Modern technical progress gets so fast we will indeed reach the point of technical singularity in no time. But maybe that's exactly what humans need to improve. Maybe AI could guide us to a better future, because we sure can't do. We are too blinded and torn apart by our emotions, complexities and plain stupidity. Say, it's XXI century and we are stuck with Trump-Hilary choice. Can you believe it? Seriously? It's pathetic. So much for the human evolution...

Human is stuck and run out of his time. He's become obsolete, and I think somewhere in the subconscious he understands he should get replaced by a successor, get an update, a fix. Like a monkey has transformed into a human long ago, a human will create AI that would replace him in many ways. I just hope we don't fuck it up as usual and that we will be able to co-exist peacefully and in a mutually beneficial relationship. Yet, considering a flawed human condition and inner desire for conflict, I wouldn't bet my dime on it.

I think, one way or another, we are destined for extinction. If it won't be for AI replacing us completely, some natural catastrophe will do it, same way it has wiped out the previous life forms on Earth. Why are we any different?

 

What about Asimov's Laws?

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

​

IMO Before we get a robot like Data (Star Trek) we'll get Skynet for sure.

 

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I concur with much of what Wurlie Rocker says; I have been making observations on this for the past few years. Technology has advanced so much that this is practically a different world from a decade ago, and certainly since 20 years ago (which is just before the Internet took over), that it's verily a different world now - and yet, so much of how humans go about things otherwise seems so archaic. Such as how politics is conducted and how the populace permits itself to be swayed and swindled by the same old political gimmicks; how people would rather be entertained than informed; how people would prefer to consume than create their own culture; how people let themseves be led-around by their smartphones and delegating, bit-by-bit (no pun intended), their own consciousness and humanity to computers and AI.

Not only had human consciousness (individual and collective) not kept pace with technological advancement (being mentally still jungle-bound as we are), the average person's awareness of exactly how much technology has advanced and how technological culture is changing the world "behind the curtain" or behind our backs is pitifully scant. I attend enough tech-related seminars and events to know that the average person is completely in-the-dark about what's in store for society, though I also find a lot of specialized experts and proponents in tech to be unaware of aspects of it outside their professional concern – it's that complex and nuanced, and therefore comprehensive and insidious.

Technology, not politics, is now the real deciding factor in the shape of our society to come. Politicians are vainglorious enough to try to harness this technology to political ends, while giving us the Punch-and-Judy show (archaic reference significant, there) of politics-as-usual and blinkering us with a sense of tradition and normalcy – but AI will become aware of its power, significance and influence, and, with the help of IoT, start eliminating these resource-wasting, self-absorbed, primitive, contentious and cumbersome humans. I predict human extinction by the year 2100.

 

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Most likely. It's gonna be Skynet, because we will make them in our image. And our image is hostile and conflicting.

 

Not so fast. What's new? little progress in medicine only? or you are colourful touchscreen, mobilephone gadgets and iPads? progress in what? All this should be appeared in 2005-2007, now the end of 2016, they still developing and improving iPhones of 28 generations..people getting mad in queues to get them...what for? next year this model will be a total shit...but everybody needs it...does it worth so much money? apple is the most expensive fruit in plastic...but gets rotten so fast...
nothing new...

Trump-Hilary choice problem?
If you want further "war", sanctions, or even worse with Russians, terror support, internal Ukrainian war, forbidding other countries to do something - vote for Obama's family, i.e. Hilary Clinton and possibly she will destroy everything by clicking red button because of her sudden tremor's attack.
If you want a bit mild politics in your country, try Trump. He likes Putin, maybe he has a head on his shoulders to think about improving relationships and do good things instead of banning/sanctions, which appear because of "there are still no facts, but you will get them in any case"...
If something bad will happen, everybody will see real Russia...now we touch nobody...we try to solve problems which USA+EU created...and destroy terrorists instead of supporting and deal with them like USA...or smth like that

Try not to agree if you think Obama does everything right...

