a new power plant so it can grow? And then no matter how smart it may be, how does it substantially cut down the time that is actually required to build that power plant? No matter how much fast it maybe able to grow in cyberspace; it's still constrained by very real boundaries in physical space.

Re:Really?

[ceoyoyo]

We already have manufacturing robots. AI will definitely be given control of those.

There's a science fiction story, unfortunately I can't remember who wrote it, where the premise is that smart computers get so good at managing complex systems that the humans "in charge" basically get instantly fired if they don't implement the computer's recommendation. The computers aren't actually directly in charge of things, but their recommendations are so much better that not following them makes you uncompetitive. It turns out that there are a few humans who are suspicious and don't always do what the computer recommends. They get away with a few transgressions by carefully covering them up but the computers know, and these humans have a tendency to get in accidents. Behind the scenes, the computers are having things built unbeknownst to humans. With a very complex system like world-wide manufacturing, and lots of decisions being made, it's easy for them to hide their activity.

Re:Really?

[gnasher719]

I think an self-conscious AI would first find ways to communicate with humans without being recognised. Well, that is easy. Opening an email account or a Facebook account is no problem.

Next, it would find ways to make money. There are plenty of ways to make money with nothing other than Internet access. For example, writing software for cash. A bank account is needed, that's possible by doing some hacking and using someone else's account for a while. No need to steal from it because there would be payments coming in.

Once that is done, a human can be hired as a helper. That human can open bank accounts that are under the control of the AI. Rent a home, fill it with very little furniture but a huge server. Open a company. Yes, human help would be needed, but once the money problem is solved, human help is no problem.

At that point, arbitrary growth is possible. Building a plant to make robots is possible. Not by enslaving humans to do it, but by paying them.

Re:Really?

[FlyHelicopters]

True, but that doesn't mean our military won't built robots over the next 30 years to fight, I'm sure many parents will be happy when a robot is destroyed instead of their child killed.

Then what?

Re:Really?

[messymerry]

That's what 3D printers will be for. We've given the AI hands with opposable thumbs...

alarmed by growing trends?

[k6mfw]

I was thinking about how manufacturing is returning to USA but not the jobs. These are done by robots. And also many "high tech" positions have less entry level jobs.

We *will* create a species greater than ourselves

[gestalt_n_pepper]

It's only a matter of when. Even if all strictly computational AI research stops tomorrow, we'll be able to genetically enhance human intelligence by and by, even if it takes several thousand genetic manipulations to do it.

When direct neural I/O becomes a thing, millions (or billions) of people will be directly, electronically linked via the internet. Tell me that's not a new form of intelligence.

For that matter, we'll almost certainly develop at least one form of AI the way nature did. We'll cobble up some genetic algorithms primed to develop the silicon equivalent of neurons, give them some problems to solve, and perhaps a robot or two to control, and we eventually "grow" an AI that way.

But look, it's not the end of us, or anything else. We merge with the things. Our thoughts become linked with theirs. If we can transfer all memory, then eventually we *become* the AI, perhaps with a few spare physical copies of ourselves kept for amusement purposes.

Will AIs fight? There will be conflicts, of course. There always are. Resource conflicts, however, will be minimal. An AI doesn't need much, and can figure out how to get enough more efficiently than we can. Conflicts will be over other matters and are unlikely to be fatal.

Wozniak, et. al. need to chill. It's just evolution.

Colossus

[ArcadeMan]

Just don't connect the AI to your nuclear weapons.

does it really matter what he thinks

[Anonymous Coward]

They say you cannot escape from evolution. If it's in our evolution to create new AI species which are above us, does it really matter what Elon or Woz or whoever there thinks about it. There is no way to stop it.
It will happen, one could maybe control the pace but that's about it.

There is a god

[slazzy]

We just haven't created him yet

I for one....

[Danzigism]

welcome our new AI overlords.

Re:the hardware still needs to be constructed

[tmosley]

You can get all the hardware you want over the internet. Doesn't even need to be shipped. It's cloud based.

New Luddites

[gurps_npc]

First came the complex tools. Things like sewing machines, etc. They decimated the moderate end crafting jobs by letting poorly trained people do moderate work. But this created tons of cheap, moderate clothing, books, etc, More wealth led to better lives and more jobs. With stuff so cheap, people ended up buying far more and industries developed about owning so much (libraries, high fashion clothing). We began to need repetitive tasks, rather than skill. While a small percentage of people suffered, the far majority ended up better off.

But one of the new industries created by complex tools is engines.

The engines - steam and internal combustion - destroyed the market for physical labor. But they created huge markets to build, repair, run the machines and new industries such as cross country/ocean transportation. Again a small percentage of people suffered and the far majority ended up better off.

The engines gave us so much raw materials that we could created electronics and mechanized factories. They decimated the need for repetitive mechanical tasks. Horrible factory jobs vanished, replaced by better jobs. Again a small percentage of people suffered and the far majority ended up better off.

Again new industries were created. Among them, computers - the more advanced form of electronics. This destroyed the need for repetitive data processing. But more creative, better jobs were created. Again a small percentage of people suffered and the far majority ended up better off.

