Artificial Intelligence

Luke Muehlhauser on Singularity 1 on 1: Superhuman AI is Coming This Century

by Socrates
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Last week I interviewed Luke Muehlhauser for Singularity 1 on 1. Luke Muehlhauser is the Executive Director of the Singularity Institute, the author of many articles on AI safety and the cognitive science of rationality, and the host of the popular podcast “Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot.” His work is collected at lukeprog.com. I have to say that despite his young age and lack of a University Degree – a criticism which we discuss during our interview, Luke was one of the best and clearest spoken guests on my show and I really enjoyed talking to to him. During our 56 min-long conversation we discuss a large variety of topics such as: Luke’s Christian-Evangelico personal background as the first-born son of a pastor in northern Minnesota; his fascinating transition transition from religion and theology to atheism and science; his personal motivation and desire to [...]

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Dan Barry on Singularity 1 on 1: Don’t Let Anyone Tell You That You Can’t Reach Your Dreams

by Socrates
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During my 10 weeks at Singularity University I was able to ambush Dan Barry for a 20 min interview for Singularity 1 on 1. Former NASA astronaut and veteran of 3 space missions, Dan is currently the head of faculty at Singularity University and the co-chair for AI, Robotics, Space and Physical Sciences. (As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full.) For me Dan Barry was an inspiration from the very beginning of the program: His inaugural lecture, Failure is an Option, during which he shared both his wife’s moving story (documented in her best-selling book Fixing My Gaze) and his own life’s story (with his 13 unsuccessful attempts to become an astronaut), not only moved me deeply but also taught me that nothing is impossible and that one should never give [...]

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You Can’t Spell Paranoia Without AI: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and to Love Evil Artificial Intelligence

by Matt Swayne
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I have a theory: It wasn’t capitalism and democracy that won the Cold War. Popular Science won the Cold War. Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines — as well as other journals and magazines that took an awe-inspired, jaw-dropping look at science and technology — paid particular interest to military technology developed by Soviet block engineers in the 1950s and 1960s. The stories typically depicted Soviet military might as growing and unbeatable. Sort of like runaway artificial general intelligence (AGI). Soviet tanks had better armor. Soviet planes were faster and more maneuverable. Soviet subs dived deeper and plowed through the water more silently. Soviet nuclear ICBMs were poised to strike more accurately and more powerfully. (A great place to check out the above claims is the Popular Science Archive Search.) We can argue how the military industrial complex easily co-opts [...]

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Smart Homes: Is AI the Ghost in the Machine?

by Nikki Olson
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When we conceptualize AI, we often forget that it is not something that has to operate in a single location, or have intelligence qualities like our own. We are already surrounded by AI systems that are nothing like our own intelligence, that utilize many machines spread out over large distances, and are equally ‘present’ in many locations. In the future we will bring AI systems like these into our homes in the form of ‘smart environments.’  In doing so we introduce new and interesting relationships between man and machine. However, there may be some limits as to how ‘alive’ we want our AI homes to be. One of the most well-known depictions of the potential ‘terror’ of intelligent environments,  which happens to be a parody of 2001’s HAL and Dean Koontz’s Demon Seed, is the Simpson’s ‘Treehouse of Horror XII’ [...]

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Human Rights for Artificial Intelligence: What is the Threshold for Granting (Human) Rights?

by CMStewart
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It is the year 2045. Strong artificial intelligence (AI) is integrated into our society. Humanoid robots with non-biological brain circuitries walk among people in every nation. These robots look like us, speak like us, and act like us. Should they have the same human rights as we do? The function and reason of human rights are similar to the function and cause of evolution. Human rights help develop and maintain functional, self-improving societies. Evolution perpetuates the continual development of functional, reproducible organisms. Just as humans have evolved, and will continue to evolve, human rights will continue to evolve as well. Assuming strong AI will eventually develop strong sentience and emotion, the AI experience of sentience and emotion will likely be significantly different from the human experience. But is there a definable limit to the human experience? What makes a human [...]

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Change of Plans: Kill All Humans

by Socrates
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The singularity is often equated with a Terminator or Matrix type of a TechnoCalyps based on the presumption that once artificial intelligence becomes sentient then supposedly the most likely action they will undertake is to exterminate us. The following cartoon has been circulating for a while around the general singularity and transhumanist community, but because it is so funny, I thought I’d post it anyway. Even if you may have seen it before you may still find it funny again… I know I laugh every time I read it, and I’ve read it a dozen times by now Hat tip to Singularity 2045 for finding the cartoon first. Related articles Singularities Happen: Alan Watts explains the Singularity… (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com) The Best of Singularity Weblog 2010 (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com) Why I Am an Optimist (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com) A Transhumanist Manifesto (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com)

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Funny Or Serious: Are We Giving Robots Too Much Power?

by Socrates
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Automated machines, intelligent software and robots are all playing greater and greater role in our society – they play games with us, clean our floors, connect our phone calls, tell us where we are and how to get where we want to be. Soon enough they will drive our cars, teach our kids, grow all of our food, provide care for the sick and the elderly, guard us when we sleep and fight in our wars. At least in theory, there is hardly anything at which humans are likely to retain their superiority forever. Optimists, such as Ray Kurzweil and Kevin Warwick believe that robotics is one of the 3 super technologies (the other 2 being nanotechnology and genetics) that could enhance out intelligence, improve our physical capabilities and eventually even bring about immortality. On the other hand, pessimists such [...]

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Ben Goertzel: 10 Years To The Singularity

by Socrates
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Recently I interviewed Ben Goertzel for Singularity 1 on 1. During that interview Ben argued that the technological singularity is not necessarily inevitable and that The Future Is Ours To Create. Interestingly, in the video below Ben argues that it may not be absolutely ridiculous to consider that the singularity may actually happen as yearly as 10 years from now.

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