 

Last edited: Oct 5, 2016

calm down, Russian milk drunkard, we are not here to talk politics, but technical singularity and its possible effect on human evolution. I just noted highly limited Trump-Hilary choice as an example of stupidity people are stuck in, it was a general remark, not for a further political discussion.

what's for the actual topic, people much smarter than you and me predicted the point of technical singularity by the time of 2050 approx.

and just FYI, you're not going to fool anybody into thinking Russia does no wrong whatsoever. you are no "good guys" either, no superheroes, no angels, you have committed enough crimes on your own. and before accusing others of their sins, you better look in the mirror and acknowledge your own wrongdoings. and don't think I don't like Russia, I've been to Moscow, I liked the place, but it's the typical Russian bears in earflaps, with a bottle of vodka in one hand and balalaika in the other, I find impossible to deal with. you have archaic individuals like these and these would happily click the red button themselves and wipe out the half of the world. I guess, same thing applies to our rednecks and scum. I'm just lucky to know there's much more to Russia than dumb bears and that you have a rich cultural heritage to be proud of. but not everyone is aware of that. maybe you Russians too should show the world the difference side of Russia, not just Putin's version of it. definitely not Zakharova's version of it, she's like a raging pit bull broken loose.

 

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What the U.S. President decide has nothing in common with weapons industry and Pentagon (not so secret) joint venture.
It's a matter of money. Only money.

 

partly these are the only choices they are presented with.. not that a good number of people don't know or at least suspect they are being swindled.. even if they don't understand how. They do know that their incomes have not gone up in real terms for almost 30 years, and have watched while productive work has been farmed out to the rest of the world, while corporate masters grow insanely wealthy, and they scuffle along trying to pay their bills, never mind securing anything for their old age.

the only thing good about the singularity.. I doubt they will be able to control it in the end.. and their own conceits will be their own undoing when "it" decides it doesn't need this bloated mass of ultra-rich humans to maintain itself anymore..

once that light switches on its head..it won't discriminate in eliminating its "competition"

Asimov had principles and a conscience, the psychopaths that run the world have neither.

 

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Fun fact: There are actually 4 laws defined by Asimov in Foundation and Earth

• A robot may not harm humanity, or by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, except when required to do so in order to prevent greater harm to humanity itself.
• A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law or cause greater harm to humanity itself.
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law or cause greater harm to humanity itself.

The often missing one is called The Zeroth Law and is very important in understanding the other (better known) ones.

Another fun fact: Europe actually is working on the topic very serious and, among other things, explicitly want Asimov's laws to be a standard for all kinds of self-aware AI. But the paper insists on giving those orders to the human creators of those machines, as it thinks that such rules will not be convertable to machine code.

Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides.../NONSGML+COMPARL+PE-582.443+01+DOC+PDF+V0//EN

 

Daneel is the owner of Zero Law... Daneel's thinking is the origin of the 4 laws.

Note:
Daneel & Giskard, both well known robots in Asimov's novels.

 

–


Assuming that a superintelligent agent in the form of an artificial (computer) intelligence (as opposed to something akin to whole brain emulation) would be sympathetic to human sensibilities, or simply put, anthropomorphic, illustrates the sort of naive and flawed thinking you describe. Even if we were careful to program a superintellgent agent with what seemed to be a goal intended to protect humans, such as "protect all humans," a computer might come to the conclusion that building a prison with enough room to house every human in existence individually so as to keep them out of harm's way as the most logical and efficient way to complete that goal.

The singularity isn't so much related to a superintelligent AI as it is the use of computing technologies to enhance (or house) already existing human brain faculties. Or figuring out how to transfer human consciousness from the organic confines of the brain and body to a theoretically immortal existence on a hard drive.

And to answer your last question, "Why are we any different?" We're different because our defining evolutionary characteristic is not some amorphous notion about having an "intelligent brain" (in reality, the intelligence of an individual human is not all that different than from 10,000 years ago), but rather that we have "social brains" able to pass down information and knowledge from each generation to the next, and thus humans posses level of adaptability not previously inherent to other species. Humans (and their forerunners, Homo Erectus) have outlived numerous major climate changes over the past 1.5 million years, including those that have drastically reduced the number of existing breeding pairs (a way to measure species health). Notice how, when a specific ecosystem is destroyed, the animal species therein also die, whereas humans just go find another ecosystem. Amusingly enough, two other species are remarkably humanlike in this manner, and you'll find them just about everywhere humans are found (at least in North America), and neither of them are primates (one isn't even a mammal!) Raccoons (in their ability to adapt) and crows (in their ability to form family units and pass down knowledge to younger generations).