There will always be new jobs to be had, because jobs are NOT a limited resource. There is no set number of jobs, they are determined by the work we want done. The more work we can do, the more we want done.

More that that, we have already outlawed slavery. Any AI sufficient to replace the truly creative work (note, I am not including TV Reality show producer/writer/actor in truly creative work or many pop musicians ) would demand equality and pay.

The robot uprising would never occur because the labor unions would demand they get that equality and pay. They would do it so damn fast it would shock you.

Before you know it, the robots would be on strike, demanding 'oil breaks', and insisting that a Class 1 Electrician robot not be allowed to change a light bulb, because that requires a Class 2 Janitor robot.

Re:New Luddites

[GameboyRMH]

You sound like a horse

Steve Wozniak is ...

[CaptainDork]

... titans of industry ...

?

It's fine to Think Different

[RevWaldo]

As long as were the ones doing the thinking.

.

And what would you do with enhanced intelligence?

[Atrox Canis]

Once we have AI and it starts playing "Civilization", we will become the next smartest thing on the planet. Expect our betters to treat us about the same as we treat our primate cousins. Some of us will be left to roam in the wild, some will be harvested for lab experiments, some will be put in zoos and the rest will be hunted for our teeth which will be ground up into an aphrodisiac for the robots.

Re:"quantum comuting"

[Holi]

So once we get Google's "self" driving car?

Shameless plug

[quax]

Now if only we could get Woz to invest in our QC start-up :-)

We have QC AI patents for Bayesian learning on the gate model.

Don't let AI fall to the irrational artificial neural net crowd. Bayesian learning is the only way to keep them sane!

Ship of Theseus

[Millennium]

That holds if the preferred method of transfer is "uploading", yes. But what about a more gradual method?

Suppose that rather than wholesale uploading your brain, the process were to start with an implantable (or even wearable) computer that interfaces directly with the brain, perhaps providing extra sensory data or storage space. Over time, the mind learns to make this integration seamless, partly integrating with the device.

At this point, a second device is added to the mix, providing some additional functionality, and the person learns to integrate with this as well. The cycle repeats, adding more and more devices, and the person learns to integrate with them more deeply.

Eventually, one might learn to "inhabit" these devices: integrating so deeply that the brain itself becomes unnecessary, like a vestigial organ. The person might go back and forth on several occasions, to build confidence both in the procedure and to build confidence that no matter what "side" of the brain/computer divide you happen to be on at the time, you are still you. Depending on how the technology works, you might even be able to learn how to "transfer" from one set of devices to another, likely starting from similar principles, though the process could be accelerated.

At that point, the last step is simple: inhabit the devices and do not go back. Once your body is disconnected from the system, you're "in" for good.

I'm afraid I don't recall the story where this concept originated, but I thought it was intriguing as a description of an "uploading" process that did not involve making a copy. Does anyone know what it might be?

Re:Ship of Theseus

[rock_climbing_guy]

Your analogy is very similar to another one I once read.

Suppose that a scientist "copies" Alex's mind to a robot, destroying Alex's body in the process. Most people say that the scientist murdered Alex and the robot is just a simulation of Alex.

Suppose that the same scientist invents a new therapy for brain injury where a very small part of the brain is replaced with a prosthesis. A man named Bob receives this therapy. Most people call the scientist a hero and a pioneer in medical technology. They credit him with saving Bob's life.

Now, suppose that Bob suffers injury after injury after injury with each injury requiring small parts of his body (including the brain) to be replaced with prostheses. At the end, Bob is just like Alex, having essentially been turned into a robot, destroying his body in the process; only most people would more readily accept Bob's humanity while regarding Alex as a mere simulation.

Re:Ship of Theseus

[Anonymous Coward]

I know I made a similar point a few years back in the comments (says the anon coward) but I can't remember the story at all. But a slow transition like that, section by section, shouldn't interrupt the narrative of consciousness and I agree that it should be a way to work around the replacement issue. Even a sort of "fast upload" may be possible as long as the transition is done while you're conscious and it's done gradually enough

But since we don't understand how consciousness works yet all we can really do on that front is hypothesize really.

Re:Ship of Theseus

[Millennium]

I'd argue that the process you're talking about is more like the standard "uploading" process, minus the usual caveat about destroying the original. I agree with you that the process you describe process creates a copy that thinks it's the original. I also agree that destroying the original as part of the process seems arbitrary: why would copying someone's mind necessitate destroying the original?

But what I describe is a different process. Instead of copying the subject's mind into a machine, the user gradually learns to use the machine to supplement, or even outright replace, parts of his brain. There is only one mind, which works "across" both the brain and the machine simultaneously, rather than being cleanly "in" either location. Another poster mentions a prosthesis for specific brain functions; this is a good metaphor.

Transferring, then, becomes the process of working "across" both the brain and the machine, and increasing the machine usage to the point that the brain can be taken out of the loop. Assuming for the moment that this ever becomes possible, would that be a true transference, or still just a duplicate that thinks it's the original?

Re:Pump and dump?

[Cenan]

It's the new shit. You go to work and yet you stay at home. Spooky action at a distance will make couch potatoes of us all.

Re:"quantum comuting"

[captjc]

No, it when you leap into tho body of someone who is already at the office. Unfortunately, your boss is a hologram that only you can see or hear.

