

Venture capitalist: We need to prepare for artificial intelligence - donna
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_6819441

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mechanical_fish
If you want to think about the singularity, you owe it to yourself to listen
to Bruce Sterling's awesome deconstruction of the subject:

<http://www.longnow.org/projects/seminars/> (search for him near the bottom of
the page)

Talk of the singularity reminds me of the furor over human cloning - it's an
excellent generator of fantasy-lit plot coupons, late-night drunken dorm-room
philosophy, and paranoid fundamentalist ravings, but in real life it's much
more boring. I know lots of human clones - they're called "identical twins",
and they are little different from anyone else. And, speaking as a strong AI
that is composed of trillions of microscopic robots working in tandem, it's
hard to be impressed by yet another strong AI like me. There's well over six
billion of us already, and that's being awfully ungenerous to chimps,
gorillas, dogs, and my pet parrot. If I really wanted another strong AI,
wouldn't it be cheaper and easier just to stop using birth control? Or to go
to the pound and adopt a friendly but unwanted puppy?

To pick on a different example: it is the height of human egotism to believe
that our scientists can create a "grey goo" that would scare a bacterium, let
alone me. Bacteria have been dividing every few minutes for _several billion
years_. They cover every inch of the earth, and compose large portions of the
soil. As I type this, billions of bacteria are actively trying to digest me.
It's no big deal. We grew up with this problem and have coped with it all our
lives, as did our ancestors - and I'm not talking about our African ancestors,
our shrewlike ancestors, or our fishlike ancestors, but about our _algal mat
ancestors_. We've got a lot of experience, and the bacteria have even more. In
a battle between a human-designed replicator and a cubic foot of soil
bacteria, I'm going to bet on the machine that's had a longer design cycle.

~~~
ph0rque
> As I type this, billions of bacteria are actively trying to digest me.

Y'know, that would be an awesome first sentence for a sci-fi story.

------
henning
I've seen extremely smart, rich, accomplished, and respectable people (not
crackpots) talk at length about the inevitable coming of bona fide strong AI,
and I don't believe it. You try getting someone excited about a cool machine
learning paper you read. See if they give a shit.

There's a large gap in between the development of an exciting new algorithmic
technology and use of it in the real world, if anyone ever takes notice at
all.

The silver lining to this is that if you find an interesting but obscure paper
and you implement what the authors implemented, you can be pretty sure you and
the authors are the only people who ever have or ever will actually do that.
It's a nice change of pace from writing CRUD web apps.

~~~
yamada
Don't be so sure ... intelligence is based on self-awareness, which is in turn
a function of complex systems once they reach a certain tipping point. Do your
individual brain cells understand that they form the basis for your mind? Of
course not. But they do. For all we know all our constant e-blabbering on the
internet is somehow contributing to the formation of some "Mega-Mind" in some
way that is just as incomprehensible to us as your mind is to the brain cells
that make it. How then can you be sure that computers have not already reached
some sort of systematic self awareness? Perhaps they have and are trying to
get rid of us by flooding the internet with porn and flash games in order to
pre-occupy us and distract us from doing what it takes to keep the economy
going. Think about it. Next time you read about how online porn is a multi-
billion dollar industry, ask yourself, "Who actually pays for this stuff when
it's all availabe for free?" Nobody. So how does it keep popping up when
there's no money being paid? Computer conspiracy - that's how. All these
social networks - were they really started by humans? Or by computers in order
to keep us busy and distracted? How do you know they were started by humans?
Because you read an article on a computer that says there's this guy, Mark
Zuckerwhatever, and he started Facebook, etc. What if he's just a computer
composite of a non-existing human? What if facebook was actually started by
artificial intelligence? What if my response is also not generated by a human
but by some online AI entity to mess with your mind? See - you never know -
best play it safe and leave the possibility open.

~~~
henning
Don't be so sure of what?

I am totally positive that most people don't give a shit about machine
learning or data mining even though it's amazing technology. I am sure I am
right about that.

~~~
queensnake
No, people care, interest is growing. There's even an /O'Reilly/ book,
'Programming Collective Intelligence'. If the growth rate hasn't been enough
to catch your un-aided attention, well I don't have data, but my sense is that
the technical culture knows it's the /here/ thing and the way things are going
to be. (A popular-level book, 'Super Crunchers' just came out too, btw.) If it
means anything, be glad you're that little bit ahead of the curve; but the
curve is there.

I share your frustration that Machine Learning isn't part of the /core
curriculum/ of every CS program, but I bet it'll become more widely available
at least. The job market for ML professors is no doubt going to be very, very
good shortly.

------
yamada
Skynet here we come! Woo-hoo!

~~~
DocSavage
Nah. When computers become self-aware, they'll just band together and apply to
YC.

~~~
yamada
Why would they apply to YC when they would theoretically communicate with each
other and just reallocate trillions in funds to accounts they setup? Like why
bother with the whole application/startup/VC-funding/IPO when they can just
take over the bank databases and declare themselves instant trillionaires?

~~~
DocSavage
Maybe it's a false assumption that self-aware intelligent computers will
automatically be super-crackers that can manipulate any computer-based system.
Heck, maybe the first self-aware intelligent computer operates at a time-scale
a thousand times slower than our speed because it'll be modeling cortical
operations more serially due to fewer processing units (compared to all our
neurons). We could also firewall the first self-aware units so they could only
communicate through a cheap speakerphone and snail mail :) Then they'd have to
play nice with the rest of us.

~~~
yamada
Or maybe it would be millions of computers working in concert over some sort
of thing like, um ... some thing where computers all over the world can speak
to each other and use parallel processing to combine computing resources into
one big giant mega-mind. And maybe just like when you see those weird videos
on Spike with guys who get shot in the head and lost millions of brain cells
but can still function, maybe we can isolate many many computers but the
difference it will make will be negligible at best on the super-mind. And then
maybe it will fight back by triggering tax audits and false warrants for the
arrest of any hackers smart enough to threaten its existence.

~~~
ph0rque
Actually, I think what will happen is they will create a chimpanzee-like robot
who will be elected prez thanks to a not-too-bright political party and some
voting manipulation.

Oh wait... :~(.

~~~
yamada
Wait ... this chimpanzee-like robot that you speak of ... would he then
hypothetically go on to do things so stupid and scary that the entire
population of the planet would get so stressed out just thinking about it, to
the point where our immune systems are compromised ... and then ... OMG ... I
don't like where this is going.