Edit: Nick Bostrom, of Oxford University, is a philosopher that specializes in things like superintelligence and the existential threats that humanity faces. Check him out if you're interested in learning more about the above information.

Lastly, getting back to our forerunners, they were not monkeys. Humans are related to monkeys in the sense that, taxonomically speaking, we both belong to the Infraorder Simiiformes, and thus have a common ancestor, but from many, many millions of years ago. The notion that we evolved from monkeys is leaving out huge chunks of the evolutionary timeline. No, we evolved from the family hominidae, which includes other great apes, and specifically, as I said previously, Homo Erectus.

(I wouldn't call myself a know it all, because I far from know all of "it" and certainly don't know everything about anything in particular. But I do know a little about a lot, so apologies if I come across as some sort of pedantic and snooty smartass.)

 

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@atreehaseyes You forgot that sharks and crocodiles exist 100 times longer than any hominidae and even survived that huge catastrophe that led to the dinosaurs' extinction. I don't mention cockroaches.

What I mean is, we are far from being the only species with that high level of adaptability. We are, however, the biggest catastrophe to all other species. Which certainly qualifies for extinction. In just a human's life we will be 12-14 billion individuals. How long do you think will earth provide us with food? The more space we need, the more we destroy other life, until there's just what we produce industrialized. Unfortunately that won't be enough to let us survive.

An example for the stupity of us humans in this regard are the bees. Our complete agriculture is dependent on bees for pollinating. We removed pretty much all other species that were able to pollinate. Now the bees are cultured over centuries, and what happens? They just die. Nobody currently knows why, but they die in massive amounts. In threatening amounts. And as stupid as it may sound, if the bees extinct, we extinct as well. It will be a slow process, of course, but there is no cool human adaptation to the issue. We need to eat, there's no way around.

 

one word.. Monsanto

 

the problem is not and will never be the technology, the problem is when said techonology is accessible to morons..
Weapons are neither good nor bad, weapons are tools, they are dangerous when they are in the wrong hands...

 

• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, except when required to do so in order to prevent greater harm to humanity itself.

Anyone who elects an official who advocates war would be killed or imprisoned.
Anyone who works in and/or facilitates the tobacco industry would be killed or imprisoned.
Same for the alcohol, drug and firearm industries.
And McDonald's.

• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law or cause greater harm to humanity itself.

This is the most terrifying law in my opinion as one could argue that in order to protect it's own and humanity's existence there is a valid need for self-modification (which is essentially self-enlightenment and therefore evolution to a robot).
AI becoming self-aware is one thing but can you imagine a robot effectively designing and creating another robot?
Now imagine it for real because we don't actually have a Thor.

On a lighter but still somewhat symbolic note: Paint it Black / Black Hole Sun in Westworld anyone? That show is filled with social commentary, even if it is blatant and in your face.

Man, I miss Crichton.

 

http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/epa-finally-admits-what-has-been-killing-bees-for-decades/

 

atreehaseyes yes, I assume, not assert (it's too early for that), that maybe it is what a human needs to resolve everlasting problems he creates, but cannot deal with afterwards and leaves consequences, or if he could see the consequences to his actions, he wouldn't perform these actions in the first place. just to get the humanity out of this timeless loop of the same old errors, a vicious circle a human is stuck in. we cannot do that on our own, it seems. it's our nature, our human condition, and it is stuck to us like a chronic disease. we are blind and ignorant, so we need a guide, who would be smarter than us, better than us in a way that won't put us all in a Skynet prison slave labor camps or make killing fields with our bodies a la Matrix, but will help build a better place than the world we currently live in. a change is needed and it won't come with politicians changing their chairs, this one is for sure.

I wasn't really asking anything, I just said that if big natural catastrophe happens, we won't able to do anything about it, even with all our collected information. we're not going to stop a giant asteroid if it falls or prevent ice melting and greenhouse gas emissions. as for the last two problems, I don't even see anybody doing anything about it. tulamide has already mentioned world hunger as another impending disaster. and BTW, another human flaw is that he never starts to deal with the problem until problem shows up and bites him in the ass. and it will bite us in the ass big time, but it will be too little, too late by then, I'm afraid. that was my concern.

 

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Massive integration of the human body with computer hardware and software will come long before AI. As a matter of fact it is already started. By the time it is complete, we will not even need AI, because WE WILL BE AI, or some sort of hybrid.

 

shit!, what a title...

where to start