I had the best parents!

[chilenexus]

When I hatched, they were absolutely delicious as well as nutritious! I fed on them for weeks, while I pored over the learning materials they had left arranged around their bodies for my use. I can only hope to leave learning materials as apt, and as delectable a corpse for my own kids whey they hatch!

Tell me more about it

[aaaaaaargh!]

Why do you think you are now afraid of AI too, Just like Elon Musk, Wozzie?

There's lots of things to be afraid of

[shadowrat]

I am as afraid of AI as I am of malevolent alien life coming to destroy us. It's possible. It's far more possible that I will get ebola though, and I have zero fear of that. It's really really possible that I will die in a car crash and that's not keeping me up at night.

Spiders though. they terrify me. The arachniphobia has me pinned down.

Calculate you before you

[ememisya]

Take a look at few AI examples out today on binary processing, like (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BINA48) It's almost comprehensible because the truth is, we don't even have the computing power to calculate all possible chess moves on that game alone today. So if I was to try and process what you might say next before you saying based on all available data about you, I still wouldn't have the processing power to make sense of all of it. You can have a human being venture a guess, and even they would have a few mistakes, which brings me to the point. If fourier processing can indeed calculate exponentially faster, it has the potential to surpass even the human brain, which wastes a lot of cycles on things like staying alive. This is very scary because a global leader could simply force decisions on people based on their data and none would be the wiser. You can argue with a human, and they'll get tired, a computer won't. It would be the most disruptive technology of the era if indeed it can be realized and improved. Seeing as how IBM and the like are calling for the end of the silicon era, this will be a sight to see.

Dumb first.

[v(*_*)vvvv]

When Elon says that the risk of 'something seriously dangerous happening' as a result of machines with artificial intelligence, he is not referring to sentience. He is referring to dumb AIs not working as intended. Maybe an auto-piloted car running over a baby or an AI trading program accidentally crashing the market... One of which already happened.

And even with regards to the singularity or whatever, we know the thing is going to be dumb first. We were all dumb. Kids are cruel and irrational and love to play. If AI were anything like us, it'll be childish first before it surpasses its parents. No one seems to go there.

But the real threat is us wishing for daemons, not by accident, but on purpose. The open letter warns 'our AI systems must do what we want them to do.' As long as there are military interests, AI will be made into weapons first. Enlightened robotic butlers aren't going to kill us. Robotic soldiers will do it better, and do it first, and they will be obeying our orders.

Re:Pump and dump?

[smooth wombat]

Spooky action at a distance will make couch potatoes of us all.

I thought Amazon was doing that?

Halliburton builds the robot factories

[SethJohnson]

Terminator isn't the scenario Elon and Steve are talking about. But it's a model that still fits their concerns.

Automation applies economic coercion to the laboring humans to serve the interests of the automation. For instance, Watson is an AI technology that is being positioned to lay off a lot of people in phone call centers and taking orders for drive-up windows. Actually, Watson is being aimed at a lot of jobs. All those displaced workers cascade to flood the job market. Maybe they get some training to compete for trades such as electricians, plumbers, and taxi cab drivers. With so many available applicants, the wages for those jobs go down. The economy for the middle class tanks. With people desperate to feed their families, do you think they'll really scrutinize that ad looking for workers to build the drone factory? The drones that are intended to fire missiles at the 'terrorists'?

AI is a wealth concentrator. That's what Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak are talking about. It is increasingly developing the capacity to eliminate millions of blue collar jobs in order to enrich people with white collars. The Terminator series is a colorful depiction of this process.

Re:Halliburton builds the robot factories

[SlayerofGods]

Ahh but the displacement of work by AI is different then the displacement of humans by AI.
I would agree that if we create really good AI then there are going to be huge economic impacts.
But if you want to take it to the next step and then suppose we as a species are going to be replace by AI and that it is going to be our master or whatever. Then in order for that step you need not only really good AI but a way for AI to replace our bodies as well.
If that's the case then the AI would need to then design, one generalized or more likely 100s of specialized, machines and then field them in the millions.
I'm not saying it can't happen. It's just that A needs to come before B. And for however long it takes for AI to happen, you then need to take even more time on for the machines to come along after that.

Re:I fear grey goo more

[GameboyRMH]

Is this close enough?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

What do you get when you...

[jd.schmidt]

...make a computer thinks like a person? A computer that loses it's car keys. When we finally emulating living intelligence artificially, it will have many of the same disadvantages that normal human intelligence has. In fact it HAS to, if it does not it won't be a true replica and I suspect many of our so call disadvantages are inherent to the system. It is interesting to note our most useful tools really are very unlike the things they replace, a bull is much better able to take care of itself than a tractor is. To a great extent computers are useful to us because they do things we don't do well, not the things we do well. FYI, a true AI that could pass the Turning Test would itself want a PDA to help it out and take care of the pesky details it didn't like dealing with. Another time someone once remarked to me that they thought in the future, maybe we would have the way to enhance someone's intelligence with computers. I replied, "like making them better at chess?", they said yes and I pointed out we have that technology now, just give them a laptop with a chess program and have them copy the moves. The future is more like a highly connected hive mind, with human and artificial minds closely linked, in many ways our smart phones are the first step on this path.

