Interesting quotations about AI

I suppose it helps us live a lot, it makes us smarter and more powerful...so, I'm for

Elizabeth Fedotova, MIPT April 2011

The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.

Dijkstra

Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.

Oscar Wilde in "The Soul of Man Under Socialism"

Machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work that a man can do.

Herbert Simon, 1965.

Today's AI is about new ways of connecting people to computers, people to knowledge, people to the physical world, and people to people.

PATRICK WINSTON, MIT AI Lab briefing, 1997

AI is an engineering discipline built on an unfinished science.

Matt Ginsberg, reported in SIGART bulletin Vol 6, No.2 April 1995

In activities other than purely logical thought, our minds function much faster than any computer yet devised.

DANIEL CREVIER

The key issue as to whether or not a non-biological entity deserves rights really comes down to whether or not it's conscious.... Does it have feelings?

RAY KURZWEIL, USA Today, Aug. 19, 2007

Artificial Intelligence is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it allows us to create intelligent artifacts with human-like perception and cognition. On the other hand, it accelerate's people's heavy dependence on artifacts.

MAX BRAMER

A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.

ALAN PERLIS

A lot of cutting edge AI has filtered into general applications, often without being called AI because once something becomes useful enough and common enough it's not labelled AI anymore.

Nick Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the UK's Oxford University

Creation of Artificial Intelligence. Ethical and moral consequences

One of the important problems, connected with AI, is what the consequences for people are. And if they are negative, maybe scientists should stop their research and find another subject.

Artificial Intelligence can cause following problems:
•The number of unemployed can increase as a result of automation
•Amount of free time can increase (or decrease)

Arthur C. Clarke wrote that in 2001 people can be faced with extraordinary boredom and choice of TV channel will be their main problem. But instead of shortening of the work hours people are becoming a part of computer-assisted system that works 24 hours a day.

•People can lose a feeling of their uniqueness

Researches, connected with AI, discover that people are some kind of machines. Such ideas can lead to loss of independence and humaneness.
•People can lose their right to private life
For example, development of voice recognition leads to widespread wiretapping and loss of civil liberties.
•Progress of AI can cause the end of human era
Almost every technology can be dangerous, if it’s in ill-intentioned hands. And there’s a new problem. We can watch any film about robots and try to imagine what uncontrolled machines can do…

There are other questions:

What rights will robots have?
What will be the difference between human and robot, if robots can think and feel?
Will a man with 99 % of artificial organs be considered a machine?
We still don’t know answers. But if technology of AI will be developed, people should find them sooner or later.

History of AI

The history of artificial intelligence began in antiquity, with myths, stories and rumors of artificial beings endowed with intelligence or consciousness by master craftsmen. AI began with "an ancient wish to forge the gods."

Mechanical men and artificial beings appear in Greek myths , such as the golden robots of Hephaestus and Pygmalion's Galatea. In the Middle Ages, there were rumors of secret mystical or alchemical means of placing mind into matter, such as homunculus and golems. By the 19th century, ideas about artificial men and thinking machines were developed in fiction, as in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or Karel Capek's Rossum's Universal robots, and speculation, such as Samuel Butter's "Darwin among the Machines."AI has continued to be an important element of science fiction into the present.


Realistic humanoid authomatons were built by craftsman from every civilization, including Yan Shi, Hero of Alexandria, Al-Jazari and Wolfgang von Kempelen. The oldest known authomatons were the sacred statues of ancient Egypt and Greece. The faithful believed that craftsman had imbued these figures with very real minds, capable of wisdom and emotion—Hermes Trismegistus wrote that "by discovering the true nature of the gods, man has been able to reproduce it."


Artificial intelligence is based on the assumption that the process of human thought can be mechanized. The study of mechanical — or "formal" — reasoning has a long history. Majorcan philosopher Ramon Llull (1232–1315) developed several logical machines devoted to the production of knowledge by logical means. In the 17th century, Leibniz, Thomas Hobbes, and Rene Descartes explored the possibility that all rational thought could be made as systematic as algebra or geometry.
In the 20th century, the study of mathematical logic provided the essential breakthrough that made artificial intelligence seem plausible. Russel and Whitehead presented a formal treatment of the foundations of mathematics in their masterpiece, the Principia Mathematica in 1913. Inspired by Russel's success, David Hilbert challenged mathematicians of the 1920s and 30s to answer this fundamental question: "can all of mathematical reasoning be formalized?"


