My own prediction is that we will see singularity with humans 1st via BMI/ BI technology and other bio-computing technology before we see a machine brain operating a the level of a healthy fully funtional human brain.
Since War of the Worlds hit the silver screen, never has the notion that machine intelligence will overtake human intelligence is more real. In this two-part series, the author examines the growing trend towards cognitive machines.
They need to be especially as we assess AI with SOX, HIPAA, and Cyber security. It will be interesting how auditors will approach this space as well since not many folks outside of tech are considered AI experts. This should be interesting.
Scott & Scott, LLP attorney, Christopher Barnett, expresses concern whether KPMG’s recent announcement that they will be deploying IBM’s Watson cognitive computing technology points to changes in software audits in the future.
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Bots; the Next Frontier.
The market for apps is maturing. Now one for text-based services, or chatbots, looks poised to take off.
D-Wave not only created the standard for Quantum Computing; they are the standard for QC in N. America at least. Granted more competitors will enter the field; however, D-Wave is the commercial competitor with proven technology and credentials that others will have to meet up to or excel past to be a real player in the QC landscape.
Burnaby-based D-Wave, which was founded in 1999 as a spin-off from the physics department of the University of British Columbia has become nothing less than the leading repository of quantum computing intellectual property in the world, says the analyst. He thinks D-Wave’s customers will be positioned to gain massive competitive advantages because they will be able to solve problems that normal computers simply can’t, such those in areas such as DNA sequencing, financial analysis, and artificial intelligence.
“We stand at the precipice of a computing revolution,” says Kim. “Processing power is taking a huge leap forward thanks to ingenious innovations that leverage the counter-intuitive and unique properties of the quantum realm. Quantum mechanics, theorized many decades ago, is finally ready for prime time. Imagine, if we could go back to 1946 and have the same foresight with the ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer. ENIAC’s pioneers created a new industry and opened up unimaginable possibilities. The same opportunity exists today with D-Wave Systems. D-Wave is the world’s first quantum computing company and represents the most unique and disruptive company that we have seen in our career.
The growth of human and computer intelligence has triggered a barrage of dire predictions about the rise of super intelligence and the singularity. But some retain their skepticism, including Dr. Michael Shermer, a science historian and founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine.
The reason so many rational people put forward hypotheses that are more hype than high tech, Shermer says, is that being smart and educated doesn’t protect anyone from believing in “weird things.” In fact, sometimes smart and educated people are better at rationalizing beliefs that they hold for not-so-rational reasons. The smarter and more educated you are, the better able you are to find evidence to support what you want to be true, suggests Shermer.
“This explains why Nobel Prize winners speak about areas they know nothing about with great confidence and are sure that they’re right. Just because they have this great confidence of being able to do that (is) a reminder that they’re more like lawyers than scientists in trying to marshal a case for their client,” Shermer said. “(Lawyers) just put together the evidence, as much as you can, in support of your client and get rid of the negative evidence. In science you’re not allowed to do that, you’re supposed to look at all the evidence, including the counter evidence to your theory.”
The root of many of these false hypotheses, Shermer believes, is based in religion. Using immortality as an example, Shermer said the desire to live forever has strong parallels to religious beliefs; however, while there are many making prophecies that technology will insure we’ll live forever, too many people in groups throughout history have made similar yet unfulfilled promises.
“What we’d like to be true is not necessarily what is true, so the burden of proof is on them to go ahead and make the case. Like the cryonics people…they make certain claims that this or that technology is going to revive people that are frozen later…I hope they do it, but you’ve got to prove otherwise. You have to show that you can actually do that.”
Even if we do find a way to live forever, Shermer notes the negatives may outweigh the positives. It’s not just living longer that we want to achieve, but living longer at a high quality of life. There’s not much benefit in living to age 150, he adds, if one is bedridden for 20 or 30 years.
Instead, Shermer compares the process to the evolution of the automobile. While the flying cars promised by 1950’s-era futurists haven’t come to pass, today’s automobile is exponentially smarter and safer than those made 50 or 60 years ago. While forward thinkers have had moments of lucid foresight, humans also have a history of making technology predictions that often don’t turn out to be realized. Often, as is the case with the automobile, we don’t notice differences in technological changes because the changes happen incrementally each year.
“That’s what’s really happening with health and longevity. We’re just creeping up the ladder slowly but surely. We’ve seen hip replacements, organ transplants, better nutrition, exercise, and getting a better feel for what it takes to be healthy,” Shermer says. “The idea that we’re gonna’ have one big giant discovery made that’s going to change everything? I think that’s less likely than just small incremental things. A Utopian (society) where everybody gets to live forever and they’re infinitely happy and prosperous and so on? I think it’s unrealistic to think along those lines.”
