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- NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Ray probably gives out very specific dates (2029) to give out a stronger impression of credibility if it does happen to occur in that very year. If he said 2030 and it happend right on 2030, one would only assume he was estimating because of the basic number. Taking one year off won't lose him credibility if the technology doesn't happen to strike precisely that year, but will garner a lot if it does.
Ofcourse there are possibly other reasons. Various calculations could have led to 2029 as being his closest estimate, in which case why give up the chance to be 'spot on' for the sake of rounding off a number? - DigiDave, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I recently wrote an article on the 50th anniversary of Artificial Intelligence and I spoke with Ray Kurzweil on the phone.
http://www.digidave.org/adventures_in_freelancing/2006/07/ai_in_a_nutshel.html
While he is a smart guy who knows his stuff there was something about the conversation and his book "The Singularity is Near" that bothered me.
Namely: He singled out the year of when the Singularity would occur. It seemed too T2 for me to take seriously. Still, an interesting guy with a lot of ideas. - nodong, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I just hope I live long enough to become a cyborg.
- funkpucker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+750 years from now, we likely will be living in an iRobotesque sort of society I believe. Once we get AI to the point where it has better coordination than humans and the ability to communicate with us like we speak with other humans, there likely will be no end to what the robots could achieve, leaving us for other more worthwhile adventures, like laying on the beach.
To answer your question... This is exactly what Asimo is working towards. Honda works to achieve breakthroughs in bipedal locomotion, object recognition, and speech recognition. At least, from what I know, those are the primary advances they have achieved (running, jumping, looking at you and talking, carrying things...)
If you can't imagine how robotics could assist humanity, I hope you don't work in any creative field. McDonalds? Seriously, they will be able to do a plethora of things, and will likely someday become almost indistinguishable from actual humans, at least in appearance and motion. - UltraNurd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Kurzweil has a pretty good argument against the Chinese Room argument in The Singularity is Near... namely that, because of the setup, it is the entire room system that is exhibiting understanding, even if the individual human following instructions doesn't know Chinese.
- duckslut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I'm gonna get hard storage in my brain, a processor upgrade, artificial joints that allow me to jump 50 feet into the air and get hit by cars and remain uninjured, muscular replacements that let me pick up tens of tons, eye implants that let me see all of the electromagnetic spectrum, auditory implants that let me hear what people 100 yards away are whispering, hot-swappable organs, and nano-technology-backed super regenative healing.
Come and get some you ***** luddites =) - SteelChicken, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8progress takes time, is expensive, and often has no short term benefits.
how very short-sighted of you. - ellenweber, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Great article. Those boudaries between humans and robots are blurred more than ever -- as are who's programming who lines unclear. Great discussion, and this is just the beginning.
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/technology/d6a188432263d010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html - Matadon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It's a well-worn quote, but well worth repeating: "The herald of scientific progress is not, 'Eureka!'; it is 'That's funny..."
Basically, most real scientific progress isn't directed; it is the result of a very lucky accident, oftentimes when working on something entirely unrelated. Who's to say that robotics might not provide stage for that lucky accident?
On top of that, it's obvious that advances in robotics will have a dramatic impact on human society. The manufacturing sector has already been transformed, but what will happen if we had self-driving cars? What about mechanical assistants for the elderly and disabled? Automated fast-food workers and janitors?
There's also a lot of logic behind making robots human-shaped; we've built all of our technology around humans, and so it's a lot easier to design a robot that can operate existing devices, rather than redesign all the devices to fit Brand X of robot. - horsman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6if you perfectly model the human brain, as he is suggesting, intelligence will arise naturally. Any other outcome would be contrary to our belief that our cognitive skills come from biological components.
- dagonweb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4If you insist that the brain is some kind of magical phenomenon, a complete mystery now and for the forseaable future (and maybe forever), we have nothing to discuss. You and me live in different universa and only the future will give clarity on which idea of reality is right.
However I am of the unswavering persuasion that the human brain is a complex mechanism whose functions can be comprehended, reverse engineered and eventually reproduced. Worse still, I say that human minds are good in only a very narrow amount of cognitive functions and within a few decades we will see "machines" (for lack of a better term) that will have all kinds of different cognitive qualities different from, overlapping with or incomparable with the small human niche of though, which allows these "machines" to achieve goals vastly better than the human brain.
Actually reproducing human-like artificial minds will happen, if at all, later than achieving other such machines and probably human minds will, if ever, be reverse engineered by those machines. Actually I can see "artillects" generate human-psyche subroutines to deal with humanity, before the end of this century.