Their answer was surprising in two ways. First, they proved that there were, in fact, limits to what mathematical logic could accomplish. But second (and more important for AI) their work suggested that, within these limits, any form of mathematical reasoning could be mechanized. The Church-Turing thesis implied that a mechanical device, shuffling symbols as simple as 0 and 1, could imitate any conceivable process of mathematical deduction. The key insight was the Turing machine — a simple theoretical construct that captured the essence of abstract symbol manipulation. This invention would inspire a handful of scientists to begin discussing the possibility of thinking machines.

Stock trading and AI

Artificial intelligence has been used in a wide range of fields and one of them is stock trading.

Financial robots,called "black boxes", are computer systems which are specialized on dealings. They came into general use in 80s, but became widespread only in 90s, because in that time dealing automotization was completed. Purpose of the robots the same is the brokers' one: to buy cheaper, to sell more expensive.In the global financial markets thousands of robots gamble, hundreds of them are succesfull.

In short-term period robots much more effective dealers than humans because the speed of its reaction. IBM conducted test:Computer giant IBM pitted robotic trading agents, known as "bots", against humans in trading commodities such as pork bellies and gold.The bots made 7% more cash than the humans, according to a report in New Scientist magazine.

But people are still stronger in longterms forecasts. For example such stars like Warren Buffett and George Soros. So AI still can cope with analysis only market trends, but can't connect news and their consequences on market. But maybe in future . . .

Possible future of artificial intelligence, analogies in films.

The problem of artificial intelligence has been agitating scientists since 19 century. It’s not invented yet, but many films that tell about its creation and spread have already appeared.

In 1999 film “The Matrix” came out and became a big event in the world of cinema and fantasy. The film was based on a theory that the Matrix (computer system) dominates the world and needs people only to get energy. And such or similar way of evolution is really possible.

The rate of technological innovation is doubled every ten year; sphere of software is developed even more rapidly. People are at the beginning of era of creating independent artificial intelligence that will exceed abilities of human mind. If such artificial intelligence starts develop itself, new and rational machines will appear. And there is an important question, how two different types of rational creatures will coexist. Here are possible ways:
1. Dominance of people.
2. Coexistence with minimum of contacts.
3. Synthesis of human and artificial intelligence (creation of cyborgs or supermen).
4. Dominance of artificial intelligence (this way is in the film).

Whatever it will be, great transformations are in store for people.

Here is a list of other films that raise a question of artificial intelligence.

· Star Wars

· Artificial intelligence

· Blade Runner

· Bicentennial Man

· The Thirteenth Floor

· Transformers

· The Terminator

· I, Robot

Of course, it’s not everything. But in most such films people and robots can’t coexist quietly. And it should make us thoughtful…
Sophia Savinova

Jeffrey Hawkins on Artificial Intelligence

Jeffrey Hawkins is the founder of Palm Computing and Handspring. He has since turned to work on neuroscience full-time, founded the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience in 2002, and published "On Intelligence" describing his memory-prediction framework theory of the brain. In 2003 he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering "for the creation of the hand-held computing paradigm and the creation of the first commercially successful example of a hand-held computing device."

Weak and Strong

Artificial Intelligence. I'm sure you know what it means. This term is usually applied to a computer with special software that can produce some intellectual work. But the truth that there are two terms: Weak AI and Strong AI. First of them is a strict defined algorithm. You deal with it in medical diagnostics, Spam filters, object recognition, computer games etc. I've made several intelligent systems myself just for fun.And what is a Strong AI? It is a personality. Virtual person living inside computer. It can make decisions, generate strategies, solve puzzles, act in vagueness, have its own mind about reality, make plans, perform studying, use natural language and many other awesome things. But the most impressive quality that Strong AI has consciousness and self-awareness.
You shouldn't be sceptical. Strong AI is reachable in the near future. All that we need is 10^19 Flops. It is estimated that we will reach this performance level by 2025. Artificial neuron network can simulate human brain in details. Technology of uploading image of real human mind into this machine will be invented. Besides all benefits it causes a lot of philosophic problems. For example, should we admit virtual personalities as humans. Should we gave them the same rights as people have? All of this staff breaks verge between human and machine. And who knew, maybe in 2025...