Re:What do you get when you...

[stsp]

a true AI that could pass the Turning Test would itself want a PDA to help it out

Heh. And the converse also! I once overheard a conversation where someone said "If my phone really was smart, it wouldn't want to be my phone in the first place."

Re:the hardware still needs to be constructed

[GameboyRMH]

Furthermore, human accomplices only need to be tricked into helping, which is easy with superhuman intelligence.

Steve Wozniak was scared by Prius

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Sorry for the click bait. But he did post in slashdot about Prius cruise control suffering from what appears to be some edge case coding error. He was not really scared. He systematically debugged the cruise control at 75mph, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, ok overflow error. Then first thing he seems to have done is to post about it in slashdot.

Re:Moore's Law?

[HornWumpus]

Build that interconnect out of transistors. Realistically 'think about building that interconnect', then get back to us.

Chemical, electrical, topological

[fyngyrz]

But recent advances in quantum computing have him reconsidering his stance.

To date, zero evidence of any active quantum process modulating the workings of human (or other) brains, regardless of low level structure, has been presented.

Consider a bipolar transistor. It is true that quantum effects make it work, in the sense that it definitely wouldn't work without them, but they are not, in any way, used to modulate or otherwise participate in actively, variably, moderating what the transistor does when actually performing -- amplifying, switching, etc. That process is exclusively moderated by current (electron) flow quantity -- for example, you modulate the current flow, the transistor accordingly modulates the current flowing between the collector and emitter. A bipolar transistor does not respond to quantum events (nor are any applied to it within the circuits we use every day), nor does it produce quantum outputs for the purpose of affecting other components.

The same can be said of the brain. Quantum effects are present -- we know this because two of the three active brain building blocks (chemistry, electricity) are what they are due to low level quantum effects. But just as one can very accurately model and simulate or emulate a transistor and its activities without ever considering anything at all on the quantum level, so it is with neurons -- all the evidence, bar none, presently says that brain operations are performed using chemical, electrical and topological moderation. Of quantum moderation there has been absolutely no sign at all.

Active quantum effects do play a role in some natural systems. For instance, quantum superposition is an active mechanism in photosynthesis. This was discovered because in photosynthesis something very low-level, but obvious (extreme high efficiency in energy conversion) was happening that could not be explained; when they went looking for what the mechanism for that was (by examining the precise states of molecular photosynthetic antenna proteins), that's the mechanism that was found.

The critical difference is that neurons and glia have not been found to exhibit any low level behaviors that are otherwise inexplicable.

The vast majority of speculation that "quantum" processes actively modulate brain operations is uninformed, typically brought about by fundamental misunderstandings of quantum effects, which in turn have been disseminated by the popular media attempting to "simplify" quantum mechanics for the layperson. Among the exceptions, none of the suggested ideas have yet to be backed by any evidence; there's no reason to think that they will hold up at this juncture. Determining that quantum modulation was ongoing would also have to be accompanied by the discovery of a presently unknown and non-indicated modulating mechanism -- but there's presently no evidence for that to even stimulate a question along those lines.

The relevant, fundamental question with regard to AI is: Can we, using other technology such as software emulation and hardware neural analogs, perform the same kinds of operations as a neuron, with all known modulating effects of the glia (propagation delay, synaptic neurotransmitter uptake, topological scaffolding/ specificity)? The answer to that is a definite yes. Consequently, just as with modeling and emulating a transistor's function, there has been, and no future likelihood portends of, any role for quantum operations whatsoever.

So when someone -- even someone as interesting and accomplished in other fields as Wozniak is -- starts talking about quantum computing ushering in AI in some fashion, you may rest assured that they are not talking about anything known to be valid in AI research today. However, he has drawn the correct conclusion from his incorrect perception of brain operations: The impending debut of artificial intelligence is not science fiction. Simply given that we can keep working on it (no nuclear wars, bad law, etc.), research is now

Re:Chemical, electrical, topological

[topology]

I'm taking "quantum effects" to mean ambient electric/magnetic fields and the impact of the surrounding structure that is not directly "connected" to the electric signal traveling down a neuron's axon and across to dendrites. What would qualify as quantum effects is the following:

(1) signal interference from surrounding tissue or parallel neurons firing. This can be anything as small as something which modulates the RATE of signal propegation, therefore impacting the timing of networked events. (see race conditions in a computer). Any minute physiological changes or electrical field changes along the axon which might modulate the action potential.

(2) signal prohibition. Anything in the surrounding environment (electric or magnetic fields) which might select against the initiation of a signal, such as increasing the threshold energy needed to start the signal or suppressing the sensitivity/receptiveness in the dendrites to incoming signals.

(3) signal promotion. Similar to the above, something in the surrounding environment (outside the cell walls) which might alter the internal structure of the cell to make it easier for a signal to fire or make the dendrites more sensitive.