If these artillects do not decide to do away with humanity. I think chances on that happening are about half. - NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3We don't necessarily have to separate ourselves from AI. Face it, the human brain can only do so much. It's forgetful, it can get chronically depressed, it can't perform math very well and it's determinations aren't always the most rational, and can take a long time to resolve.
A mind that retains the various positive characteristics of humanity but with greatly expanded ability to think and reason would be beneficial for everyone. Particularly green space things that wouldn't have known how close they came to total disintegration of their planet by christian fundamentalists that lacked the brain capacity to reason that a life form whom doesn't share their beliefs has the right to exist.
I probably don't need to demonstrate that the world would be a lot better off with more intelligence. A human mind minus the destructive instincts of self preservation on a computer chip would do great things. - UnholyMoses, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"I prefer machines that do what you say when you say it without any back talk."
My parents wanted kids the same way ... boy, were they disapointed. ;-)
Your other points, however, are definitely ones that should be considered. There could be amazing uses for the potential of some of these robots. Unfortunately, not all of them are pleasant.
Not sure if ethics are considered when exploring the self-awareness issue, but they should be. - walterd93, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3He predicted that a (chess-super) computer would beat the worlds best chess player in 1998, and it happened in 1997...BUT it was much closer, he predicted that like in the late 80's, so this is a harder prediction.
- Matadon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Thanks, I really wanted to see that; definitely falls into the Uncanny Valley. It'll be interesting to see after some future development.
May I even be as bold to say, "Watakushi ha atarashii nihongo de hanasu robotto no senseikunshu wo kangei itashimasu!"
(My horrid translation and romanization of, "I, for one, welcome our new Japanese-speaking robot overlords!") - Neodeusx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Now see, if I were a robot from the future I would have taken that negetive digg as an insult and killed you.
- AXNJAXN, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Actually, while AI intrigues me, I think that it would be much more useful to develop ubiquitous computers to a higher extent before focusing on self-aware robot minds.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, anyone? - dagonweb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think Ray is talking about things that are way too complex for a lot of people. Plus ray doesnt speculate about robotics alone: we'll have nanotechnology, particle physics, new means of producing energy, virtual reality, genetics, Artificial Intelligence *and* robotics interacting in largely unpredictable ways. The world will change beyond recognition in a few decades, that much is sure.
Take for instance this other guy, who paints a really simple, straightforward, linear story. I can see no fallacy in his early arguments - hence I am sure the workplace (and anyone's life ) will change vastly in just 1-2 decades:
Read it thoroughly:
http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm
http://marshallbrain.com/robots-in-2015.htm
The logic is ironclad. - musters, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I think our robotic future is exciting.
- trauph, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Your quote is one of those that could be published in a magazine 10 years from now showing how ignorant humans were at the beginning of the 21st century. It's like the person in the 1970's who said computers would never become mainstream. I urge you to research the subject of AI further and realize the profound effects it will have and already has on our society.
- NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The chinese room argument 'argues' the lack of correlation of words to environment.
I've seen no argument from people in the AI field that would indicate this would be the necessary outcome. Once the AI can apply it's speech or speech being received to the meaning of the word, it can understand that word.
Such as if the robot says 'room', that word will be correlated with an image of a room; that was perhaps obtained through a learning process of moving a robot to various locations inside and out, notifying the robot when it's inside a 'room', in which case the robot would be capable of identifying itself as being inside a room because it's familiar with what a room is; therefore when it said the word 'room', it would understand it as such. There's no heavenly unexplainable magic beyond the reach of physics to the processes of the brain, it's a physical composition of matter and connections that can be simulated. - nodong, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4If the matter and energy that we comprise is capable of creating the epiphenomena of consciousness, we will be able to figure out how to do it. The only possibility we won't be able to is if consciousness is supernatural- which is still a possibility, but not one of which science could ever admit. I don't buy the supernatural argument myself.
- duckslut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Jesus man, it's a short article. If you would like explanations and more detail, there are these things called books. They are longer than short articles and generally go into more detail.
Ray Kurtzweil, being fairly intelligent, has written a few of these. Perhaps, if you wanted to not remain ignorant, you could go out and buy a few. - enslavedrobot, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4What makes you think that computation != intelligence?
Just because we can't figure out how to create AI doesn't mean it can't be done. The notion of a thinking computer is laughable now, but if you were transported back a few billion years and time and fell in a pool of proto slime, you would be thinking "I need a shower!" not "One day, this stuff is gonna evolve into a hot chick!"
