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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Category: Machine Intelligence

Singularity Institute receives tax-exempt status

from the IRS-gods-have-smiled dept.
From Senior Associate Eliezer Yudkowsky: The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Inc. is glad to announce that we have obtained tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) public charity. We are now accepting donations (through check, credit card, or Paypal) which will be tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.

The Singularity Institute currently analyzes seed AI (AI designed for self-understanding, self-modification, and recursive self-improvement), Friendly AI (goal architectures for benevolence), and the Singularity. The Singularity Institute is also beginning to evangelize Friendly AI to other AI projects. The Singularity Institute's long-term purpose is to directly implement the Singularity by designing, developing, and teaching the "seed AI" which becomes the first transhuman Artificial Intelligence.

(Remember to attend the Singularity SIG at this weekend's Foresight Gathering!)

Have Russians created AI?

from the extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-proof dept.
Charles Vollum writes "In an article on ananova.com, Russian scientist Vitaly Valtsev claims to have developed the first artificial brain with the same intellectual potential as a human, using pioneering findings in neurophysiology and neuromorphology to produce a truly thinking machine."

Human-computer collaboration in science

from the but-who-gets-first-authorship? dept.
Waldemar Perez noted a New Scientistarticle on silicon scientists. "This fits perfectly with Drexler's automated engineering mentioned in Engines of Creation. This article talks about Inductive Logic Programming. I'm really impressed with the progress of robotics in the last couple of years.
Read More for an initial quote from the article.

KurzweilAI.Net: new site discusses Singularity

from the tomorrowland dept.
Bryan Hall writes "Raymond Kurzweil, author of 'The Age of Spiritual Machines' has a new website showcasing the ideas of leading visionaries and breakthrough web technologies. The site is hosted by Ramona, a real-time virtual hostess, using natural language processing, real-time facial animation, and other technologies to answer visitors' questions vocally. Ramona is programmed to verbally explain hundreds of `thoughts' (such as `artificial intelligence') to visitors as well as provide articles, glossary definitions, links, and other information…A major focus of the site is the exponential growth of technology, leading to the 'Singularity,' which Kurzweil described as “future accelerated technological change so rapid and profound that it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.'' The site's content includes parts of Kurzweil's forthcoming book, “The Singularity is Near.''"

Webcast of Kurzweil image transformation demo

from the get-some-TED-for-free dept.
A message from the TED conference: "A FREE hour of the exclusive (impossible to get in) TED11 Conference FREE. Brought to you by Apple's QuickTime group and TED Conferences on Thursday, February 22, 2001 at approximately 8:00 pm EST/5:00 pm PST. [Foresight Senior Associate] Raymond Kurzweil, winner of the National Medal of Technology, in a dramatic, amazing and entertaining presentation complete with singers and dancers will premiere the first complete blurring and image transformation in an astonishing demo of the near future. (This will demonstrate absolutely state-of-the-art digital avatar technology.) This one-hour presentation is not to be missed. Go to http://www.ted.com/webcast.html for specific information on the conference. The webcast will be available by approximately 8 pm EST (5 pm PST) on Thursday, February 22, 2001. The page will be available then at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/ted11/index.html Higher resolution and better quality video will be posted one day later." Read More for the full email.

ZDNet on downside of AI

from the good-news-bad-news dept.
Robert Trombatore writes "ZDNet's UK edition has an interesting article about AI. It's fairly well balanced and makes mention of Foresight Institute and its role in raising public awareness of emerging technologies."

CP: Here's an excerpt: "Minsky agrees that extinction at the mechanical hands of a robot race may be just around the corner, but says that developments in the field of artificial intelligence call for considered debate. He says he is encouraging artificial intelligence experts to participate in the work of the Institute." You can do that here on nanodot, and at the upcoming Senior Associate Gathering.

Arthur C. Clarke on nanotech and AI

from the megabrains-via-nanotech dept.
Scientific American reports Arthur C. Clarke's views on machine intelligence via nanotechnology: "Quoting himself (Clarke's third law), Clarke remarks that 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic; as technology advances it creates magic, and [AI is] going to be one of them.' Areas of research that target the ultimate in miniaturization, he adds, may be the key to making good minds. 'When nanotechnology is fully developed, they're going to churn [artificial brains] out as fast as they like.' "

Automated conflict resolution for design process

from the let-the-machine-figure-it-out dept.
The nanotechnology design process can seem overwhelming in its complexity. Fortunately, efforts are already underway to automate the identification and resolution of design conflicts in today's systems, such as work by Shimon Nof at Purdue: "The aim is to create software tools that not only identify conflicts in advance but also describe fine details about the nature of those conflicts to better pinpoint a resolution. So far, experimental results have shown that such software tools are capable of eliminating the 'dependency on humans to execute critical design tasks' needed to resolve conflicts that arise in facility design, Nof says in a research paper about the work."

BBC looks at AI, robots, and nanotech

from the British-bravery dept.
Skevos writes "The current online version of the BBC's In Business radio program is a feature looking at the future of robotics, and the program deals with nanotechnology and AI as well. The content is probably nothing new to readers of nanodot, but it's interesting to hear these issues being explored (rather cautiously) by a mainstream broadcaster. The host speaks to Hans Moravec, Ray Kurzweil, Bill Joy, and others, and runs for just under 30 minutes.

You can find the Real Audio link to In Business here, or a direct link to the real audio file is here. I believe the program updates every Thursday, so the link probably won't work after Thursday 16 November 2000, or else it may lead to a different edition of the program. I recorded the show to a 6.6meg mp3 file for my own purposes, but I'm unaware of any easy or legal way of making it available to nanodot readers who miss out on it."

Kurzweil's predictions at nanotech conference

from the blunt-talk dept.
Senior Associate John Gilmore forwarded a message from Politech about a Wired News story on Ray Kurzweil's talk at the Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology: "If he's right, exponential progress in science and engineering will allow us to merge with machines. We will become resistant to diseases, think faster, live better, and become transhuman in ways that would make even Superman green with envy…Identifying himself only as a graduate student in quantum computing, a bearded fellow questioned Kurzweil's commitment to humanity, saying 'this is the most hideous message that has been proposed in human history.' But most of the audience — if the widespread giggles during the question were any indication — seemed unalarmed."

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