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Holy crap, IBM is building Skynet!

M

msbae

Commodore
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/20/technology/brain.php

IBM wins funding for 'brainy' computer


Thursday, November 20, 2008


NEW YORK: International Business Machines said Thursday that it had won $4.9 million in U.S. Defense Department financing to create computers that mimic the way a brain functions.

The effort, still in the early stages, may lead to machines that can quickly sift through vast amounts of information and arrive at a decision. Confronted with a nonstop flood of new data, computers will have to learn to pick out crucial facts more quickly, said Mark Dean, an IBM vice president.

"The challenge is that computers today are very good at computing, but what we really need is a more efficient way of sifting through information," Dean said.

"Modeling after the way the brain operates might be an effective way of constructing the next level of computing engines."

The grant comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's central research organization, which helped build the Internet. IBM, based in Armonk, New York, said it planned to work with researchers from five U.S. universities on the project.

The company would not say when the advanced computers would be produced because the research is still new. The funds cover the first phase of the project.

The ultimate goal is to build a computer with the human brain's capabilities, though "even a computer with the ability of a rat brain would be a success," said Dharmendra Modha, IBM's lead researcher on the project in San Jose, California.

Modha described the research as "the quest to engineer the mind by reverse-engineering the brain."

"It's a quest like Dorothy looking for the Wizard of Oz," he added. Computers excel at tasks, even daunting ones, when they work in domains with clear rules, like chess. But they do not excel at fuzzier problems, said H.-S. Philip Wong, a Stanford professor who will work on the project. Wong cited the example of how a human devises a mental strategy for finding a car, whose exact location has been forgotten, in a busy parking lot. That task, he said, requires higher-level cognition - sensation, perception, learning and reasoning.

The time is right to pursue cognitive computing, according to Modha, because of advances in computing, nanotechnology and neuroscience.
In neuroscience, for example, there has been a data-driven surge in research on neurons, synapses and neurotranmitters.

But will the brain and its workings, like so much else in biology, prove to be far more complex than foreseen, and thus resistant to the math-modeling of computer science?

That is certainly possible, Modha conceded. But all sorts of insights and new knowledge will be gleaned along the way, he said, leading to new computing products, software and sensors. IBM, he half-jokes, should someday stand for Intelligent Business Machines.
Click to expand...
Quick! Someone get John Connor to Crystal Peak while there's still time!
 
Heh, that's what I thought when I heard the news...

Seriously though, this might be the beginning of the Technological Singularity and Eternal Life :)
 
Wikipedia said:
The technological singularity is a theoretical future point of unprecedented technological progress, caused in part by the ability of machines to improve themselves using artificial intelligence.
Click to expand...

So, it's the point where machines are self-replicating and have free will. I have a few concerns about that day. What if they decide they don't need us? Will they conquer/destroy us or just turn their back on us and leave the Earth?

However, that day might not lead to a nightmare scenario of apocalyptic proportions. We could end up with benevolent machine companions like Data or K.I.T.T. instead of mechanical monstrosities like the Terminator robots or Cylons.

Or, we could end up with a 'happy' medium like Bender from Futurama.

While I hope for Data, I'll settle for Bender. An alcoholic, thieving, Porn-obsessed Robot would be amusing to have around as long as he's programmed not to steal from me.
 
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Just imagine how successful AI robotic life would be compared to biological life. A civilisation of AI machines capable of building offspring so to speak could achieve anything.
Each humanoid robot could have a database/brain that could contain huge amounts of data, there would be no need for schools as data would be downloaded to the newly built robots.

A robotic civilisation would expand and develop at an unimaginable speed.
 
msbae said:
Wikipedia said:
The technological singularity is a theoretical future point of unprecedented technological progress, caused in part by the ability of machines to improve themselves using artificial intelligence.
Click to expand...

So, it's the point where machines are self-replicating and have free will. I have a few concerns about that day. What if they decide they don't need us? Will they conquer/destroy us or just turn their back on us and leave the Earth?
Click to expand...

Techinically, it's the exact instant a computer becomes even the slightest bit more intelligent than people and can improve upon itself in ways that we(people) don't have the intelligence to do.

And from that point on it's intelligence would increase exponentially.
 
Tachyon Shield said:
Just imagine how successful AI robotic life would be compared to biological life. A civilisation of AI machines capable of building offspring so to speak could achieve anything.
Each humanoid robot could have a database/brain that could contain huge amounts of data, there would be no need for schools as data would be downloaded to the newly built robots.

A robotic civilisation would expand and develop at an unimaginable speed.
Click to expand...

Then, we better make sure we're on good terms with them. Otherwise, they're going Cylon on our asses.

JonathonWally said:
Techinically, it's the exact instant a computer becomes even the slightest bit more intelligent than people and can improve upon itself in ways that we(people) don't have the intelligence to do.

And from that point on it's intelligence would increase exponentially.
Click to expand...

Well, I guess we'll just have to ensure that it has no Free Will. Intelligence is useless unless you actually use it and that requires Free Will.
 
The ultimate question is whether or not an AI machine could ever evolve to have the ability to over rule the '3 laws'.

If the 3 laws are 100% effective then AI machines could be a great addition to our civilisation. The AI machines might consider us their parents.
 
Tachyon Shield said:
The ultimate question is whether or not an AI machine could ever evolve to have the ability to over rule the '3 laws'.

If the 3 laws are 100% effective then AI machines could be a great addition to our civilisation. The AI machines might consider us their parents.
Click to expand...

I saw I, Robot. Those laws are too perfect for anyone's good.
 
I'm not too worried. Likely it would go something like this: "SOC 07 error while attempting to execute thread:Terminate_mankind. Please restart.".
 
In Neuromancer, each AI had the equivalent of a gun strapped to its head, some kind of magnetic wipe device - any trouble, boom. Then I suppose it depends if we build in self-preservation routines.

I'm looking forward to the Singularity. You knoiw Vinge postulates 2025, don't you?
 
The singularity wouldn't necessarily have to be about AI... it could just as easily be transhumans. Everyone likes transhumans!
 
blaXXer said:
Brolan said:
I'm not too worried. Likely it would go something like this: "SOC 07 error while attempting to execute thread:Terminate_mankind. Please restart.".
Click to expand...

So, it does run on windows?
Click to expand...

lolz... I can see it now...

Evil Robot: KILL ALL HUMANS! KILL ALL HUMANS! Ohhh, shit... my operating system is crashing on me! Oh, why oh why did you Humans format my brain with Windows Vista?!

Me: Because we knew you'd eventually start screaming KILL ALL HUMANS! KILL ALL HUMANS!, you poor excuse for a Bender wannabe!
 
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