[Mark]

Isn't that what this is really all about? The next step in the evolution of humans - or of life since humans are the most advanced species? Some important person will crash his motorcycle and require an artificial brain. Thanks to technology initiated by Jeff, he'll get one. Henceforth the obligatory firmware upgrades. Desireable, ethical, beneficial? These notions play second fiddle to Inevitable.

[Rob]

Actually, I thought it was so that we could build a society of robots to work while we goof around and do whatever catches our fancy.

[Mark]

I think that's the allure. More likely we'll end up emptying their oil pans.

[Rob]

It's an interesting exercise to think about what will happen as machines become more intelligent. Everyone has a different view. Americans see them as worker drones, Japanese see them as companions. The big question in most minds is whether they will take care of us or destroy us. I tend to side with Rodney Brooks, robot guru at MIT. I think we will begin to augment ourselves with neurodevices, and thus always stay one step ahead of the machines.

[Mark]

Your viewpoint seems plausible to me. Neurodevice augmentation does seem inevitable. Eventually these augmented beings will achieve quadruple digit IQ’s – “Super Computer On Board”. Science will undergo a “rapid expansion” and the distinction between technology and life will begin to blur. Eventually the human portion of the augmented being will become an appendix, a leftover byproduct of evolution – “evolution” now enveloping more than random cellular mutation. Instead of keeping ahead of the machines we will become the machines, staying ahead of less sophisticated machines like natural humans. As for destroying the natural humans? I think we’ll try, perhaps unsuccessfully, to keep them from destroying themselves.

[DavidOlmsted]

I think the major argument against the the development of an uber race is economics. I don't see any information processing hardware that is capable of simulating brain function ever being low enough in cost to mass produce. I think biology will always have the edge here.

Commercially we will see specialized super intelligent machines designed for certain applications but these will be relatively few in number. We could see large numbers of dumber general purpose intelligent machines but not anything that will threaten human dominance. Again why would anyone need to build general purpose machines with human level intelligence and motivations for any commercial or military purpose? Most machines built from brain technology will just be smarter for their limited domain applications.

I am sure we will also see a few human level machine brains for research purposes. Knowing how the human brain really works will aid in targeting drugs to the right areas to cure mental illness.
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Click to go to my site at neurocomputing.org

[Mark]

Naysayer. As Rob pointed out, it will begin with augmentation. Actually the augmentation has already begun. Currently there exist devices which feed audial and visual information directly into the brain. These devices are created to assist the impaired. Eventually as technology improves, they will provide sight and hearing as good as eyes and ears. With further improvement the unimpaired will want it. As a hoaky example Navy Seals might want to see in the dark without having bulky equipment strapped around their heads. This could be accomplished by intalling a CCD-like device in the retinal blind spot. Your website is outstanding David and I plan to educate myself by reading through it. Thank you for that. But . . .

[danshawen]

Not at all (immortality is not what Jeff's book is all about).

But since you bring up the subject:

In another thread, I have suggested that intelligence selects for itself in nature because there is perpetual conflict between tribes (humans) for dominance of both other tribes and available resources. Among the many benefits was our gift of facial recognition, which was a necessity of survival because of the need to identify friend or foe from a hostile or strange tribe in only a few heartbeats. They didn't always wear war paint or carry flags, and were not above subterfuge and infiltration to effect the advantages of sabotage and surprise over those tribes they wished to conquer.

Did you know that because our ability to fight conventional total war is largely inhibited in the 21st century, we have essentially arrived at an evolutionary cul-de-sac? I happen to think, sending intelligent machines to fight in our place will eventually do a lot of good in real time evolutionary terms, both for us and for our machines. This is tongue in cheek you know, but there are other ways, the intelligent evolution of machines along lines similar to the way we evolve will eventually enhance the viability of our own race, if we can manage to do it without destroying ourselves first, that is.

Any humans left after the first wave of terminators will be able to tell you if I was right or not.

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