The Age of Intelligent Machines: The Film

I just came across a old video from KurzweilAI.net called The Age of Intelligent Machines (Real Media).

It was made back in 1987, so some of the specific technologies are dated, but many of the topics are still relevant. One of the more interesting quotes came from Yale Professor Roger Shank, who said "The real problem is not can machines think, but can people think well enough about how people think to be able to describe how they think to machines."

Just Around the Corner

The ability to transfer your consciousness to a machine, and therefore live forever, is in our very near future according to futurist and AI advocate Ray Kurzweil.

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence and nanotechnology will even lead to "experience beamers," which will enable one person to receive the total sensory input of another through full-immersion virtual reality. Soon we may all know what it's like to be John Malkovich.

Rise of the Machine

I finally got around to reading a futuristic Wired article pointed out on Slashdot.

The bulk of the article is a retrospective look at how people have thought about and used the Internet. The really interesting part, however, begins with the last few paragraphs of page 4. While the Slashdot crowd focused on the prediction of a web-based OS and its ability to heal itself, the truly remarkable forecast is the emergence of real artificial intelligence from the net itself. The author recognizes that this "planet-sized computer" is as complex as the human brain, and is growing exponentially. It has already exceeded the "20-petahertz threshold for potential intelligence" proposed by Ray Kurzweil. Our participation in and behavior on the world-wide web might provide this being with the knowledge and programming necessary for consciousness to evolve. In the very near future the human race may be presented with a global network that has become self-aware.

Skynet anyone?