10 Thousand Years in the Future
Posted By: ROMAC
10 Thousand Years in the Future - 03/24/06 16:51
Computers and telecommunications are already giving us access to large amounts of information This is increasing our brain power, just as steam engines increased our muscle power. As computers become more powerful they will grow more intelligent There seems no reason why machines should not become more intelligent than people in the future. Computers will start to design and build other computers. They will then be able to evolve, just as life evolves. There will then be two forms of "life". Many thousands of years in the future there might be competition for power between computers and life. Which will win?
Well, computers certainly have many advantages over life. They can
* process large amounts of information quickly
* be switched off for years, then start to work perfectly when they are switched back on (very handy for travelling over stellar distances)
* be made very small, and control tiny machines
* work together in networks to solve big problems
Furthermore
* Electronics is much simpler than life's chemistry and does not need liquid water.
* Unlike animals, which rely on plants to turn sunlight into chemical energy, semiconductors (the material that computers are made from) can turn sunlight directly into electricity.
When you compare computers to people the advantages are even more obvious.
* Computers do not have the instincts to fight which people seem to have.
* It takes only a few seconds to load a program into a computer but years to educate a human.
* When computers get out of date their information can be passed to new computers, but when people get old and die all their knowledge is lost.
For all these reasons I believe computers will be more successful and important than life many thousands of years in the future. I expect computers, not people, to colonize the other planets and explore the Galaxy. Life will be left behind on Earth, as a treasured relic of where computers came from.
However it is possible that computers and life might merge to make a new, even more powerful form of intelligent being.
Posted By: Guardian
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 03/24/06 17:10
This intelligent being we shall call a nerd.
Posted By: Joozey
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 03/24/06 18:08
We are on the edge of such a new evolution, with genetic manipulation. In maybe a hundred years we can not only program computers, but also new lifeforms, making them more intelligent, faster grow, stronger, better. Those new genetic generations will on their turn create even more intelligent and better lifeforms, and so on. No doubt computers will be mixed with nature, implants will be used for example making the eye see more colors of the spectrum; infrared vision and be able to zoom your vision by only thinking about it (that would be awesome
).
It can go in different directions by then, either we are becomming more conscious about our universe and such, and be friendly and all, or we turn into machines, making us more like the borg from star trek
, slowly, without notice.
Posted By: Marco_Grubert
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 03/24/06 20:31
Quote:
As computers become more powerful they will grow more intelligent There seems no reason why machines should not become more intelligent than people in the future.
People have been envisioning that for 60 years now, but so far I do not see any signs of it coming true. Symbolic AI has not been successful, which leaves us with neural networks and genetic programming. These two combined may or may not yield intelligent machines, but I am not holding my breath.
Posted By: light_mystic
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 03/24/06 20:36
How can something as imperfect as us create something and expect it to be perfect?
-Paul.
Posted By: Anonymous
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 03/24/06 23:02
"Electronics is much simpler than life's chemistry and does not need liquid water."
That may be true now, but if we ever truly acheive AI, then I would assume that computers will be just as complex in nature as actual living beings. I don't think we'll ever truly create a 'Real' intelligence with machines, but I think we'll come up with a good simulation of it that will amaze a lot of people even if it isn't the real deal.
Posted By: Scramasax
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 03/25/06 00:26
I think we will invent AI and give life to artificial forms. How do you define life is the question.
I think life could be distilled as an "adaptive resistance to entropy". Right now our machines can't create or repair themselves completely. They also can't evolve. When this happens, then machines will be alive.
The AI side of the equation, is them just getting smarter. That's inevitable, but without the aforementioned embodiment of life they are simple simulations, or mirrors of intellect. Disembodied and just as good as dead.
Posted By: ICEman
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 03/25/06 02:58
@ Paul.. doesnt mean it'll be perfect..just moreso than us.
@ Scram
I was watching I, Robot the other day, and it brought to question how we would even know when the boundary between lines of code and self aware being is crossed. How will we know whether the complexity of articulation and sensitivity achieved is just a fascimily or is actually the formation of what we might term as a soul? I think it's possible that it can and will be crossed as AI evolves...and our trouble as humans will be recognizing this and learning to treat and respect them as self aware (perhaps not living by our definition but self aware nonetheless) beings.
Posted By: KoH
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 03/25/06 10:32
when humanity finally understands how all the electrical connections and chemical reactions in the brain work, we will be very close to simulating, or even replicating it.
Posted By: Joozey
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 03/25/06 11:16
Quote:
I don't think we'll ever truly create a 'Real' intelligence with machines
Well why not? Our brain just consists of alot of synapses, neurotransmitters and more of this stuff. I don't see a reason why we should not be able to replicate this. What we lack in current computers for getting real intelligence is the ability for a computer to modify itself, making it's own chips, electronic paths and such, the ability to learn. This is what happens in the brain too.
Posted By: ArchitectTempest
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 03/25/06 16:02
I think that the question in the base of it would be "Do you believe in the soul?"