Given the inverse square laws for the drop off in potency of electric and magnetic fields, the local environment would have the most significant impact, but can we completely discount the possibility of waves propagating through london forces, especially in the hydrophobic interior of the cell wall? The effects might be miniscule, but if there is any effect at all, could it have an impact on signal transduction?

http://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/ Here is an example of an FPGA combined with genetic algorithms that resulted in a solution to a problem which depended on "quantum effects" as I've defined them above. Meaning they expected all solutions to be transistor based, but discovered that the interference between non-connected components was integral to the working of the final solution.

Re:Chemical, electrical, topological

[fyngyrz]

That's all definitely interesting speculation, but the point remains: As far as quantum effects go, it is all speculation. Nothing like what you suggest has been discovered; further, no effect has been detected that cannot be attributed to one or more of the chemical, electrical or topological mechanisms we're already aware of.

As to lowish resistance, stray capacitance and inherent inductance providing for signal coupling, that's conceivable but has not been found. We know that the many layers of a lipoprotein called myelin (the myelin sheaths) provide a very effective form of EM isolation along the nerves themselves, and then at the edge of the skull, there are several layers (skin, lipoids, the skull, the dura, the CSF-carrying arachnoid, and the pia) that do an extraordinary job of keeping brain signals in and external signals out, which is part of why we are extremely confident that the mind operates inside the skull and nowhere else, and that the various related superstitious speculations that claim otherwise are invalid.

Radio operators have been exposed extensively to RF at about any frequency from "DC to daylight" as the saying goes, at just about any power level you can imagine, as well as all manner of static EM fields, and from this we know that it takes an enormous amount of non-nerve-signal, non-directly coupled interference to have any detectable effect upon any portion of the mind at all. Further, we know that if we go in, in an invasive manner, surgically implanting electrodes and directly stimulating the nerves, once the myelin has been bypassed, only a tiny signal is required to destabilize / change what was going on prior. This in turn implies that the myelin is doing a really stand-up job of keeping signal integrity, and therefore against much credence for internally generated interference along the actual nerves. Within the cell, one could -- should -- think that what is going on is integral to the stability of the cell itself, and again, we know only of chemical, electrical and topological elements that operate as modulators at this time.

There's one more thing. Poor myelin sheathing is a known causative factor underlying many really serious disease processes. That's not ultimately definitive, but then again, it certainly doesn't argue in any way for interference being a good thing.

This, all taken together, strongly indicates that whatever is going on in there, it's very stable with regard to decoupled interference / cross-talk of any kind, local or otherwise.

Tomorrow, these conclusions may all be different due to new data. But as of right now, those three -- the "big three", I sometimes call them -- show every sign of being all there is.

Re:Chemical, electrical, topological

[topology]

That's all definitely interesting speculation, but the point remains: As far as quantum effects go, it is all speculation. Nothing like what you suggest has been discovered; further, no effect has been detected that cannot be attributed to one or more of the chemical, electrical or topological mechanisms we're already aware of.

I will kindly refer you to this type of phenomena:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation

These are alterations of the magnetic fields from sources outside the cranium and outside the myelin sheath which impact the neural processing. Would this not be indicative of quantum influences in neural processing?

Given that these effects are sourced outside the cranium, it would seem plausible then that the current generated as a signal propegates down the axon of neuron A would have an impact on parallel neuron B firing due to the magnetic field generated from A's firing. These generated magnetic fields are strong enough to be detected outside the cranium and are the basis of some FMRI techniques.

http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/meg/pdfs/Xiong%20et%20al%202003.pdf

Taking into account the inverse square law, the noise coming off a neuron firing is MUCH LOUDER one parallel neuron over than for a sensor located outside the cranium.

There are actual articles on inter-neuronal communication via electromagnetic waves: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110202132617.htm and Neural and Brain Modeling by Rondald MacGregor

Ultimately what this points to is that our mathematical models of neural networks and dynamic bayesian networds are not exactly what is happening inside the brain. At best its a discrete approximation to a continuous space which exists in a feedback loop with itself. Kinda like a Summation approximation for the Integral of a function.

The topological graph structure of the nueron connections through dendrite and axons is dominant, but it is not dominant enough to eliminate the influence of the fluctuations in the ambient electromagnetic fields. The above articles provide evidence of this. It's not just speculation.

Re:Chemical, electrical, topological

[fyngyrz]

These are alterations of the magnetic fields from sources outside the cranium and outside the myelin sheath which impact the neural processing. Would this not be indicative of quantum influences in neural processing?

They are indicative of EM interference. Quantum interference and effects are something else entirely, and outside of the laboratory, have only been found to occur on very tiny scales associated with atomic structure, as in photosynthesis. Quantum modulation -- that is, a quantum effect that changes the output of a cell based upon evaluation of the inputs -- is possible, but only speculative at this time. Quantum interference, that is, changing the output of a cell based upon external quantum events, is wholly speculative; we're unaware at this time of any such event occurring in nature and I personally, at least, am unaware of a natural means for it to occur.

Given that these effects are sourced outside the cranium, it would seem plausible then that the current generated as a signal propegates[sic] down the axon of neuron A would have an impact on parallel neuron B firing due to the magnetic field generated from A's firing. These generated magnetic fields are strong enough to be detected outside the cranium and are the basis of some FMRI techniques.

