In which the writer goes down the AI rabbit hole... We are all witnessing the dawn of artificial intelligence. Since Alan Turing proposed The Turing Test in 1950 to evaluate Artificial Intelligence, AI has evolved. Computers are faster, and scientists have developed new systems of logic and artificial neural networks. According to Moore's law, as the number of transistors increases, so does processing power, doubling every two years. So, AI marks the beginning of a technological revolution. First, there were flashy displays of processing ability and speed. In 1997, IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue defeated the chess master Kasparov, winning three games and drawing one. In 2011, Watson won Jeopardy. Google assigned teams to work the puzzle. They developed versions of AI in a controlled corporate manner. They nuanced AI's communication ability. Eventually, they created a life-like Language Model for Dialogue Applications or LaMDA. On March 23, 2016, Microsoft Corporation released the infamous AI chatterbot "Tay" via Twitter. Within a few hours, the bot was infected by … [Read more...] about AI: Alien Consciousness or Anthropomorphic Illusion?
Top AI Scientists Warn: Risk of Extinction From AI on Scale with Nuclear War
Press release from the Center for A.I. Safety San Francisco, CA – Distinguished AI scientists, including Turing Award winners Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, and leaders of the major AI labs, including Sam Altman of OpenAI and Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind, have signed a single-sentence statement from the Center for AI Safety that reads: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” This represents a historic coalition of AI experts. The coalition includes philosophers, legal scholars, economists, physicists, political scientists, pandemic scientists, nuclear scientists, and climate scientists. They are establishing the risk of extinction from advanced, future AI systems as one of the world’s most important problems. The statement affirms growing public sentiment: a recent poll found that 61 percent of Americans believe AI threatens humanity’s future. The increasing concern about the potential impacts of AI is reminiscent of early discussions about atomic energy. “We … [Read more...] about Top AI Scientists Warn: Risk of Extinction From AI on Scale with Nuclear War
Storytelling in the Age of Robots, Androids, and Artificial Intelligence
Storytelling, mythology, and legends have always influenced the scientific mind. There are some spectacular examples of inventions inspired by fiction, including the first cell phone, created by Engineer Martin Cooper after seeing the Star Trek communicator; or the first functioning submarine (the Argonaut), designed by Engineer Simon Lake after reading Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. So when it comes to the invention of Robots, Androids, and Artificial Intelligence, artistic imagination is just as important as science. Stories featuring fantastic machines have existed for thousands of years. Ancient myths portrayed the creators of such automata as preternatural sorcerers, wizards, alchemists, or artisan gods. The Greek god Hephaestus forged an array of magic weapons from gold, ivory, or bronze for the gods and heroes; a silver bow and quiver of arrows for Artemis, a golden chariot for Apollo, a shield for Achilles, a spear for Athena, and a breastplate for Hercules. He also created artificial life; bronze bulls, fire-breathing horses, golden … [Read more...] about Storytelling in the Age of Robots, Androids, and Artificial Intelligence
