Artificial Intelligence - The End of Humanity?

Discussion in 'Free Speech Alley' started by Bengal B, May 15, 2015.

  1. Bengal B

    Bengal B Founding Member

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  2. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    Science fiction. Artificial intelligence is achievable but it won't be intelligence equivalent to a human brain. Neither will it be in a "robot". It will reside in big computers unable to replicate itself. It will still be programmable and controllable. Robots will get very smart but remain reliant on human manufacture and programming. We are nowhere close to artificial intelligence capable of sustaining itself and eliminating humans, although it has made for some very good novels. We aren't really even close to android-type robots that can mimic human physiology. Computers and robotics will remain sophisticated tools for a very long time, possibly forever.
     
  3. Bengal B

    Bengal B Founding Member

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    All that's true for now, but what about in the future? At some point computers may become self aware and able to reprogram themselves.
     
  4. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    How will they grow fingers and eyes? How can they develop emotions, desires, and ambitions? Could they ever become truly wise or possess imagination? Sure machines will get more sophisticated but I don't see them surpassing our own sophistication which also continues to grow. Human brains could become sophisticated enough to make computers obsolete in the far future you foresee. I just don't see AI computers developing their own civilization.

    We may see some very sophisticated symbiosis of man and machine. Better artificial limbs, hearts and such. Embedded computers enabling paraplegics to walk. Perhaps even supercomputers integrating human perception combined with microprocessor speed and precision. I never expect to see a computer sculpt marble like Michelangelo or write a Symphony like Beethoven or even to appreciate a good novel. Computers are fast and precise but they have to be told what to do and how to do it. They just are not very smart. They can be made to appear to be smart, but it is not the same as intelligence as we understand it. A computer cannot even multiply, but it can add so fast that it greatly resembles multiplication.

    I don't think an AI computer can accomplish advanced endeavors without human involvement any more than a hammer can drive a nail by itself.
     
  5. Bengal B

    Bengal B Founding Member

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    So you see human evolution keeping pace with technolgy? Of course machines wouldn't have the human creativity to appreciate good music, art or literature. They would be souless automations but they could possibly in time learn to create art or music that would be appreciated by humans by extrapolating the essence of what all the history of what people see as great and average and crappy and assigning a digital value to each of the minute processes that go into creation and then produce it. Take literature. A computer that knew all the words that exist and could put them in any order at random trying quintillions of combinations per second while following algorythms assigning a "human appreciation value" to each might come up with a novel that a lot of people would like. It might even be so original and profound that it would be the greatest work of all time. Until the computer wrote another one a second or two later.

    Already mainframes like Big Blue are amazingly fast but sooner or later quantum computers will be developed and produced. From what I have read about the expected abilities of a quantum computer one would be capable of performing the combined calculations of a billion mainframes almost instantaneously.

    We won't live to see all this but Elon Musk is so concerned about the negative possibilities of AI that he has donated $10 Million to study it.
     
  6. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    Not evolution perhaps, but human sophistication. We have barely evolved since the dawn of civilization 10,000 years ago, but we have gotten increasingly sophisticated on an exponential curve. Technology itself is an exclusively human capability.
     
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  7. TwistedTiger

    TwistedTiger Founding Member

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    I've been waiting for Cherry 2000 since I was 15! Hurry up already!
     
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  8. Bengal B

    Bengal B Founding Member

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    I've been waiting for a flying car my whole life.
     
  9. LaSalleAve

    LaSalleAve when in doubt, mumble

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    I wish that ancient aliens guy was on this board.
     
  10. Bengal B

    Bengal B Founding Member

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    You mean martin?
     

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