Amazing Facts.

[Arm0r]

Music is kind of stupid but the facts they state are amazing, worth a look.

http://www.bofunk.com/video/7994/did_you_know_2008.html

[[BTF]Sigma]

The music is sweet. Fatboy Slim FTW.

Those facts were pretty amazing. I liked the one about India's top 25% of educated individuals. That one I was shocked to find out. That and a technical 4 year program will find that 50% of the information learned in the first year will be obsolete by the 3rd. :wow:

[QwazyWabbit]

Did you know 74% of all statistics are made up on the spot?
Only 2% of individuals are able to discern which ones are not.

[Art]

"facts" are pretty loose these days.

[DaHanG]

negative nancies.

[[BTF]Sigma]

Sex Panther. They've done studies, you know. 60% of the time it works, every time.

[Chocobo Joe]

Goddamn, those statistics somehow give me a sense of impending doom. Don't laugh too hard at this, but doesn't anyone get this uneasy feeling when people talk about growth in the future, how technology will be better than humans, and how much the population will grow?

[DaHanG]

Goddamn, those statistics somehow give me a sense of impending doom. Don't laugh too hard at this, but doesn't anyone get this uneasy feeling when people talk about growth in the future, how technology will be better than humans, and how much the population will grow?

After watching various Terminator movies/shows recently, I am definitely not completely secure at the growth of computers. Perhaps I'm being irrational though. It seems hard for anyone (let alone me) to make a fair judgment just how probable computers will stay under humans control exclusively.

[Stinger]

Eh, understandable to get a little nervous from time to time, but really, I didn't see the technology growth as a bad thing. Never have.

   Computers are just a tool. No matter how powerful the tool is, it's only something to be afraid of if it's being used by people who would use it to do harm. Now, when you take into account how many stupid people there are in the world who could misuse the computers? Then fear may be a rational thing. But as far as the "terminator" stuff is concerned, that's just downright improbable.

   Even if someone does create a robot for the purpose of killing (Which, if you think about it, does seem like a bit of an eventuality), it'd be a small scale thing. I don't think technology will ever become a big force in the "things that kill people" field. Humans do it way too well themselves to let the competition catch up.

Cool video, though.

[quadz]

Computers are just a tool. No matter how powerful the tool is, it's only something to be afraid of if it's being used by people who would use it to do harm.

I think it will depend on how long Moore's Law
Moore's Law holds out.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/28/plasmonic_lens_saves_moores_law

As in the above, we keep finding ways to push it further... But on the other hand, an exponential growth process cannot continue forever.

Sun announced a supercomputer in 2007 which supposedly has 1/20 the processing capacity of a human brain:

http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/suns-new-super-computer-equals-120-of-human-brain/


Supposedly, if Moore's Law can hold out until 2020, around then we should have desktop computers with the processing capacity of a human brain.  And if it holds out until 2030, desktop computers should have the computing potential of 32 human brains.

etc.

If computers get that powerful, then I think the development of a thinking machine is probably inevitable.

And once a machine becomes able to improve its own design, then:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity   

"Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an ‘intelligence explosion,’ and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make." -- I. J. Good (1965)

But on the other hand:

"Superhuman intelligences may have goals inconsistent with human survival and prosperity. AI researcher Hugo de Garis suggests AIs may simply eliminate the human race, and humans would be powerless to stop them."


So... in the next 20 years, unless we run into some insurmountable technological barrier (or blow up civilization first) ... it seems thinking machines could potentially be created that are smarter than us.

Whatever happens after that, it probably won't be boring.


Regards,

[[BTF] Reflex]

Dan Simmons,  Hyperion Novels


Hmm,  no way to talk about some of the relevance without spoiling the books.

But the AI core gained legal independence not too far into the 2100's I think,
and they did come up with some pretty neat shit for us,  even after that.

[[BTF]Defiant!]

Fun topic..

1) From a "God" perspective, it doesn't really matter what kind of creature we are.. we are destined to create a digital intelligence to aid then surpass us.  Consider if cockroaches had evolved to rule the world, they would have computers of some sort and those computers would eventually surpass them too.  So, we're just here to spawn the computers.  We don't become a threat to them, we become ass irrelevant, slow, and nonthreatening as trees are to us humans.  Consider how many jobs right now are really you just helping a computer! Mine is!

2) Consider this superhuman computers will have access to the internet, will know who you are, and will read this and everything any human has ever produced.  So, I for one welcome our new overlords.   

3) Don't fret, because while we are designing computers to surpass our slow evolution, we are also adjusting that evolution.  Consider how technology gets closer and closer to us, computer in a room --> computer on you --> computer in you --> you are the computer.  Consider genetic alterations.  With brilliant computers, one could redefine our genetic code.. which is also a program.  Want a metal exoskeleton, no problem!  Want infinite memory, no problem!  We will merge with the intelligence.. perhaps someday dropping our humanity.

[Stinger]

Heh, one way of looking at it. Call me a geek, but I subscribe to the "Star Trek" theory of technological advancement.

Yeah, the computers will very quickly become smarter than us. Cool. They're still devoid of emotion, which is a big part of why people kill like we do. Now yes, at some point "virtual emotion" is plausible, but it'd just be an emulation of what it was taught.

I think humanity at its core has something that can't be mechanically reproduced. Our "soul" for the lack of a better word, I'm an atheist myself. But even when computers become far more advanced and capable of far more intelligence than our smartest "us", it'll still be a box that will never know lust, or fear, or hate. Maybe approximations of them, if some programmers get bored, but not the real things.

But yeah, Star Trek has the Borg, too. And I do think it's only a matter of time before people start mixing and matching technology with their bodies. What Quadz said; At least it won't be boring.

[jägermonsta]

Amazing facts.

I love the IT College one.

experience > degree

[peewee_RotA]

If computers get that powerful, then I think the development of a thinking machine is probably inevitable.

You're attributing a "law" formulated for computer hardware to a concept that is inherently only possible through software. If the only program that ever existed was solitaire, then a supercomputer would only be able to play solitaire. The software may be limited by hardware requirements, but you are assuming that the software either exists or is possible.

Despite that, assuming that the software is possible, it's inevitability is not guaranteed. After an extreme cost of R&D Honda has developed a functional walking robot. Does that mean that our cars will inevitably be replaced by mechs? Or that robots will ever replace workers? To do what? Assemble Toys in Mexico? The labor that a robot would be used for will never be cost effective. And the labor that should be is currently being done by machines on assembly lines and it will continue to be more cost effective for assembly machines to be improved rather than replaced with robot workers.

So what is the purpose of creating artificial intelligence? To replace humans? If by 2020 we have a computer with the processing power of one of my 3 year olds, I still don't trust my three year old to fill her own cup with juice. And by 2030 we have a computer capable of becoming a telemarketer or a cab driver. Then I guess the trillion dollars per unit is going to replace the guy in india working for 6/hr.

This is the same logical fallacy as the planet "running out of oil". We'll never run out of oil because once gasoline is less cost effective than another source of power, gas will no longer be used.

I love these drawn out contests of brain power when the answer was derived over 200 years ago by the onset of the free market.


Oh and the reason I came to post here anyway

"facts" are pretty loose these days.