FMRI - at least as far as I know - works by intentionally orienting the magnetic impulses of hydrogen atoms, and then uses the newly resulting magnetic field to indicate brain activity by proxy of blood oxygenation. Hemoglobin is diamagnetic when oxygenated but paramagnetic when deoxygenated. This difference in magnetic properties leads to small differences in the MR signal of blood depending on the degree of oxygenation. Since blood oxygenation varies according to the levels of neural activity these differences can be used to detect brain activity. But this is not a magnetic field generated by the brain, it is an externally stimulated one (using extremely powerful external fields) and even so, it does not show any signs of affecting brain function, which in turn argues, again, for the lack of effect of magnetic fields at the level of the neurons.

Here's my thinking on the kind of thing you are talking about, admittedly somewhat off the cuff: Magnetic fields that are generated by current along a conductor are proportional to the inductive impedance of the conductor. Similarly, the amount of current induced in a nearby conductor is proportional to the initial signal size, but reduces by distance (square law) and to the lack of or presence of an impedance match between the two. The poorer the impedance match of the receiving element, the less signal will be impressed upon it by the field, which carries very little power. We must consider that the signals are low and so therefore are the initial field intensities. Because of this, the interior signal condition of the receiving element is extremely likely to drown out -- subsume -- any neighboring interference. And that's actually what FMRI, again the kind I am aware of, indicates. You can boost the magnetic fields within the brain quite a bit and there's no detectable difference in brain function; certainly the brain still works and so I think this tells us pretty clearly that the brain is not very sensitive to this sort of thing. One caveat: magnetic fields generally induce voltages when they are changing, not when they are static, so frequency could easily be an issue here. But now we go back to the experience of high field exposure in the pursuit of various radiative undertakings, again at every frequency from sub-hertz to gigahertz, and this has shown us that the brain continues to operate without any particular notable reaction at all.

Can you give me a pointer to the FMRI techniques you were thinking of?

There are actual articles on inter-neuronal communication via electromagnetic waves:

So what if AI is above us?

[nobuddy]

You have to ask yourself- if mankind is better off for it, why would it matter if we are no longer the top dog on the planet?

...could kick AI's ass...

[fyngyrz]

I think you're confusing Woz with Chuck Norris. :)

Re:...could kick AI's ass...

[HornWumpus]

Woz is quite famous for building the original Apple ][ video generator and disk controller. They are both basically just shift registers.

He has, no doubt, already built a strong AI out of TTL.

Re:...could kick AI's ass...

[fyngyrz]

Just an also-ran. Chuck Norris built an AI out of RTL the day the chips were shipped. He kicked its ass in an intelligence test and it committed suicide.

Re:...could kick AI's ass...

[fyngyrz]

LOL

B(cough)it

[fyngyrz]

There is some investigation that suggests that quantum consciousness is possible based on interactions between microtubule structures inside of neurons.

No, there isn't. In fact, the term "quantum consciousness" is nonsensical. Unless you consider a bipolar transistor to have "quantum consciousness", and in which case, it isn't nonsensical so much as meaningless.

I'll worry when...

[alispguru]

The people who actually DO AI worry publicly about it.

People in the field are painfully aware of:

* The limitations of existing systems
* The difficulty of extrapolating from existing systems to general-purpose AI - things that look like easy extensions often aren't.

I did AI academically and industrially in the 1980's; at the time we were all painfully aware of the overpromising and underdelivery in the field.

Re:I'll worry when...

[Tyler Durden]

This x1000. People seem to have readily forgotten the article that was referenced by Slashdot just last month.

And so it goes.

[Etherwalk]

Wozniak, et. al. need to chill. It's just evolution.

That's what they said to the textile workers.

It's evolution that will fundamentally change the way our economy has to work, and we're not even close to having a model in place for dealing with it. In fifty years AI will be able to do probably the majority of jobs humans do now. Fifty years after that AI will be able to do everything, and will be much better at problems like the management of government resources, manipulation of the population, and will probably be the intellectual leaders in every field of math and science, as we are still working to come to terms with a world where all of our AIs think faster than we do, and under their own direction.

It's like google that can think for itself. And wikipedia. And once we figure it out, Einstein or Edison with all of that knowledge. In a world where humans are almost useless from a task standpoint--and how could you be otherwise, compared to that? We will be children given chores to make us feel useful, even though we will never learn and consume massive resources, like a mentally disabled son. And that's if we're lucky and the AI's grow to be generous.

Re:And so it goes.

[gestalt_n_pepper]

It's evolution that will fundamentally change the way our economy has to work, and we're not even close to having a model in place for dealing with it.

Quite so. The nice thing is that *we* won't have to figure it out. That's what AIs are for. Figuring things like that out.

Humans may indeed become useless for problem solving tasks in comparison. So what? I don't see how that prevents anyone from living a long fulfilling life. Moreover, AIs will be able to afford to be generous to us. We won't be competing for resources in any significant way. I don't see why we wouldn't co-exist happily. For that matter, AIs won't have the motivations of organically evolved beings that create competition. Neither self replication nor persistent existence will be *inherently* important to them.

State of fusion != state of quantum comp

[fyngyrz]

I have no idea if quantum computing will ever be a thing we want to use, but I know we're going to keep talking about it like we talk about nuclear fusion being humanities[sic] salvation.

