The Machine Is Us/ing Us.

Sorry if this has already been posted. This is a great video, that really shows what sort of revolution we're going through right now. Without a doubt, the biggest news for the 21st century.... where will it all lead?



Many of us probably grew up skeptical that the all-knowing computers of science fiction would ever be anything other than fiction... but now I'm not so sure..

The internet has accellerated the accumulation and development of ideas to a rate unthinkable even a decade ago, let alone a century ago. If thought is the instantanous reaction to a combination of stimulus, and knowledge, then human thought itself is accellerating.

The question is, at what point will our interaction with the machine reach a point where we can access a shared knowledge as fast and as easily as we can access our own memory? At what point do we become permanently inseparable from the machine?

And are we really ready?

Anyway.. enjoy the video. It WILL make you think.


[edit on 14-2-2007 by nowthenlookhere]

Hey thanks a lot for the vid! It sure did get me thinking. When the words 'privacy, family, love' showed up at the end. All this facebook and myspace, they're like a collective of personal information, who we know, when we hang out with them, where we work, what groups we join etc... and are we ready? I personally do not think so.

well-done vid, but not really any new information~ most of the stuff mentioned is basically a given, and we already know how badly organized everything...

we are not teaching 'the machine' anything unless the machine is automated~ sure, some parts of the web are automatic... but hey.. my browser doesn't know to come to ats and then open article's I'd be interested in...

and as for 'myspace'... noone said you have to sign up~

[edit on 15-2-2007 by x08]

Maybe, but it would only take few more technical advances to push the next stage of the revolution forward.

Google is already automatically linking pages with simple concepts (keywords), and ranking them in order of relevance.. that's not dissimilar to the way the neural networks in our brains work..

Now what if computer linguistics advances to stage where Google can not just recond the words in a webpage, but actually read and "understand" them, enabling it to link not just keywords, but complex ideas and concepts. What if it's start being able to understand flaws in our logic, and point them out?

What if neuro-science develops to the point where we are able to interface the computer directly to our brains? Sounds like science fiction, but then I never expected something like the the web or YouTube back in the early eighties.

The next fifty years are going to be interesting, to say the least.

id say every 50 years are interesting. technological advances always seem to come as a surprise, but why should they? we're always advancing in leaps and bounds, regardless of how much we're paying attention as individuals.