Nicholas Eftimiades

Diplomat, Author, Space & Future Tech Expert

future, technology, civilization, China, scifi

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Edward is a madcap scifi story set in the future that satirizes modern life, from organized religion to the traffic control system.
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Future World: What will it be like?

November 28, 2010

Tags: future

The idea of self aware machines has inspired many Hollywood movies, but don't expect to see a robot with the desire to be human any time soon. The human brain is just too complex. For artificial intelligence to become a reality, much will need to be learned in the areas of psychology, neuroscience, cognitive and computer sciences and more.

Comments

  1. November 30, 2010 5:36 PM EST
    On December 4 and 5, 2010 leading researchers, engineers, philosophers, physicians, designers, and others met at Caltech’s Beckman Institute to participate in Humanity+ @ CalTech and address the provocative and timely question: What are the radical technological changes that will redefine humanity? I'm sure it makes for an interesting few days but I'm not sure how useful it is. The non-linear explosive growth of technology does not make for an easy task of predicting the future.
    - Nicholas Eftimiades
  2. December 2, 2010 10:18 AM EST
    While I support the investigations into AI and alleged benefits/values that could be achieved, I guess I’m ‘old school’ (and admittedly a ol gheezurr) in that I believe any AI system has to be built and ‘seeded’ by smart humans. I’m thinking of a spacecraft that would like to have an AI or otherwise automated ‘orbital debris’ detection and reaction capability. If such a subsystem needs to know if they should avoid the debris, grapple the debris or simply let the debris collide with the spacecraft, without any human intervention, then I allege that some smart human must have first done the engineering and analysis to identify those ‘orbital debris’ situations that this AI system should be able to handle and also those that it simply cannot be expected to or required to handle. I would have a hard time trusting some AI version of an ‘orbital debris’ detection system that would allegedly ‘learn’ to avoid debris when that was not part of it’s original functionality. Admitting my naivety in the underlying technologies of AI and neural nets, etc, I still struggle with how these lusted-after ‘self-healing’ systems can be developed without some smart humans first determining which ‘wounds’ can, in fact, be ‘healed’ and then just what are the system options and capabilities that would then perform some type of ‘self healing’. I sometimes think that people confuse ‘automated’ with ‘artificially intelligent’. I would hate to have an AI type of ‘self healing’ capability and then somehow it ‘learned’ that something to be ‘healed’ is the nominal flushing of the toilet.”
    - Ron Kohl
  3. December 3, 2010 9:38 PM EST
    There are 7 MAJOR societal-changing-in-a-big-way bits ongoing. EACH of these is a societal game-changer. The combined effects I am currently at a loss to access/ project. Anticipate tremendous non-linearities.

    - Climate change [ including Positive feedbacks not in the IPCC projections] and Peak oil/ uranium/ coal/ natural gas

    - The hideously HUGE Debts [ AKA The great correction]

    - The Eco-system is crashing. We are asking too much of it now by some 50%, as China/ India try to attain Western Standards of living will need 3 more planets...Not readily available in the next 50 years when they are needed, AND would have to go inter-stellar

    - There are 5 Simultaneous game-changing techs on an exponential path and highly synergistic [ IT, Bio, Nano, Quantum, Energetics]. They are changing nearly everything in real time.

    - The drastically increasing numbers of Psychopaths and sociopaths caused by the too rapid tech changes and their impacts. The same techs give INDIVIDUALS Tremendous destructive power.

    - Rise of the machines, robotics/ automatics taking over the jobs exponentially , read Martin Fords ‘Lights in the Tunnel”.

    - Humans becoming Cyborgs, including Brain Chips.....

    The nearer term effects which is OBVIOUS is that the next bubble to burst is the standard of living bubble. Currently SOL is based upon Debt and an unrealistic drain on the Eco-System.........

    It is going to get VERY Dicey.......

    Dennis Bushnell
    Chief Scientist
    NASA Langley Research Center

    - Denis Bushnell

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