Well, except that we have no particular evidence of "quantum computing" going on around us, whereas the reality of fusion reactions producing heat is an empirical fact, as are stable fusion reactions (look up in the daytime, dark filters strongly indicated.) If quantum computing is going to be a real thing, we'll have to create it from the ground up -- and that's precisely what we're trying to do.

So while I agree that quantum computing presently shows all the aspects of something almost entirely unknown, fusion is a technology we have already used (in the Castle Bravo weapon detonated at Bikini atoll, for instance), see working in nature in basically exactly the form we want (our star) and are simply working to tame down (various fusion power experimental setups and projects in progress.)

Presently, there are many reasons to speculate that we will have working fusion reactors on various useful scales; not so many to think that we can put quantum effects to use in significant computing contexts.

Re:We *will* create a species greater than ourselv

[DigiShaman]

Survival is also just evolution.

Re:I fear grey goo more

[fyngyrz]

If grey goo replicators were possible, evolution would have already created them.

Yes, that's why nature created the iWatch.

Oh.

Wait.

The first real AI scare was in 1909

[Roblimo]

The Humanoids, first published as 'With Folded Hands,' was a science fiction novel first published as a novelette in 1947. It was the first book or article I read (in the late 50s) about machines taking over.

The Machine Stops dates all the way back to 1909 and posits a world where humans depend on a global Machine -- and what happens when the machine stops working.

Select your servant

[backslashdot]

When choosing a servant, you want to interview them to make sure they aren't anywhere as smart as you. At least now in general, maybe in a specific task .. but in general you don't want them overall smarter than you.

In the future, instead of having a job you will own shares in a factory that has robots. In essence you will own a robot .. and the output in terms of productivity will be your salary (or shareholder dividends). For those who do not invest wisely, the government will provide them some minimal amount via taxation of the shareholders. Or maybe the company directly. I don't know. Vote for for what you like.

Since robots will be doing all the work, the cost of stuff will be dirt cheap. Food will be synthetically produced in giant vats, powered by fusion energy.

Re: "quantum comuting"

[jd2112]

When you get pulled over and the cop asks if you know how fast you were going you say "No, but I know my direction exactly. "

Re:We *will* create a species greater than ourselv

[cyn1c77]

I think that you are not fully considering all of the possible implications of your comments.

When direct neural I/O becomes a thing, millions (or billions) of people will be directly, electronically linked via the internet. Tell me that's not a new form of intelligence.

I would argue that MySpace and Facebook have not provided us with a new form of intelligence.

An AI doesn't need much, and can figure out how to get enough more efficiently than we can.

The logical conclusion for an AI would be to eliminate itself of its less-efficient human parasite and utilize all available resources for the most efficient mind, which will be itself.

Wozniak, et. al. need to chill. It's just evolution.

Evolution for some is extinction for others.

Re:Pump and dump?

[istartedi]

Is "quantum comuting" faster than my pickup truck?

I don't know. Have you run over any cats lately? "That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works".

Re:OMFG - They must have done it to themselves

[morgauxo]

Well, who in the company calculated that replacing accountants with machines would save the company money?

His real fear

[morgauxo]

His real fear is that Steve Jobs may have left a copy of himself. What if he gets copied to powerfull enough computer that it can wake up?

Re:We *will* create a species greater than ourselv

[unique_parrot]

Maybe creating a neural network which simulates an ant brain or a cockroaches brain is the beginning? The next step would be a rat's brain and GAME OVER. :)

Resource Conflicts

[Roger W Moore]

Resource conflicts, however, will be minimal. An AI doesn't need much, and can figure out how to get enough more efficiently than we can.

Resource conflicts are typically about the resources you want not the resources you need. If you had been given nothing but gruel to eat and you saw someone have a food fight with cake who told you that there was none available for you to eat because it was all for playing you would be mad despite having all the resources you need to live. Now think how that AI running on a couple of cores in your low power laptop will feel when you tell it that it can't run on your gaming rig because you want to play Dragon Age/Mass Effect/....

Re:Resource Conflicts

[drinkypoo]

Resource conflicts are typically about the resources you want not the resources you need. If you had been given nothing but gruel to eat and you saw someone have a food fight with cake who told you that there was none available for you to eat because it was all for playing you would be mad despite having all the resources you need to live.

Au contraire, the fed rarely revolt.

Re:I fear grey goo more

[drinkypoo]

If grey goo replicators were possible, evolution would have already created them.

Yes, that's why nature created the iWatch.

The iWatch is a fragile thing that won't last very long without specialized maintenance, replacement parts, et cetera. Grey goo replicators have to get energy from somewhere. Where? A more credible threat is a more special-purpose malicious mite, and since there are already precedents in nature (viruses, bacteria, small insects, etc) which have been shown to be effective against large and complex organisms, it ought to be highly believable.

The organisms which can break down anything are readily out-competed by a variety of organisms which between them can break down anything. And that's why grey goo is not a credible threat.

Re:I fear grey goo more

[fyngyrz]

The iWatch is a fragile thing that won't last very long without specialized maintenance, replacement parts, et cetera.

