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[alway]

You certain. It seems to me that corporations will try to exploit the barrier between AI and just a really smart program as much as possible.

Besides, I doubt that if we get as far as actual AI's we won't give them  Human interaction modules. They will be intelligent, but not capable of social interaction, or free thinking for that matter.

Almost everything here is wrong.
First of all, there is no barrier between strong AI and non-strong AI. None. There is no test for whether something is a strong AI, so far as I'm aware; the only proposed test which comes to mind is the Turing Test, which is flawed in a wide variety of ways which both rule out those it shouldn't (an AI w/o a life history or body cannot properly answer questions about a past life as a human) and include those it shouldn't (chatbots who can converse meaningfully, but not carry out a variety of other mental tasks). So that is to say, it is impossible to do anything but exploiting that lack of definition, whether or not you try to.

As for the second part, that's entirely wrong. One of the strongest driving forces in the field of AI is creating machines with which normal, untrained humans can normally interact as they would with any other member of society. A large part of AI research is figuring out how to allow us and our brains to do a minimal amount of work to interact with our machines. Further, depending on how we create strong AIs, it may well be quite impossible for the method used to create them without the same social aspects we have. The Human Brain Project/Project Blue Brain I linked earlier in the thread is an attempt to simulate an entire human brain. A human brain simulation would be entirely impossible to create without those aspects in just the same way that one cannot remove those things from a human brain and expect it to work.


The interesting thing is this: most people assume, whether consciously or not, that strong AI can not exist. If this were not the case, there would be many fewer believers in the existence of souls or other fragments of dualism. It's why I say creating AI would be somewhere on the scale between discovering alien life and discovering intelligent alien life. It shakes the philosophical and religious beliefs of a majority of society to the very core concepts on which they are built. It's the sort of thing that takes scientific knowledge and distributes it into the public consciousness almost instantly.

[10ebbor10]

1. In law, there will need to be. Elsewise, how are you going to make the difference between an intelligent being which needs to be protected, and just a really complicated program. The fact that this definition will be arbitrary will further increase the chances for people exploiting things,


2. Said types of AI ain't going to be the ones that are going to be exploited. I was talking about intelligent machines, which actually do stuff(Like organising and controlling machinery). These will, for logical reasons, almost  always be intelligent programs rather than AI's, making any AI problem rather illogical, as these will not have a self sentience as with humans.

[LordBucket]

I really want to be a cyborg.

Cyborgs have been around since 1926. Want more modern stuff? Here's a guy operating a bionic hand with a neural brain interface. Here's a guy who had implants to allow him to open doors and control devices over the internet Here's a guy with a camera in his eyeball that broadcasts to his phone.




This stuff is old technology. They've had animals controlling robotics and computer screens via brain implants since the 70s. It's mostly been ethical considerations that have kept the stuff linked above out of humans until recently.

I'd probably volunteer to try out a robot prosthetic if they wanted

Clinical trials for this sort of thing do exist:

Stanford Intracortical Neural Prosthetics Clinical Trial Recruitment
Braingate clinical trial

But at present they're mostly focused on people with disablities. Not too many people are eager to cut off functional limbs to attach mechanical ones. But if you have enough money you can do stuff like Kevin Warwick is doing:

"Kevin instigated a series of pioneering experiments involving the neuro-surgical implantation of a device (Utah Array/BrainGate) into the median nerves of his left arm in order to link his nervous system directly to a computer to assess the latest technology for use with the disabled. The development of the implant technology was carried out by a team of researchers headed by Dr Mark Gasson who, along with Kevin, used it to perform the ground-breaking research. Kevin was successful with the first extra-sensory (ultrasonic) input for a human and with the first purely electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans."

Here's a video from three years ago showing side by side video decoded from a cat's brain. Read through the above links. Watch the videos. Put the pieces together. Where do you see this stuff 5 years from now? If the human race wants techno-telepathy, it wouldn't take all that much to have it.

[Aklyon]

If the human race wants techno-telepathy, it wouldn't take all that much to have it.

It would however, take ages and ages to push through all the ethics arguments, insurance, and the people scared of tecno-telepathy.

[Meansdarling]

Thanks Lordbucket. I already knew that we have cyborgs, and about that eye-guy, but I didn't know about the studies.

My problem with cutting an arm off right now would be that artificial arms are not better than real arms yet. haha
Artificial eyes are not better than real eyes either. I'd totally get my defective eyes replaced if possible though.
Cyborg eyes that are awesome (better than my nearsight) would be cooler than glasses.

[LordBucket]

It would however, take ages and ages to push through all the ethics arguments,
insurance, and the people scared of tecno-telepathy.

Which is basically the topic of this thread. We already have the technology to create human/animal hybrids and chimeras. We already have the technology to to build the bionic man. We already have the technology to build a moonbase, to eliminate aging as a cause of death, and so much else. We're within single digits of years of reasonable funded research of global telepathic communication, humanoid robots capable of passing the turing test, and again...so much else. We can probably have a post-scarcity world before the end of the decade if we really wanted to.

...but...

People are so rooted in the past, so scared of technology, so fixed in their worldview that these things we're talking about a "super futuristic" and "won't happen in their lifetime, if ever" even though some of this stuff is decades old.

Here in the present we're being held back by the inability of people alive today to come to terms with technology that's already decades old. It only took 9 years between deciding to put a man on the moon and doing it. And yet even now, 40 years later there are still people who insist that it never happened because they can't overcome the worldview that such things are "impossible."

Will "old people" of the future still be technophobic? Look around. The human race is constantly being held back by limiting beliefs and inability to come to terms with what has already been accomplished.