Looking at the future of technology, Shermer is equally reticent to buy in to the predictions of artificial intelligence taking over the world. “I think the concern about AI turning evil (and) this dystopian, science fiction perspective is again, not really grounded in reality. I’m an AI optimist, but I don’t think the AI pessimists have any good arguments,” Shermer said
While we know, for the most part, which types of governments work well, we don’t have any similar precedent for complex AI systems. Humans will remain in control and, before we start passing laws and restrictions to curb AI out of fear, Shermer believes we should keep improving our computers and artificial intelligence to make life better, evaluating and taking action as these systems continue to evolve.
Twenty six hundred years ago, a band of Judahite soldiers kept watch on their kingdom’s southern border in the final days before Jerusalem was sacked by Nebuchadnezzar. They left behind numerous inscriptions—and now, a groundbreaking digital analysis has revealed how many writers penned them. The research and innovative technology behind it stand to teach us about the origins of the Bible itself.
“It’s well understood that the Bible was not composed in real time but was probably written and edited later,” Arie Shaus, a mathematician at Tel Aviv University told Gizmodo. “The question is, when exactly?”
Shaus is one of several mathematicians and archaeologists trying to broach that question in a radical manner: by using machine learning tools to determine how many people were literate in ancient times. Their first major analysis, which appears today in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, suggests that the ability to read and write was widespread throughout the Kingdom of Judah, setting the stage for the compilation of Biblical texts.
Jason Dunn Made In Space, Inc.
The objective of this study is for Made In Space (MIS) to establish the concept feasibility of using the age-old technique of analog computers and mechanisms to convert entire asteroids into enormous autonomous mechanical spacecraft. Project RAMA, Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical Automata, has been designed to leverage the advancing trends of additive manufacturing (AM) and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) to enable asteroid rendezvous missions in which a set of technically simple robotic processes convert asteroid elements into very basic versions of spacecraft subsystems (GNC, Propulsion, Avionics). Upon completion, the asteroid will be a programmed mechanical automata carrying out a given mission objective; such as relocation to an Earth-Moon libration point for human rendezvous or perhaps to set an Earth-threatening NEO on course to the outer solar system and out of harm’s way. This technique will create an affordable and scalable way for NASA to achieve future roadmap items for both the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) and the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) such as Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), New Frontiers Comet Surface Sample Return, and other Near Earth Object (NEO) applications. It is estimated that an order of magnitude increase in NEO targets can be explored for the same mission cost with the RAMA approach compared to the SOA Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) architecture by removing the need to launch all spacecraft subsystems and instead converting the asteroid into them in-situ. Assuming the development trends continue for industry based AM methods as well as NASA and industry investments in ISRU capabilities, Project RAMA will create a space mission architecture capable of achieving the aforementioned NASA goals within a 20–30 year time frame. Furthermore, as described in the proposal, the identified study path will provide insight into near term Mission ‘Pull’ technologies worth investment in order to create the development roadmap for the proposed ‘Push’ technologies for achieving NASA’s long term strategic goals.
Depends who is doing the creating. If a robot is created/ altered by ISIS to attack the western world then robots. At the same time, if a crazy scientist decides to genetically create Cyclops to take over the UK, US, etc. then the genetically alter species. Truly depends on the creator and the creator’s eye.
At Silicon Valley’s inaugural Comic Con, we gave a talk called “Superbabies vs. AI.” Astro, who is captain of moonshots at Alphabet’s X division, argued that genetically engineered babies are going to destroy civilization as we know it. He sees the horror of eugenics, X-Men, and a planet entirely populated by the sort of kids who beat him up in middle school, all rolled into one. Danielle, a physician-scientist and wife of said captain of moonshots, argued that the robot apocalypse is going to annihilate humanity. Super intelligent computers will eventually destroy us all, no matter what sort of Asimovian instructions we try to give them. The jury is out about who won the debate, but here are the most important issues we explored.
Will highly evolved AI break into banking systems and steal all of our money or send drones to kill us all?
It’s not likely that AI will ever resemble a human super villain. As an analogy, while airplanes and birds can both fly, they are not otherwise similar, and neither is better at all aspects of flying. Likewise, computers are already much better than humans when it comes to memory and calculations, but they can’t manage a three minute conversation with a barista at Starbucks.