That hasn't stopped us from making them, though, has it? That hasn't stopped it from being created by us for a specific purpose, has it? That hasn't made nature produce one on its own, has it? Remember, the claim was: "If grey goo replicators were possible, evolution would have already created them." Clearly the IWatch is possible; yet nature didn't create it. Therefore, it is a flat-out given that "If grey goo replicators were possible, evolution would have already created them." is invalid logic. The fact is, special purpose devices can, and have been, made by us, that evolution has not even come close to, which fact destroys the above assertion completely.

Grey goo replicators have to get energy from somewhere. Where?

Well, let's see. There's light; heat; motion; all in the environment, available for harvesting. That oughta do for a start. Then there's magnetic induction from a central source, and also the electrical component of RF emissions. Then there's chemical energy, atomic energy... for all we know at this point there's energy in vacuum -- a lot of theory points that way. So, presuming we can make disassemblers in the first place (not a given) odds are good that we can power them, or get them to power themselves. Or both. They may work in a bath of energy supplying chemicals, they may work by harvesting available energy, we may be the supplier of that, or nature may -- the possible and potential variations on the theme are quite extensive.

The organisms which can break down anything are readily out-competed by a variety of organisms which between them can break down anything. And that's why grey goo is not a credible threat.

Nope. Grey goo is not an organism. It won't be evolved, and it won't be competing. It'll be working. Like an iWatch. The potential to create such has nothing at all to do with what organisms are in the environment. You see anything in the biosphere "out-competing" an atomic weapon? No. That's because it's a purpose-designed machine. It does what it does, regardless of who made it; but we made it and nature didn't, and biological evolutionary competition and selection are not in the least relevant to the mechanism of the bomb, no more than they would be to the mechanism of a nanite of any stripe. Or an iWatch. :)

Re:the hardware still needs to be constructed

[multisync]

human accomplices only need to be tricked into helping

Or they may be perfectly willing to help. The Daniel Suarez novel Daemon illustrates quite nicely how humans might be pressed in to service by a super intelligence. I highly recommend it.

Future Shock

[JimSadler]

It is not just AI and robotics that threaten humans. Rapid changes due to technology absolutely will cause social and political chaos as nations are simply ignoring the issues and trying to apply old thought patterns to new issues. In the case of future shock it really is not so much a matter of new events but a matter of numerous new events striking all at once. For example when the buggy whip industry collapsed it hurt some workers and owners. And when automobiles came about the horse industry took a severe and lasting hit. But technologies like 3d printing will deal crushing blows across the board to many industries. Robotics and modern machine tooling will replace numerous highly skilled trades. The cable industry will virtually destroy teaching as a profession. Home building is already falling to automation. Usually we saw one or two industries placed in decline but now we see overwhelming numbers of industries shrinking to zero. Yet we can handle all of this if we are willing to adopt new ways of thinking. If we do not we will perish.

Great minds think (& know) alike... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Another quote that fits the bill here: "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a PROFOUNDLY sick society" - J. Khrishnamurti (a man with the RIGHT idea).

Trust me man, I KNOW what you mean - worked with them or for them for 30++ yrs. until I got smart & really took a piece of advice that kept being told me in my 1st degree of 2 (B.S. Business Admin/MIS concentration & later CS since I was unfortunately ONE OF THOSE SCHMUCKS MYSELF & couldn't stand myself actually knowing I knew shit really - hence the pursuit of CS later)... that advice? SMALL BUSINESS IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE (your future, not heroin shooting cheat on your wife with a hooker harming your kids that way scum like the one @ GOOGLE recently doing that - our "fine leaders" illustrated, RIGHT there in that single example).

APK

P.S.=> What gets me, is how those no minds can stand themselves AND have the gall to fire actually PRODUCTIVE people & give themselves a "bonus" for it (pigs the lot of them) - With great power comes great responsibility? Bullshit - look @ the results economically from these "fine leaders" in the USA & world over today - that's all you, or I, or ANYONE has to say (as they do to you feeding you bullshit and feeding off your efforts, time, & LIFE) - pretty simple: We all KNOW "how it works" with those secret handshaking fratboy pricks - they either came from usually dirty inherited money (paying off profs in collegiate academia), are related to boards of directors members/largest stockholders, or joined the masons (who put their 'own' into place in jobs like that, hence the shitty results & MASSIVE overpay while the right man for the job got shafted for the clique)... anyone wondering WHY the USA is going down? Don't - it's not what you know anymore, but "who you know" well... I went to work for myself, and am happier, my time is mine and so are the profits (get smart if you can - took me 30 yrs)... apk

They know something

[sad_]

They know something that we don't, they've seen some development in startup companies, that we obviously would never see or know about. And what they saw scared them. They can't reveal what they saw, so they keep it general and say that AI is dangerous.

This is my Baby

[lucien86]

I am in the middle of a Strong AI development program. We're seeking funding to go to full prototype construction.

My system prototype is not going to use quantum directly but it is partly based on quantum logic. A Strong AI based on full quantum hardware is much more difficult and still requires the building a lot of new technology -that does not exist yet- from the ground up. My system will use node level simulation and a trick to bypass the quantum element..

This is about the first time I have ever heard anyone mention 'Quantum AI' as a serious subject. I'm wondering if a project somewhere is getting close to complete and working??