When I simply look at the puzzle pieces forming around me today, and see where they're leading...I ask myself if when I teleport to Alpha Centauri and make out with a robot without noticing it's a robot, then go a a live pvp zone and shoot people with real laser guns instead of playing laser tag because we can easily just reconstruct our bodies at the push of a button...do I think there will people who have a difficult time adjusting to all that? Yeah, I think maybe there will be. And yet I read that and I'm embarrassed to write it because for all I know people in the future would laugh at such a ridiculous and stupidly low tech thing as laser guns.

1903, first human flight.
1969, first man on the moon.

When the Wright brothers flew there were people who didn't believe such a thing was possible, and yet some of those people lived to see Neil Armstrong walk on the moon.

Do you have any idea what kind of shock the future may bring?

You may see things in your lifetime that we, right now, are unable to conceive of.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

We already have the technology to create human/animal hybrids and chimeras.

No we don't.

We already have the technology to to build the bionic man.

But he'll be much worse than the organic man.

We already have the technology to build a moonbase,

But it would take a decade.

to eliminate aging as a cause of death,

No we don't.

We're within single digits of years of reasonable funded research of global telepathic communication, humanoid robots capable of passing the turing test, and again...so much else. We can probably have a post-scarcity world before the end of the decade if we really wanted to.

No we aren't, no we aren't, and no we aren't.

I don't think you really know what global "telepathy", AI, and post-scarcity actually entails.

[Scelly9]

We're within single digits of years of reasonable funded research of global telepathic communication, humanoid robots capable of passing the turing test, and again...so much else. We can probably have a post-scarcity world before the end of the decade if we really wanted to.

No we aren't, no we aren't, and no we aren't.

I don't think you really know what global "telepathy", AI, and post-scarcity actually entails.

Please explain, then.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Please explain, then.

Global "Telepathy": Requires language translatable brain-to-brain communication. Requires a massive network load once its widespread. Requires a system in which you can regulate which thoughts are broadcasted and to whom. Requires a solution for the buildup of neural scarring and necrosis caused by implanted machines. Requires there to be lots and lots of brain surgeons willing to operate on people for non-vital reasons. Requires people willing to have their skull sawed open for a non-vital reason.

AI: Massive unknown, and subjective overall. What constitutes an AI? How can we make it happen? Are we just fooling ourselves if it looks like we did? Is this even possible?

Post-Scarcity: Requires complete and total replacement for a need for resources and work. We have to be able to gather enough of everything for everybody. We cannot do this. There are lots of things that are still quite scarce. The closest thing we have to a post-scarcity sub-system is electronic data, which can be freely copied. Even this, however, is still limited by electronic storage space and some people's oh so alien desire to be compensated for their hard work.

[Aklyon]

Its not alien, its just the effect of legacy complainers making it harder for everyone else to be paid for something on the internet because they suck at making something that can do so well enough.

[kaijyuu]

You're welcome to suggest an alternate method of compensating people for their work than enforcing some sort of copyright.

The only things I can think of are kickstarter-esque projects where people's hard work is held at ransom, requiring payment before being released to the public. Or something like toady's method, which won't work for non-iterative projects.


(copyright derail incoming?)

[LordBucket]

We already have the technology to create human/animal hybrids and chimeras.

No we don't.

Welcome to nine years ago:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0125_050125_chimeras.html

"Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created."

"In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies."

And if you want to distinguish hybrids and chimeras:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2017818/Embryos-involving-genes-animals-mixed-humans-produced-secretively-past-years.html

"Scientists have created more than 150 human-animal hybrid embryos in British laboratories.
The hybrids have been produced secretively over the past three years by researchers looking into possible cures for a wide range of diseases."

"155 ‘admixed’ embryos, containing both human and animal genetic material, have been created since the introduction of the 2008 Human Fertilisation Embryology Act."

[Aklyon]

You're welcome to suggest an alternate method of compensating people for their work than enforcing some sort of copyright.

Doesn't necessarily need to be an alternate method, just being less of an arse about it. The aforementioned legacy complainers are punching out basically everyone they can with or without reasonableness because the internet looks like the new VCR of (non)doom to them, while Notch has done pretty well without having to do much of publicly shouting down people in the name of Minecraft^©.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

-snip-

Making unviable embryos and replacing a relatively similar part of a biological system (pig-to-human blood) does not human/animal hybrids make, especially if you're talking about the kind of creepy furry-esq thing I suspect you might be talking about. Even if you aren't, it is by no means a working technology.

Inducing Chimaerism I'll give you, but all of the other points still stand.

You're welcome to suggest an alternate method of compensating people for their work than enforcing some sort of copyright.

Doesn't necessarily need to be an alternate method, just being less of an arse about it. The aforementioned legacy complainers are punching out basically everyone they can with or without reasonableness because the internet looks like the new VCR of (non)doom to them, while Notch has done pretty well without having to do much of publicly shouting down people in the name of Minecraft^©.

Notch is an extremely lucky person who got his relatively mediocre game Colbert Bump-ed by Penny Arcade. Small-time developers who don't get endorsed by people with massive fanbases need all the money they can get.

[LordBucket]

point still stands about the others.

But it doesn't. Look at the bigger picture. Right now you're the guy staring at a combustion engine insiting that it will never replace horses.

unless we accidentally created an AI, and it's disguising itself as cleverbot.

I've already linked videos of robots engaging in human-speech conversations.

Here's another one

Watch that video and tell me what you think will be possible in 5 years. All of you people insisting that these things aren't possible and won't happen are liable to have a terribly unpleasant future if you can't adapt.