Artificial Intelligence and the year 2047

[ciphergoth]

Clarification: By "smart" I mean general smarts: the sort of smarts that allow you to do things like pass a Turing test or solve open problems in nanotechnology. Obviously computers are ahead of humans in narrow domains like playing chess.

NB: your guess as to what will happen should also be one of your guesses about what might happen - thanks! This applies to wriggler, ablueskyboy, thekumquat, redcountess, thehalibutkid, henry_the_cow and cillygirl. If you tick only one option (which is not the last) in the first poll, it means you think it's the only possible outcome.

[Poll #1103617]

And of course, I'm fascinated to know why you make those guesses. In particular - I'm surprised how many people think it's likely that machines as smart as humans might emerge while nothing smarter comes of it, and I'd love to hear more about that position.

Comments

What do you mean by "might happen"?

[henry_the_cow]

I marked the first two boxes, but I do think the others are possible - just less likely.

I also liked the comments by xquiq (developments will tend towards particular purposes), mistdog (changing the world is hard, at least in some ways), martling (machines will do many of the things humans do now, and zwol (it's a hard problem). Then again, back in the 70's I didn't predict where we are now, and some increases in power are happening exponentially rather than linearly which, as Kurzweil points out, most humans aren't good at reasoning about.

Here's a follow-up: if more intelligent machines make more of us unneeded by the ruling elite (the financiers and their colleagues), what will those elites do to stay in power?

Re: What do you mean by "might happen"?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

if more intelligent machines make more of us unneeded by the ruling elite (the financiers and their colleagues), what will those elites do to stay in power?

If vastly more intelligent machines are developed, and they are inclined to be friendly towards the interests of all humanity, then any ruling elite that wants to execute such an evil plan will find it has a formidable oppoent. If the machines are not inclined to be friendly towards humanity, there will be no ruling elite and no the rest of us!