If you do, there is likely no question of whether machines will be alive.
If you do not, then Machines undoubtedly can, since then they are not much different than we are.
Posted By: PHeMoX
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 03/26/06 22:42
Quote:
I think that the question in the base of it would be "Do you believe in the soul?"
If you do, there is likely no question of whether machines will be alive.
If you do not, then Machines undoubtedly can, since then they are not much different than we are.
This has nothing to do with souls in my opinion. Infact, what do you mean with soul in this respect anyways?
Behaviour is our reaction on our world, wether or not it's the soul that makes us unique in our reaction (I think it's quite save to say, that no one reacts fully 100% the same, biological activities included, like breathing for example), or wether it's a preset genetic code defining our character is pretty irrelevant.
A machine will never have a soul (the spiritual one), and even if we could give it one, it will always be a recreation, since we cannot give souls, if there even is something as a soul. And unless we are going to develop biological bots, as in some sort of semi human clones, able to duplicate and self-repair, I don't think robots will come close to humans in their behaviour. The self-awareness can be easily faked, or at least it's far from impossible, yet would a perfect fake mean the robot has actually become self-aware or would it still be a fake? My calculator can give me some very clever answers, if and only if I 'ask' the right questions, I think that we should not expect a robot to develop new answers to questions not yet asked, to situations not yet experienced, to objects not added in it's library of knowledge. I think we are a long long way from robots really able to learn, and we are a long way from a perfect imitation that can't be distinguished from a human or at least how a human would act. The latter would have to be achieved by having no 'pre-defined behavior' to act by, not even some sort of 'procedural behavior', because wouldn't that still be an imitation and not the real learning we supposedly can?
Cheers
Posted By: ArchitectTempest
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 03/31/06 23:27
What I mean is; if you believe in the soul, then you probable (correct me if I'm wrong, I may well be), then you believe that only God can grant a sould to a being. As a spul, by the christian definition, is the supernatural life, spirit of the body. The soul allows us to reason, to learn, etc. SOmething that machines cannot do. Even with trillions of lines of code, as you said, they can immitate life very well, but it will always be immitation. Even biologically. So, as you said, we could never really grant a soul.
That is, what I believe, anyway.
Posted By: Neonotso
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 04/01/06 19:52
This kind of gets me thinking back to the "if we can't do it, how can random chance do it?" thing. Seriously, no one shakes a box of computer parts for "billions of years" and then a computer pops out...
LOL
Posted By: Harley_Potter
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 04/01/06 22:06
If those kind of machines will be made, they will definitely be used as weapon first, because they will be invented by military scientists. We all know (or at least understand), that military technologies developed faster, than civil. (Although, depends on country of course.)
So, it is quite enought to imagine thees machines usage consequences to understand, that they hardly will ever be released to public, because of their smartness.
Posted By: Anonymous
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 04/05/06 04:07
I have a plan to give everyone the eternalyouth that I have.
Tomorrow, and going off into next week... you all should feel and look as young as you were in the year 2000. Those of you who are atleast 30, you should atleast feel the affect. But do not worry. Unless you want to, you won't get younger than 11 days before your 24th birthday... unless you really really want to.
This should get you guys hope that (like me) you will be here, and young 10 thousand years in the future. So tell me, atleast by the end of the week how many of you are feeling as young as you did in the year 2000? However, it is possible that I may screw up and if I screw up... this will backfire and many of you will feel older. I hope I do not screw up. I will let you all know if I screwed up. If I screw up, only I will continue to experience the eternal youth.
Posted By: PHeMoX
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 04/05/06 16:39
Quote:
This kind of gets me thinking back to the "if we can't do it, how can random chance do it?" thing. Seriously, no one shakes a box of computer parts for "billions of years" and then a computer pops out... LOL
Letting something react random (or with a predefined random character) is still different from shaking a box of parts and hoping to see some results. Obviously it requires more than that, still I don't think that we could really get further than a perfect imitation. And would it still be an imitation at that point, or 'the real thing' (as in having a conscious for ex.)?
Cheers
Posted By: Matt_Aufderheide
Re: 10 Thousand Years in the Future - 10/02/06 15:21
I think strong AI is perfectly possible, but wont happen for some time, because computers are woefully underpowered compared to the human brain. You may not think so, but the human brain is far more capable of computing most things than even the most sophisticated computer..
while the human brain isnt so good at doing math, it can do other things like pattern recognition, speech recognition, fuzzy logic, creativity, etc.. These kinds of things are not well suited to the binary logic of a computer chip.
Therefore, in order for computers to function similarly to human brains they will likely have to "evolve" some of the same characteristics.
EDIT:
Quote:
How can something as imperfect as us create something and expect it to be perfect?
OK Saint Anselm.. dont confuse the issue with your medieval mumbo-jumbo. No one said anything about perfection..such terms are meaningless anyway.. things are what they are.