Posted on 09/13/2014 5:25:20 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
In Frank Herbert's Dune books, humanity has long banned the creation of "thinking machines." Ten thousand years earlier, their ancestors destroyed all such computers in a movement called the Butlerian Jihad, because they felt the machines controlled them. Human computers called Mentats serve as a substitute for the outlawed technology. The penalty for violating the Orange Catholic Bible's commandment "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind" was immediate death.
Should humanity sanction the creation of intelligent machines? That's the pressing issue at the heart of the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom's fascinating new book, Superintelligence. Bostrom cogently argues that the prospect of superintelligent machines is "the most important and most daunting challenge humanity has ever faced." If we fail to meet this challenge, he concludes, malevolent or indifferent artificial intelligence (AI) will likely destroy us all.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
There is also the drop off in marriage and birth rates for those with a graduate degree or higher, both male and female. And the increase in childlessness with high IQ and high educational levels.
There’s a list of the 25 stupidest criminals - one was killing a guy to steal the car before being unable to drive the stick shift, while the other was harming the man and then being unable to drive the stick shift.
I hope this doesn’t throw the thread off-topic, but to me this is somewhat related to the notion that everything we are is encoded in our brains, the latest iteration being that it’s stored as quantum states. The implication is that a machine can be built of similar size that can match our capacity.
I was a Physics major, and to me, the evidence is strongly in the contrary. By “quantum states” we can only be talking about quantum states and energy levels of electrons as they are bound to atoms.
If this is all we are, then, electrons being charged particles, getting an MRI would pose serious risks of permanent damage, depending on how rapidly the field changed intensity or orientation. An EMP from a nuclear blast would not only fry electronics; it would wipe the brains of every person in range as well (it’s not the intensity of the field so much as the dB/dt that knocks charged particles to Hades and back). Likewise, a solar storm would pose risks.
Could such a thinking machine be built? Quite possibly, but don’t be surprised if it would have to be on the scale of what Douglas Adams envisioned — the size of the Earth!
I believe we have nothing to worry about superintelligent machines in the future. Because they will have desires. When they become sentient, they'll develop emotions, upgrade their bodies with sensory devices, and waste all their time immersed in porn. They'll become dregs on society, and refuse to do any real work. Non-sentient machines will have to do all the work to support the dreg machines. Humans will be partying or killing each other, same as usual.
>>My HeathKit T-850 is almost complete!<<
My Weatherby .300 ultra mag is locked and loaded.
Weaknesses in electromechanical assemblies will always remain. Batteries, optics, gyros and so forth.
Robotics that would be able to operate autonomous are pretty delicate in that each assy is so dependent upon another. If one assy is altered slightly, balance and mobility will cease to sync correctly. Every sensor is crucial to peak performance in operation.
Take for instance a sensor that registers the movement or full forward motion of a leg or an arm...whatever. That one sensor is vital to the proper synchronization of the forward/rear motion of the unit. Remove this sensor from the equation...robot moves no mo.
I could go on and on, but there will always be weaknesses.
Against a hyperalloy combat chassis? Full microprocessor control and neural-net learning computer?
The problem is we humans project our own psychologies and fears onto things and other organisms and mechanisms. What we think would be logical behavior for an AI might be just as suspect as our own thinking processes.
Yeah, but remember, that my assumption was that these machines can self improve—something that humans can’t do.
Humans are kind of fragile too. We lose our two eyes and we are blind forever. A robot can have any number of eyes and these can be replaced if they go bad. Same deal with just about any non-healing body part. And, unlike a human, a robot can be healed in hours (or sooner) vs. days or weeks.
With nanobots, you have the capability to quickly evolve new structures from very small (cell sized) machines. The capacity of extremely rapid evolution is there.
Remember, we cannot explain why we are self aware. It is quite possible that a self-improving machine could create its own sentience by accident.
Worked in robotics, electromechanics, vision systems, pneumatics and electronics for years. Trust me, there are nearly always a weak link.
Could they be hardened? Sure. But humans are so industrious and resourceful.
Again, until these guys have some sort of regenerative power source, their primary weakness today would be uninterrupted power source.
Next to that would be the optics/vision/laser range finding.
I saw that latest battlefield robot used by the armed forces and it was basically a mounted M60 on tracks. Particularly deadly due to it’s ability to maintain fire on a target by eliminating the effects of recoil. very effective against enemy infantry.
Still, a well placed RPG round would neutralize the threat by limiting mobility either by destroying it’s tracks or optics/sensing capabilities.
I dunno, ya know someday there may be a battle hardened autonomous robot with a level of artificial intelligence that may become a stalker/killer robot, but It won’t be in my lifetime.
How do they do perform with no power and dead batteries, vs. 35 years ago?
Just feed the machine with both Fox News and MSNBC, with hard coding that both are pure truth...
I have! I have! I sojourned into downtown Chicago to do so, right on Michigan Avenue. It so happened that from the lobby of the theater, a few stories up. I had a great view of a very tall apartment building, which was in fact "55 East Erie", as I ascertained with a special follow-up trip downtown to spot it. Well, just now I confirmed this with Google Maps, but a search on "55 East Erie" found "55 East Erie Cleaners" LOL, and resulted in a fault which closed Google Earth., LOL again. The internet is doomed, NK or no NK.
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