Sunday, September 5, 2010

Possibilities and Fears of A.I.


When we look at the advancements of technology and our understanding of the human mind we continually encounter the two intersecting. Artificial Intelligence is constantly advancing and becoming part of our daily lives. We normally see this in a virtual world such as video games, but A.I. is also making strides toward our daily lives. In the video above we catch a glimpse of just how real A.I. is and how we may one day see robots in our daily lives. However, this possibility of artificial life doesn't come without fear. Fear that we can't control what we create or fear that A.I. will learn far beyond our own ability. Many of these fears have been realized in movies like iRobot. To allow for our safety and continual advancement of technology and science we must always be several steps ahead and keep using our imagination to envision all possible scenarios but by no means should we stop.

ASIMOs new artificial intelligence. [Video]. (April 14, 2009). Retrieved September 05, 2010

3 comments:

  1. artificial intelligence has always seemed odd to me when its viewed as an apocalyptic scenario. For instance, does A.I. allow robots to go beyond making their own choices and feel malice and anger. In the movie Terminator the machines actions are based on logic initially, but eventually make less and less sense in the later installments. So could A.I. make machines feel anger someday, allowing them to smite the human race without logic or good reason. Would they feel remorse?

    ReplyDelete
  2. As I watched ASIMO move about and learn, I couldn’t help but wonder if the fears we have of robots growing beyond our control and abilities is not similar to a fear that every parent might have at some point in their lives. Yet, society seems to say that it is the role of the child to surpass their parents in understanding and ability in some point in their lives. Could not the same be for robots? Parents’ fears of having to give up control of their children are relieved with a deep love of their child and the knowledge that they have thought their children well. We must apply these same principles to the creation of robotics and A.I. if we also want to relieve or own fears of our machines. We are not afraid of robots advancements in understanding and ability. What we fear is that we will try to create a human intelligence in machines, but we will fail.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm not so sure it will fail. We've already created robots that learn. It's a really scary idea.

    ReplyDelete