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I tend to be optimistic-historically we've absorbed new technologies, new jobs are created and standards of living go up. Barack Obama
IT’S HARD TO think of a single technology that will shape our world more in the next 50 years than artificial intelligence. As machine learning enables our computers to teach themselves, a wealth of breakthroughs emerge, ranging from medical diagnostics to cars that drive themselves. A whole lot of worry emerges as well. Who controls this technology? Will it take over our jobs? Is it dangerous? President Obama was eager to address these concerns. The person he wanted to talk to most about them? Entrepreneur and MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito. So I sat down with them in the White House to sort through the hope, the hype, and the fear around AI. That and maybe just one quick question about Star Trek. —SCOTT DADICH
originally posted by: swanne
a reply to: waftist
I happen to program basic AI as a hobby.
So far AI can execute only that which the programmer wrote it to execute. There are two kind of AI - those which simply reply pre-programmed responses to the stimuli input, and those which can create new responses and evolve. The pre-programmed kind of AI is actually the most efficient and cheapest to create. That's because its code never needs updating, and never grows - which means it only requires a relatively small storage capacity and can access random responses quicker. Evolving AI, on the other hand, requires ever-growing storage, because not only does it need to formulate new responses, but also memorise all of its failures / success in all of its existence.
For now, I've only seen the first kind of AI - even the spectacular Sofia is basically a pre-programmed response AI. In this case, the ethical ramifications of the AI's actions are the programmer's liability, since it's the programmer who told the machine how to react given certain conditions.
The second kind of AI is much more futuristic. A truly self-rewritable machine would gain the capacity of evolution, which is a very tricky path. It's possible for the AI to become more intelligent than humans, in fact there's no telling how much father it can surpass us. At this point, the AI could become a scary mix of Skynet and Lucy - building this second kind of AI is in my opinion the dumbest thing mankind could do, unless perhaps Asimov's Laws of Robotics are integrated as read-only coding in the AI's processes.
originally posted by: swanne
The second kind of AI is much more futuristic. A truly self-rewritable machine would gain the capacity of evolution, which is a very tricky path. It's possible for the AI to become more intelligent than humans, in fact there's no telling how much father it can surpass us. At this point, the AI could become a scary mix of Skynet and Lucy - building this second kind of AI is in my opinion the dumbest thing mankind could do, unless perhaps Asimov's Laws of Robotics are integrated as read-only coding in the AI's processes.
Quantum Computing just made another step too and that tech really opens things up, potentially manifesting more of our imagination and dreams…yikes or yay?
I think the ethical limitations should apply yo all AI, including entertainment aspects, just a golden rule of sorts.
originally posted by: swanne
Quantum Computing just made another step too and that tech really opens things up, potentially manifesting more of our imagination and dreams…yikes or yay?
Quantum computing is still very unclear of a technology. We don't even know how to program a simple executable language with it.
However, I think quantum computing could dramatically increase memory storage capacity, since the information is stored as particle spin - which would make it the smallest medium possible, and thus save tremendous amount of space.
The world now is moving with greater speed in the name of development. It is thereby, important to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the computers, on which everyone these days relies on for making certain calculations. Quantum computers are the computers that use quantum bits or ‘qubits’ unlike ‘bits’ in normal computers, for processing and storing data. A team of researchers from the University of Maryland has developed a quantum computer that is fully reprogrammable.
Conventional computers use strings of zeroes and ones representing ‘on’ or ‘off’ states to store numbers, letters, and symbols and perform calculations. While the quantum computers use ‘qubit’ that can be a zero or a one or simultaneously both. Such a feature enables quantum computers to perform actions at a faster rate than normal computers.
Quantum computers till date are programmed to run just one algorithm. The computer developed by the researchers is the first ever programmable and reprogrammable quantum computer.
The new quantum computer has been developed using five ‘qubits’. Each qubit is an ion or electrically charged particle, trapped in the magnetic field. Ytterbium atoms are used to formulate interactions so that quantum computers can be made programmable and reprogrammable.
The five-qubit quantum computer was tested on three algorithms that quantum computers, as prior work showed, could execute quickly: Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm, Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm, Fourier transform algorithm. The system scored 95%, 90%, and 70% in each of the algorithms respectively.
The lead author Shantanu Debnath, a quantum physicist and optical engineer at the University of Maryland, College Park said that in the future, the researchers will test more algorithms on five qubits quantum computer. He further explained, “We’d like this system to serve as a test bed for examining the challenges of multi-qubit operations, and find ways to make them better.”