Sunday, September 09, 2007

I think I saw this movie

And we had to squish one in a honkin' big machine press:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- At the center of a black hole there lies a point called a singularity where the laws of physics no longer make sense. In a similar way, according to futurists gathered Saturday for a weekend conference, information technology is hurtling toward a point where machines will become smarter than their makers. If that happens, it will alter what it means to be human in ways almost impossible to conceive, they say.

"The Singularity Summit: AI and the Future of Humanity" brought together hundreds of Silicon Valley techies and scientists to imagine a future of self-programming computers and brain implants that would allow humans to think at speeds nearing today's microprocessors.

Artificial intelligence researchers at the summit warned that now is the time to develop ethical guidelines for ensuring these advances help rather than harm.

"We and our world won't be us anymore," Rodney Brooks, a robotics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the audience. When it comes to computers, he said, "who is us and who is them is going to become a different sort of question."

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think Pickles is one of the prototypes, sans the intellect of course.

ellroon said...

Well, the travelbot just underwent surgery for twisted wires, so they're having to use the Laurabot2000. Don't think Georgie notices the difference...

Pavel Chekov said...

When we stop making killer robots, the terrorists win.

ellroon said...

But if they act like this, I reserve the right to shoot them.