posted May 07, 2007 05:20 PM            

AI will surpass human intelligence after 2020

posted May 07, 2007 06:48 PM            

quote:

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Combine faster intelligence, smarter intelligence, and recursively self-improving intelligence, and the result is an event so huge that there are no metaphors left. There's nothing remaining to compare it to.

The Singularity is beyond huge, but it can begin with something small. If one smarter-than-human intelligence exists, that mind will find it easier to create still smarter minds. In this respect the dynamic of the Singularity resembles other cases where small causes can have large effects; toppling the first domino in a chain, starting an avalanche with a pebble, perturbing an upright object balanced on its tip. (Human technological civilization occupies a metastable state in which the Singularity is an attractor; once the system starts to flip over to the new state, the flip accelerates.) All it takes is one technology – Artificial Intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, or perhaps something unforeseen – that advances to the point of creating smarter-than-human minds. That one technological advance is the equivalent of the first self-replicating chemical that gave rise to life on Earth.

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The Singularity Institute:

http://www.singinst.org/overview/whatisthesingularity

posted May 07, 2007 08:14 PM            

In fact, if you consider every great achievement of mankind, even
projects involving thousands of workers, there is always one
intellect that outshines the others, and oversees the whole.

To put it another way, we know of mob mentality and group mentality,
which clearly are considered inferiour to normal human mentality.

Also consider that while modern man is supposedly of greater
intellect than the primate family and early humans or prehumans,
he did not gain intelligence by reinventing himself - any gain
must be because intelligence improved his chances of survival.
I also understand that the Nethanderal had a brain 20% larger
than modern man's, so it appears that a more agile body and
speed contributed to modern man's perserverance - or maybe we
just outbred the Nethandral.

There are many things about intelligence that are misunderstood
or not properly appreciated. For instance, the importance of
having a body suited to house that intelligence, with the
necessary sences to support its maximum development. Perhaps
Nethandral man had poor evesight, allowing him only to hunt as
an ambusher, whereas modern man could see and hunt from a
greater distance, and devised throwing speers, slings, and the
bow and arrow to increase his strike range.

Computers have the wonderful capacity to incorporate processes
that we devise and control, and to handle vast volumes of info
that we collect and codify for the computer, and we can look at
how much power we now possess in our very own desktop and laptop
computers. But while we can leverage that power in new and
useful ways, we can hardly claim that computers have made us
smarter or more capable than we possess the power to be. They
have not made us superhuman. And we have not succeeded in making
the computer a peer to humans either.

So there is a gap between computers and humans that has yet to be
bridged, and a similar (if hot larger) gap between humans and the
so-called superhuman. Bridging one does not equate to bridging
the other, but bridging one is necessary before you can hope to
try and bridge the other.

posted May 07, 2007 09:14 PM            

Some of the most highly-educated people I know, degrees and doctorates coming out of
their ears, are not fit to be let out on their own.

I know others who are barely literate, but can, apparently effortlessly, generate
quantities of money like it's going out of fashion.

Is it related to common sense? If it is, in many cases it seems the relationship is
inverse.

So what is it, what units is it measured in, and how can "artificial" intelligence
be compared to "real" intelligence?

posted May 08, 2007 12:06 AM            

Now as for defining Intelligence maybe a good place to start would
be at

http://brainmetrix.com/intelligence

Does this cover it all? I don't think so but it's a start. You also
would have to take into account the ability to comprehend; to
understand and learn from past events. Even then we would only begin
to scratch the surface.

As for AI there are those that thinks it's possible. There are those
that think it's a reality. These also tend to be the people you catch
talking to their computer in the office or at home. You have all most
likely seen them. They sit in the cubical saying things like "Where did
you put my stinking file?" and when you look in on them there is no one
there but them and they are not on the phone. Or at home you might catch
a family member uttering something like "Come on you slow a** piece of
crap!" Or if you have ever worked tech support you may have talk to one
that insisted "I did not delete the file the computer did". Then you
have those few people that remember the old saying "A computer is only
as smart as the guy at the keyboard".

posted May 08, 2007 04:39 AM            

quote:

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Human intelligence is the foundation of human technology; all technology is ultimately the product of intelligence. If technology can turn around and enhance intelligence, this closes the loop, creating a positive feedback effect. Smarter minds will be more effective at building still smarter minds. This loop appears most clearly in the example of an Artificial Intelligence improving its own source code, but it would also arise, albeit initially on a slower timescale, from humans with direct brain-computer interfaces creating the next generation of brain-computer interfaces, or biologically augmented humans working on an Artificial Intelligence project.

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