The original author is out of touch. Biology—evolution—is no longer the method by which any, even minor, changes will occur in humans.
In fact, the world will change uncalculably within 50 years, or as soon as someone creates a human equivalent AI.
If we get it first, great...but sometimes I wonder. People don’t seem to understand that this is as important an advantage as nuclear weapons were on WWII, and it is the only weapon capable of defeating our arsenal (without us ever knowing it, by disabling it).
If we’re lucky, the Japanese or some European country will create it if we aren’t able to. If the Chinese do, then any attempt to defeat them economically or otherwise will be impossible. And in the event of a conflict, they’ll simply disable our infrastrture from the inside out.
After AIs able to engineer themselves come into existence, the future is unpredictable, but surely, biology is at the very end of its stages—think about how long it took for automobiles to replace horses.
The most important point being this: whatever group or country gets AI first, wins by getting a lead that will grow exponentially. It’ll be like chasing a jet with a donkey.
In 1000 years...gees...humans will have transformed into something else that will have been engineered from start to finish.
A friend once joked, maybe the computers have already gotten there; they're just lying low and acting stupid... for now.
:^)
Is this subtle joking or sarcasm?
You’re assuming AI is possible.
Big assumption.
“In fact, the world will change uncalculably within 50 years, or as soon as someone creates a human equivalent AI.”
So, what is artificial intelligence? How will we know when we have it? I spent 1985-1995 studying this, thinking it would be the next big thing. I finally realized 1) we don’t understand human intelligence; 2) we don’t know how to program for intelligence 3) we don’t understand self-awareness; 4) we don’t know how to program for self awareness.
Generally, intelligence and self awareness are what we think of when we say “AI”. We’ve made great progress on the hardware side, very little on the software side.
Check out the newsgroup comp.ai.philosophy. I read it steadily for a year in the 90’s until I realized the arguments were repeating with no progress. I still check it out from time to time and the arguements haven’t changed—is human intelligence solely due to the brain or is there a non-material component? Can a digital computer emulate the human brain? Is intelligence an algorithm or not?
I have no faith we will achieve human or super human AI in the next 50 years.
Ah!
Someone else at FR has a clue.
In less than twenty years, technology changes everything...I do mean everything.
I sincerely agree with you. The author is completely out of touch with reality.
btw. You folks might want to research nanotech stocks...and then do some investing.
You’ve got a good point thar.