From Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Bladerunner,” to “RoboCop” and “Terminator,” visions of a future controlled by robots, supercomputers and artificial intelligence have often been dystopian and somewhat scary.
But professors from the Silicon Valley-based Singularity University are trying to dispel that image, and were in Moscow’s Skolkovo innovation center last week with an upbeat message: That humankind can not only keep control of the machines, but stands to reap massive benefits from harnessing an explosion in super-intelligence.
The professors came to talk to young scientists and students in Skolkovo’s Open University seminar program about what happens from around 2029, when scientists predict that an average $1,000 computer’s artificial intelligence will surpass the human intellect.
Exponential growth
According to the Singularity theory, from that point technological advances will expand exponentially. In a graph it would look like an arrow, starting from 1.0 (this is why “the Singularity” term appeared) and going vertical, while previous human development had a linear (step-by-step) curve.
“Our brain was designed to survive in the Savannah ... we think and develop linearly, while computers’ capacity grows in an exponential way,” Salim Ismail, the Singularity University’s global ambassador, told the audience at Skolkovo.
Experts in artificial intelligence claim that simultaneously a breakthrough in biomedicine, genetics, nanotechnology and many applied sciences, will occur – based on the exponential growth of computer capacity.
The $1,000 genome
How will it affect our lives is still unknown, but the technology is becoming more affordable. In 2003, decoding a human genome (mapping a person’s entire DNA) cost over $1 billion. In 2007, it cost $350,000, while by 2011 the cost had been slashed to $3,000. By 2013, scientists predict, the price tag will be as low as $1,000.
“There is a real option for different countries to pick up on it,” Ismail told The Moscow News. “Anyone can open a lab at home and create some world chain product, which simply wasn’t possible, unleashing entire industries in a way we couldn’t do before,” he said.
“You are the ones who will have to manage this,” Neil Yakobstein, head of the artificial intelligence unit of Singularity University, told the Skolkovo students. “Russia has a huge backlog of basic knowledge. We came to help create a system that will begin to commercialize a breakthrough.”
Role for Russian science
“Even governments all around the world are hopelessly behind in their understanding of what all these advances may mean,” Yakobstein said, adding that Russia could play a key role in artificial intelligence, due to its wealth of experience in fundamental science.
Students bombarded the Singularity professors with questions, ranging from the scientific and societal effects of artificial intelligence to queries about the dangers of the technology ending up in the wrong hands, or under the control of an authoritarian state.
“What about that part of humanity, who could be thrown overboard by this technological growth?” one student asked.
Kasparov beaten
“Today an African farmer with a smartphone in his hand has better information capacity than Bill Clinton did when he was US president,” Yakobstein replied.
The unstoppable advance of artificial intelligence (AI) has in fact long been a fait accompli, Yakobstein said.
“Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, failed to beat supercomputer Deep Blue in 1997,” he said. “However, a group of people working in a team with a machine are more powerful than any computer on its own.”
To avoid being displaced by machines, humans will have to get more and more creative and always know how to control them, Yakobstein said.
Robot videos on display
Rob Nail, robotics director at the university, which is situated on the NASA Research Park campus, displayed eye-popping videos of new robots. One showed a disabled person who regained the ability to walk normally thanks to a robotic exoskeleton, while Google’s Robocar gave a couple deep in conversation a ride to a restaurant with the help of a laser scanner.
One Skolkovo student saw a potential glitch if the Robocar was adapted for use on future Russian roads.
“What if the car suddenly gets an SMS from the traffic cops, let’s say, and is directed to a police station instead of a restaurant?” the student asked. “Will the car follow the driver’s instructions, or the traffic police’s order?”
Happy robots
In another project, robotic birds and flies with built-in cameras could potentially be sent to spy on your neighbor. In other videos, a robot skipjack jumps onto the roof of two of a building, while a robotic horse drags some military gear on slippery roads. The horse trips and slips, but gets the job done.
“I hate to think what terrorists could do with all these devices, but let’s agree: It looks really cool,” joked Nail, the robotics director. Some robots are even “emotional” – you give them a puppy and they become as happy as a child. “You could begin to empathize with their emotions,” Nail said. “Hey, this is just a device, like a refrigerator. You don’t empathize with your fridge, don’t you?”
Making a Stradivarius
Brad Templeton, head of the Singularity nanotechnology center, said an era of atomic-level manufacturing was just around the corner. “It will take the word ‘waste’ out of our vocabulary for good,” he said. “And nanosized sensors in the human body will signal any adverse state (from unnecessary calories to cardiovascular problems) and show the exact place of the problem, like a warning light in cars that signals when some part is faulty. If you like to play the violin, atomic engineering will make you an exact copy of a Stradivarius. Molecular engineering will make wonders possible, such as luminescent trees for your dacha.”
Singularity University, now backed by Google and NASA, was established in 2008 by U.S. scientists and entrepreneurs Peter Diamandis, founder of the X-Prize Foundation, and Ray Kurzweil, futurist and inventor. By 2011, the university had a total of 2,400 applicants for 80 study places.
What will ‘the singularity’ mean?
Ray Kurzweil, inventor of voice recognition systems and the author of bestseller “The Singularity is Near,” considered that the Singularity, which is predicted to appear roughly by 2029, will usher in an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly non-biological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today.
This explosion in super-intelligence will be possible thanks to an exponential growth in computing capacity of PCs and artifi cial intelligence machines, Kurzweil and his associates claim. An immense growth in calculation capacity will drive a plethora of high-tech advances, including biotech, medicine, nanotech and robotics.
Our biological limitations will be expanded, and our creativity will be amplifi ed, the Singularity scientists say. In this brave new world, there will be no clear distinction between human and machine, or reality and virtual reality. Genetics will enable living organisms with previously unthinkable features. Atomic manufacturing will reduce waste to zero, and even death could be ultimately turned into a soluble problem thanks to technological advances. This exponential growth has its risks, but the benefi ts could be endless if the mankind studies properly how to manage what it has created, the theory goes.
In 2007, the US Congress’s Commission on Technological Development studied and gave approval to Kurzweil’s and other singularity scientists’ reports on exponential growth of technologies.
Source: themoscownews.com