Artificial Intelligence - The road to hell is paved with good intentions

A little background

Previously, I presented my dystopic views on Ray Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns requesting your feedback in an attempt to drive interest on the subject while create an open dialog. Although I didn't get the overwhelming responses and visibility I was hoping to achieve, I did have some interest.

Courtesy of Google and MIT Technology Review

The article reminded Hive account@iontom of a series of short stories he recently read, noting the similarities with Steemit and it's attention-driven currency from a barrage of information feeds. I did a little digging and provided a link to download the free e-book for Accelerando by Charles Stross (which notably won the Locus Award in 2006, as well as being nominated for a Hugo, British Science Fiction Association Awards and other established awards around that time), based on his reply. It does look like a good read and I am excited to get started on it. Thank you Hive account@iontom for sharing!

Additionally another outstanding reply came from Hive account@everittmickey, who is impressed with Ray Kurzweil's predictions and accuracy, with a much more optimistic outlook on the future from my own. There was one major issue with his optimism, though.

He didn't believe Artificial Intelligence would ever come to fruition due to the complexity of the brain.

The difficulty of reconstructing the brain functionality of an insect would require a network of supercomputers to perform the most miniscule of objectives, Hive account@everittmickey argues, much less than the mechanics of a human brain. What I gathered from his perspective is the inability for such a engineering feat to be constructed as well as the accomplishment to produce Self-Awareness.

The perspective of Hive account@everittmickey is correct... today.

Today versus tomorrow

Respectively, based on the advancements in three-dimensional integrated circuits, Quantum Computing (both Annealing and Universal models), and in combination with Artificial General Intelligence, I would argue we are rapidly approaching a new era.

Here is an example of IBM's Watson put together a trailer for a new Ridley Scott movie Morgan:

Granted, there is some human intervention, however one shouldn't deviate from the fact that an AI entity identified scenes ranging emotionally from happy to scary, building a foundation of clips to peek the viewer's interest without divulging the entire story. After viewing the original two trailers of the film, I believe Watson's version was superior without question.

Google has been a driving force in the development of several technological channels, screaming around the track, seemingly throwing caution to the wind. They share a D-Wave quantum computer with NASA, providing a launch pad for the computing algorithms applied for Annealing, that can function 100 million times faster than a traditional computer system. Not only that, they have employed the lead designer in Quantum Computing from the University of Santa Barbara, John Martinis to build their own quantum computer that will not be restricted to annealing, but a universal quantum computer with all the functionality of a traditional system with the speed of the D-Wave. They also acquired the DeepMind Artificial Intelligence platform and have made advancements from a coding aspect.

Combining the Quantum Computing with the Artificial Intelligence certainly leaves little to the imagination to fill the proverbial gap. With both IBM and Google having access to the most powerful Artificial Intelligence coding available as well as quantum computing design leading to universal quantum systems, I would venture to speculate a 'quantum leap' to be revealed within the next four to five years.

The big picture

This is merely the tip of the iceberg. Science is advancing in a number of different fields such as Physics, Genetic Engineering, Nanotechnology, Neural Networks, Longevity, Robotics and Bioelectric Engineering. With Artificial Intelligence on a universal quantum computer converging in the area of study shift each exponentially, tying back to the Law of Accelerating Returns.

The question then will be, can we keep up?

We want to hear from you!

Will Artificial Intelligence reach the point to become self-aware? In the event is does, do you fear the outcome as has been warned by so many prominent figures? Are you optimistic or pessimistic for the future of technology and mankind as a whole?

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