If you get my drift. - Waterrat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2 Have you seen the robotic cat? There are several,some looking better than others.
I suspect we will see a lot more of the small,furry companion types...Meanwhile,I really want the robotic vacum cleaner. - Stevethegreat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@ilyag: We may not have flying cars but we have (the) Internet which changed the world a lot more than flying cars could ever do. The flying cars argument is lame because we don't have them but we have a lot more sophisticated technology than people in the 60s could ever imagine.
The same goes with these predictions about GNR (Genetics, Nanotechnology, Robotics) our estimations are off because things will become more complicated (NOT less sophisticated) than we can possibly imagine with our current mindset - OBDriftwood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Good point. I don't know that it's blurring the lines between human and machine, but there are ethical and moral issues to consider with a cognitive machine.
It bothers me. Would you be allowed to dismantle a self-aware machine? What if they were given the right to vote? You'd have congressmen not just pandering to that voting block, you'd have them taking your tax dollars to create a voting block to help them protect their phony-baloney jobs. Term limits my mechanized keister!
I prefer machines that do what you say when you say it without any back talk. - UnholyMoses, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3
Is it just me, or does the notion of self-aware machines bother anyone else?
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not talking about a Terminator/Matrix kind of future. But self-awareness is part of what makes us human. By imbuing that same sense into a machine, aren't we blurring the lines between humanity and machine?
Granted, these issues have been brought up in countless Sci-Fi books and movies, with varying fictional results. But as it comes closer to reality, it is a question that can’t be left unanswered.
[/existential musing] - FishPoisonCon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3all those bots are pretty sweet. they should combine nico, wt-6 and ballbot... oh, and domo too, i guess. an omni-footed, self-aware robot that hugs people to death... it would make a great xmas story gone wrong.
- 4NDr01D, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2robot rock !
- CaptainRotundo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I am not saying I know what it is, I am saying that it is more than computation. If we had the rest I wouldn't be having this discussion with you :)
- duckslut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@dagonweb
The logic follows well enough in that article, I'll agree. However, he forgets that in order for people to eat at mcdonalds or buy anything, they have to have a ***** job. Thus, if you put half of the workforce out of work, there is no one to buy your products anymore. Arguably you could streamline the process and save enough money from labor cost reduction that losing half your market would still be profitable, but the companies would have to realize that they would slowly be putting themselves out of business.
That and massive boycotts of service industries are very likely if something like this were to happen. Just because there hasn't be a public backlash of any real magnintude in a long time doesn't mean its unfeasible.
That and there is the possibility of utopia coming out of this as well. - NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You come out as you know precisely what intelligence is, do enlighten us. I find it remarkable how one can dismiss the possibility of creating intelligence without being fully aware of how intelligence operates; so I can only assume you know something nobody else does.
- miker71, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Humans are still the cheapest general-purpose robots. If robots become a dominant free-thinking lifeform then teleportation can't be far away.
- im3ngs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You should check out this one that can talk... the researchers have created moving lips, tongue, etc.
http://www.takanishi.mech.waseda.ac.jp/research/index.htm - dagonweb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yep it bothers me somewhat more than 50 Megaton nuclear explosions. So? Outlaw them? I suggest you write an angry letter to the UN.
- duckslut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree that anti-depressents are a result of our quick-fix idealogy in this country. Many people being presricbed these drugs do not need them and the drugs will not fix their problems.
But, in some cases it does seem to be simply a chemical deficiency. There is a correlation between depression and a chemical difficiency. No self-respecting doctor will tell you that chemical defficiency is the cause of depression. However, chemical difficiency is a symptom of a greater problem, and it happens to be one we now have a limited ability to treat.
This is why the drug was developed and it does a good job of correcting it. This is not to say that all cases can be resolved in this manner. However, to denouce these drugs as ineffective because they are not the solution to 100% of the cases is *****.
Return from your metaphor to AI, it is the same sort of thing. There are correlations between the physical connections and chemical interactions going on in your brain and your consciousness. Again, no self-respecting researcher would say that these correlations imply causation. But they do give us a place to start by playing what if it is actually causation.
You can't denouce something as unfeasible just because there is nothing currently that implements the idea.
