From: Natasha Vita-More (natasha@natasha.cc)
Date: Thu Jun 14 2001 - 22:25:59 MDT
USA: Livewire - "Man versus machine plays out in cyberspace."
By Eric Auchard; 06/13/2001
Reuters English News Service
(C) Reuters Limited 2001.
NEW YORK, June 13, (Reuters) - Stephen Spielberg's upcoming film "Artificial
Intelligence" is set to renew a long-running, centuries old, debate about
mechanical brains and whether they ever may become superior to the human
mind.
Robots are sure to be humanized the same way space aliens were made into
huggable, homesick little people in his epic "E.T: The Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence." "He is the first robotic child, programmed
to love" runs the new film's
advertising promotion.
Life-like robots are everywhere - not just Hollywood movies but in Sony toy
dogs, cars that monitor and talk back to drivers, and mechanical eyes
managing factory production. The Internet is full of science fiction musings
on how machine intelligence might one day overcome the limits of human mind.
Critics say that machines will never actually think in the human sense, only
process bewildering amounts of data. Yet, the pace of advances has given
naysayers some pause.
Debate is stoked by the emergence of powerful tools such as artificial
intelligence, bioengineering, and nanotechnology - computers that work at
the molecular level. These present both dangers and the potential to
transform the human condition.
Ray Kurzweil, an artificial intelligence pioneer, argues that computers are
rapidly outstripping human intelligence.
"We will reverse-engineer the human brain not simply because it is our
destiny but because there is valuable information to be found there that
will provide insights in building more intelligent machines," he predicts in
a forthcoming book.
To be sure, machines can solve problems with billions, even trillions of
variables that no mind could begin to contemplate. But do they think, and
daresay, will they ever possess emotions?
Care to notice it or not, but artificial intelligence has become embedded in
everyday life. Telephone customer service calls are now often routed
automatically using computer-generated voices with life-like personalities.
Banks use neural network technology that mimics the human brain to automate
decision-making about loan applications.
SO FAR, IT'S BEEN PRETTY DUMB
Artificial intelligence run amok has a long history that stretches back to
Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde."
It includes science fiction in the spirit of Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A
Space Odyssey," which in the film version has HAL 9000, the almost
omniscient computer, telling his fellow space traveler: "I'm sorry Dave, I'm
afraid I can't do that." And who could forget John Schuck's hilarious
robot cop in the short-lived
1970s show "Holmes and Yoyo."
The road to ever-improving machine intelligence has been littered with
mundane inventions, some of which work, even if humorously.
Computer intelligence simulations have been in use since the 1960s when
researchers built software to solve simple algebra problems. Another program
called Eliza offered a comforting form of Rogerian humanistic therapy. Web
readers can get free analysis at <http://pandi.20m.com/games/elizav2.html.>
More recently, Professor Stuart Wilkinson of the University of South Florida
has coined the term "Gastrobots" <(http://www.gastrobots.com/),> for
intelligent machines that derive all their energy requirements from the
digestion of real food. Such a self-sustaining machine could endlessly mow
the lawn along roadsides, eating its own clippings.
The specter that self-replicating creatures could be created out of
nanotechnology, bioengineering and artificial intelligence to displace human
beings, has led Bill Joy, a top software pioneer with Sun Microsystems Inc.
to call for self-imposed limits on scientific research recently.
By contrast, Natasha Vita-More, a multimedia artist based in Marina del Rey,
California, has spent 20 years working at the intersection of science and
art to popularize ideas about artificial intelligence as a means of human
liberation.
Her latest work, dubbed Primo 3M+, was developed with Kurzweil; Marvin
Minsky, "father of artificial intelligence;" and Ralph Merkle, an expert in
atomic-scale nanotechnology.
Vita-More's digital art piece is located on the Web at
http://www.natasha.cc/primo3m+.htm. The exhibit showcases dozens of
possible human body enhancements. It is not a robot, but a machine-enabled
human being. "The reality is man and machine are merging," said Vita-More.
Vita-More predicts the 21st century body will eventually offer the ability
for the ageless upgrade of human cells, with its skin impervious to damage
from sun rays. More radically, it may even come complete with batteries and
interchangeable sexuality as well as a computerized brain capable of
storing, preserving, and retrieving human memories.
RESISTANCE IS FUTILE
The revolution now underway has led to the creation of speech recognition
software that costs $50, boasts a 100,000-word vocabulary, and has the
ability to understand continuous human speech. Fifteen years ago, a $5,000
package recognized just 1,000 words, and could often not be understood.
Kurzweil should know, having helped invent text and speech recognition,
language translation, music synthesizers, and the first print-to-speech
reading machine for the blind. Kurzweil most recently authored "The Age of
Spiritual Machines."
"The whole history of computers is that as they become more complex, they
become simpler to use. It doesn't require human beings to become more
complicated," he said.
To popularize his ideas, Kurzweil has helped create the Cybernetic Poet,
which composes workman-like poetry, seemingly at random. His latest creation
is Ramona, a virtual singer who can string together interconnected thoughts
in conversation.
Kurzweil maintains a comprehensive Web site at <http://www.kurzweilAI.net>
with links to these projects and a range of readings for students of
artificial intelligence.
While the multiplication may be mind-boggling, he sees progress within 50
years toward a computer that costs $1,000 with the power of 10 billion human
brains.
For Kurzweil, this is all merely a matter of time - 2030 he forecasts.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:08:08 MST