[Scarlett.]

Machine intelligence will catch up with that of humans and begin to overtake it in the next two decades, a visionary scientist has predicted.

Inventor, author and futurist Ray Kurzweil forecast the fields of computing and biology coming together to take artificial intelligence (AI) to undreamed-of new horizons.

Much of the progress needed would be achieved by "reverse engineering" the human brain - a process that was already well under way, Dr Kurzweil told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.

"Three-dimensional molecular computing will provide the hardware for human-level 'strong AI' by the 2020s", he said. Already, two dozen regions of the human brain had been modelled and simulated.

Dr Kurzweil added: "Once non-biological intelligence matches the range and subtlety of human intelligence, it will necessarily soar past it because of the continuing acceleration of information-based technologies, as well as the ability of machines to instantly share their knowledge."

Intelligent "nano-robots" - microscopic units of AI hardware - would eventually become "deeply integrated" in the environment, our bodies and brains, he said. Human intelligence would be enhanced, and life expectancy vastly extended. "Full immersion" in virtual reality worlds would also be a possibility.

Dr Kurzweil, who pioneered speech recognition technology and has written several "future-gazing" books, was one of 18 "maverick thinkers" invited by the US National Academy of Engineering to identify the greatest technological research challenges of the next 100 years.

Others included Google co-founder Larry Page, geneticist Dr Craig Venter, and climate change expert Professor Rob Socolow.

Prof Socolow, from Princeton University, New Jersey, said: "In some respects we were given a crazy assignment: to identify and rank the greatest engineering challenges that lie ahead in the 21st century.

"Ultimately we didn't find it within our intellectual powers to rank these challenges. How do you rank the eradication of poverty versus keeping the planet habitable versus avoiding nuclear war? Instead we came up with broad categories of the challenges that lie ahead and within those categories, identified specific initiatives."

MSN News

So with Intelligent Robots on the verge of being invented, do you agree with the concept?

[Matt10k]

Sounds good to me!

Reminds me of that guy that was talking about 'escape velocity theory'. He was basically saying that at the current rate of technological expansion, we could soon have people living for hundreds of years!!

Ok, he's most probably a nutter thinking about it! Still has some interesting, albeit ‘far out’ ideas of what the future could be like. Look up 'Aubrey de grey' if you haven’t read about him already…

...I think one of the strangest things though is to think of the nature of consciousness. Why do we feel alive? How advanced does something have to be before it feels the same way? I.e. will computers ever feel alive? If we recreated a human brain artificially, would it be conscious? If (very hypothetically) in the distant future, after we die, someone were able to rebuild our brain precisely back to how it was when we were alive, would we be brought suddenly back to life?! or would we not be conscious because we existed in a different time?

Arrghhh, I’m too drunk to think about this for much longer!

[Mark]

The problem arises when computers start thinking by themselves without any instruction from us, which leads to them having a conscience. Then the fun begins

- Mark

[Scarlett.]

lol
Just think about it though, When Star Trek was created the things on there where seen as impossible, but nowadays we are more advanced than it lol (apart from the spaceship part lol)

[Scarlett.]

Originally posted by Mark
The problem arises when computers start thinking by themselves without any instruction from us, which leads to them having a conscience. Then the fun begins

- Mark

lol its easy if they rise up just detonate a EMP bomb

[Scarlett.]

Here is the BBC's take

Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted.

Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people's brains to make them more intelligent, said Ray Kurzweil.

The engineer believes machines and humans will eventually merge through devices implanted in the body to boost intelligence and health.

"It's really part of our civilisation," Mr Kurzweil explained.

"But that's not going to be an alien invasion of intelligent machines to displace us."

Machines were already doing hundreds of things humans used to do, at human levels of intelligence or better, in many different areas, he said.

Man versus machine

"I've made the case that we will have both the hardware and the software to achieve human level artificial intelligence with the broad suppleness of human intelligence including our emotional intelligence by 2029," he said.

"We'll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains... to make us smarter"

-Ray Kurzweil

"We're already a human machine civilisation; we use our technology to expand our physical and mental horizons and this will be a further extension of that."

Humans and machines would eventually merge, by means of devices embedded in people's bodies to keep them healthy and improve their intelligence, predicted Mr Kurzweil.

"We'll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains through the capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons," he told BBC News.


The nanobots, he said, would "make us smarter, remember things better and automatically go into full emergent virtual reality environments through the nervous system".

Mr Kurzweil is one of 18 influential thinkers chosen to identify the great technological challenges facing humanity in the 21st century by the US National Academy of Engineering.

The experts include Google founder Larry Page and genome pioneer Dr Craig Venter.

The 14 challenges were announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, which concludes on Monday.

[Matt10k]

But will computers ever be conscious? Will they ever question whether they exist? If they DID question it, how will we ever be able to prove that they were thinking it of their own free will and not just because of something we had programmed? Are humans programmed to think this way too and if so are we even conscious at all or is it an illusion?
---
If everything we are aware of stems from our experience, which is based around our previous choices, that we (arguably) made through what we determined to be the best choice at any given time, which would have been determined by genetics which in turn stemmed from previous choices that you can trace back to the very first choice we consciously made as a very young person, are we even in control at all?

Arguably, we will only ever choose the most favourable choice from a group of choices that is predetermined by the sum of our previous choices… I.e. there are things I am able to do based on what I have done in the past and things I cannot do so I am limited to a set number of choices.

What I’ve done in the past limits what I am able to do in the future. If I studied to be a mechanic for example, the most favourable choice to me is most likely to become a mechanic. Now, if you throw in luck, chance and the randomness of life and how we respond to what is thrown at us, this is genetic. Take a person with a certain character profile- throw an obstacle at them and they will react in a predictable way based around their genetic profile. Everything else could theoretically be predicted by how they reacted in the past to a similar event and the number of choices they are limited to/ feel comfortable enough with to go with.

Basically, what I‘m trying to explain, bearing what I’ve said in mind is- where is the control and free will we think we have? How are we any different to a machine?

I too think it’d be possible in the future to create a machine with human like intelligence and supposed free will but could we ever prove it were conscious? We can’t even prove that we are! Whether we will go down that route or not is a different matter.

Technology might expand in different ways. It’s all about priorities (where the most money can be made basically).

[Sunny_01]

At the end of the day they all rely on man for servicing, data entry to make them work etc and to build new ones. I will worry when they start to breed