Sunday, September 5, 2004 3:45 PM
What if an emerging super-intelligence doesn't need humans? Tongue-in-cheek observation about one of the prime risks of creating a machine super-intelligence.
lightning chaser:artificial intelligence
topic: artificial intelligence
What if an emerging super-intelligence doesn't need humans?
Sunday, September 5, 2004 3:45 PM
Sunday, September 5, 2004 3:45 PM
Artificial Intelligence Resources
Sunday, September 5, 2004 3:40 PM
Sunday, September 5, 2004 3:40 PM
Artificial Intelligence Resources. A collection of links to AI resources on the web.
Virtual Humans Proposed As Space Travelers
Wednesday, September 1, 2004 9:48 PM
Wednesday, September 1, 2004 9:48 PM
Virtual Humans Proposed As Space Travelers. "Virtual Humans" appear to be either a form of limited AI, very sophisticated software agents, or a quasi-independent form of intelligence augmentation. In any case, the intent seems to be to develop virtual personas that can be used to monitor and perform tasks "real" humans aren't that good at.
The Evolution Will Be Mechanized
Wednesday, September 1, 2004 9:01 PM
Wednesday, September 1, 2004 9:01 PM
The Evolution Will Be Mechanized. Bruce Sterling rant in Wired about/against the Singularity.
The singularity's biggest flaw isn't that it's hard to imagine, but that it flatters its human inventors. We may be on the verge of an astounding breakthrough! Or, with equal likelihood, we may be at the edge of a new dark age of plagues, mass hunger, and climate destabilization. More likely yet, we live in a dull, self-satisfied, squalid eddy in history, blundering around with no concept of progress and no sense of direction. We have no idea what we really want from our own lives or from society. And no Moore's law rising majestically on any 2-D graph is ever going make us magnificent or spiritual when we lack the will, vision, and appetite for spiritual magnificence.
While I can understand Sterling's cynicism about humanity, I believe the mistake he makes is in defining the Singularity as something transcendent, something "magnificent or spiritual." While any number of over-zealous proponents of transhuman technologies certainly envision the Singularity this way, this definition is rather far-afield of the original vision of the Singularity Vinge paints in his paper "The Coming Technological Singularity."
I prefer to define the Singularity in far more basic terms: a technology-mediated intelligence "runaway," after which the human life will be drastically changed. This could easily (perhaps more easily) mean human extinction as it does something "magnificent or spiritual."
Tools design DNA-nanotube logic
Monday, August 30, 2004 9:28 PM
Monday, August 30, 2004 9:28 PM
Tools design DNA-nanotube logic. Duke University researchers combine newly developed special CAD software with a recently created DNA scaffold technique to lay the ground work for building DNA-nanotube transistors.
The tools are designed to build computer circuits at a density of 2,500 transistors per square micron, which is about 30 times more closely packed than devices made using current chipmaking technologies, according to Chris Dwyer, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke University. A micron is one thousandth of a millimeter.Transistors are arranged into logic gates, which in turn are combined by the millions into the complicated circuits that process and store data. Being able to assemble individual nanotube transistors is the prerequisite for developing a nanotube-based chipmaking technology. The key is finding ways to combine them into logic circuits.
One of the issues that could possibly derail future computing advances (as well as any potential Technological Singularity) is the so-called expiration of Moore's Law, where it becomes impossible to build faster, larger computers. This rapidly approaching problem arises from the physical limits imposed on current chip making technologies, where it becomes impossible to place circuits any closer together. DNA-nanotube technology offers one possible successor technology to current chip making methods that has the potential to circumvent this problem.
Computers Can Argue, Researcher Claims
Monday, August 30, 2004 9:28 PM
Monday, August 30, 2004 9:28 PM
Computers Can Argue, Researcher Claims. Using AI to develop computing agents that can resolve conflicts via negotiation.
no fucking gay keanu reeves is going to save you
Monday, August 30, 2004 8:27 AM
Monday, August 30, 2004 8:27 AM
no fucking gay keanu reeves is going to save you. Concerning Hugo de Garis, an Australian AI researcher working on evolvable hardware.
Solving the Software Problem
Sunday, August 29, 2004 8:26 PM
Sunday, August 29, 2004 8:26 PM
Solving the Software Problem. Chris Hanson's reply to questions from Brad Delong about the nature of the Singularity and issues regarding developing AI software. References Cyc and a decade old report on a visit to Cyc-West.
Internet Heading to Light Speed
Sunday, August 29, 2004 8:06 PM
Sunday, August 29, 2004 8:06 PM
Internet Heading to Light Speed. A new nanotechnology that eliminates network bottlenecks could help create a web surfers' paradise that is 100 times faster than today's internet.
A link blog exploring progress toward the Singularity.
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