The reason Kurtzweil is exciting to read is because some of the things he suggests are indeed very feasible. Just because the details haven't been filled in yet does not mean it is impossible. - CaptainRotundo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7Ray Kurzweil's entire set of theories is based on the premise that "machine intelligence" is going to happen. By machine intelligence he means the sci-fi kind where computers think and act like humans. I see no evidence that human type intelligence is achievable with known computer methods or machines, and no one has demonstrated this. AI folks just assume that if they copy enough human behavior, or add enough computing power then poof the machine will come alive and magically be 'intelligent'. How can you explain that you and I are capable of thoughts and calculations that a computer is incapable of doing?
I suggest if you are a Ray Kurzweil believer you should go and listen to Bruce Sterling's Long Now Foundation talk. After that go look up the Chinese room argument, and investigate the flaws in the Turing test. Eventually you will come to realize that all of this AI stuff is depending on a miracle or some magic to get them the last step. A step that will never happen, because computation != intelligence. - NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I gave examples of human intelligence solving problems that we cannot duplicate with computation. So it is quantifiably more."
Well no ***** sherlock; we know we can't duplicate such processes with computation yet, that's the whole point, to figure out how.
There's nothing in those arguments that disproves the possibility, you're simply stating it's impossible because you don't understand how it can be achieved. I think this logic can be applied to every piece of technology that exists before it was understood how to create it. - FishPoisonCon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2ilyag - i know it's "funny" to say, even i thought i thought it was clever...back in 1999, but it's a dead horse - move on... NO ONE promised flying cars!
You confuse a Hanna Barbera cartoon from the 60's with reality.
(and no one actually fell the the segway hype, sorry if you did) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2http://www.communistrobot.com/
- Twango, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ray is good fun to listen to, but his prognostications are only loosely coupled with reality.
- robojames, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"When the truly viable electronic book comes along, which will happen by the end of the decade, resistance to it will not last long."
-Ray Kurzweil, Library Journal, February 1992 - enantiomer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Then how would you define intelligence? I know it as slippery to define (maybe more so) as the term alive. What other capabilities would you say that a more intelligent creature has over another? To say that the definition is naive requires additional or alternative definitions that it is being naive on.
In one of Ben's papers, he descibes base learning systems that work together to form emergent systems of a higher order. It could be seen as so with our brain. The brain has neurons which are not themselves intelligent. The brain also has specialized processing regions which are not conscious or intelligent either. It is these special processing regions combined together that allow for ordering systems to combine together to form intelligence (in addition to the adaptive branching of neurons and protein distributions).
I was reading that our eyes don't actually ever show us an image of something as we see it. The eye consists of about a dozen specialized image processing centers that each forward their own data to the brain. The brain interprets this data and essentially hallucinates the reality into a coherent form. Perhaps a similar kind of hallucination occurs in our brains with our brains creating these construct systems which allow us to better model reality in a way that is beneficial to us as an organism. Free will and consciousness may be just a higher order pattern.
I realize that there is no scientific way of verifying most of the suppositions that I have made that is why I used so many "maybes", but it is interesting food for thought. Anyways, this is the article I was talking about.
http://www.agiri.org/essays/SingularityAGIGoertzel.htm - enantiomer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hello Fellows:
Interesting discussions going on here. I am personally one to agree with kurzweil in that if you can create a model that is sophisticated enough, you should be able to create a human type of intelligence.
As for whether this will happen in a few decades, that I am not so sure about. I think that kurzweil makes some good arguments for it.
Check out this article by Ben Goertzel from the NovaMente team
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=569132223226741332&q=ben+goertzel
They are trying to make strong AI without modelling the human brain at all. Ben argues that the root of intelligence is pattern recognition and adaption. Humans have certainly been called the great pattern recognizers. Furthermore, as I think about the species that are considered to be intelligent, they all are really good at picking up on patterns. Ben has developed an AI system that he thinks will give us super scientists within a decade or so. - NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yup, spot on again, eBooks FTW.
Ironic that the man himself only releases books the old fashioned way. - nodong, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1IDers seem to have a problem grasping how much complexity can occur even at an extremely slow pace of development when the timeframe is billions of years. Consider that rapidly reproducing bacteria can mutate into an antibiotic strain in a matter of weeks, sometimes days--and we understand precisely how it happens.
- malkir, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What about a tail for super balance and whacking people with it?
- Twango, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Totally crap article. Kurzweil, typically, is short on specifics (where's the AI???). The article says nothing about how "the boundary between man and machine" is disappearing. It reads like a drooling Popular Science article on flying cars.
- duckslut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hell, if you can bolt, weld, or screw it on my, why not?
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