I’m stealing today’s AI from John Brockman who poses The Edge Annual Question each year. The question for 2009 is:
What will change everything?
A few suggestions posed in the article The Big Question include climate change, studies showing that animals have emotions and feel pain, a general sense of trepidation (currently affecting the economy, for example), and the emergence of new religions.
What do you think will change everything?
Proof of intelligent life anywhere in the universe, especially here on Earth.
Well, A asked this yesterday:
http://skepchick.org/blog/?p=5211
So…should we change this to “what do you think won’t change anything?”
A very large rock moving at high speed?
An AI with an IQ exceeding that of the average human.
@Steve: I’m going to assume you mean Artificial Intelligence, and not Afternoon Inquisition. ;)
When people realize that there are too few resources for all the humans on the planet.
Pie that exists simultaneously in cake form, ending the eternal feud.
Alternately, a ninja in a pirate costume.
Seriously though, I’d have to say that something along the lines of true AI would change everything, primarily because it could give us intelligent solutions to problems without bias clouding the judgement midway through.
Well, we saved the cheerleader, so hopefully THAT will change everything. Otherwise, the future is looking grim!
@Ubermoogle: That brings up the question of whether we can build an AI that has no inherent biases, doesn’t it? Can biased minds create an unbiased mind?
“It is a puzzlement…” :-D
The Singularity, when the truly intelligent and advanced humans leave the fundies behind to stew in a Hell of their own making?
Wouldn’t that be poetic justice? WWTLD? (What would Tim LaHaye do?) :-D
@QuestionAuthority: That’s a good point. I was more going for the idea that it wouldn’t have any necessary moral viewpoint or stance programmed into it, and would, as a result, be unbiased towards a religious, moral, or otherwise potentially confounding issues that we as humans simply wouldn’t consider.
Good question though… I wonder if I’m thinking of something that we simply couldn’t make.
The rapture.
@writerdd: That’s why I came up with the Singularity…If that’s not the geek’s rapture, what is? :-D
@Stacey: Yes, artificial intelligence, not Afternoon Inquisition. I’d say all Afternoon Inquisitions exceed average IQ. Well, there was that one…
Hmmm, try as I might I can not imagine “one thing†that will change everything any time soon or in the foreseeable future. Unless it’s aliens showing up on our door step or the flying spaghetti monster making a simultaneous call to every phone on the planet telling us we’ve all been somewhat irritating and remedial interventions will be commencing forthwith.
Technological advances nearly always come in small increments and not much sneaks up on us anymore. Issues like animal rights and climate change seem quite unlikely to have any new available research or information that will sway current opinion. And when it comes to the economy, wars and religion there have been so many more times in the past 100 years that have been more dire, more depressing and more screwed up I’m not all that concerned about the current circumstances we find our selves in.
Finally getting my name in the phone book. Things’ll start happening to me then.
Don’t stand near any oil cans Sam.
My wife is having a baby next month. That’s about all the change I can wrap my brain around. And, since I’m an incorrigible solipsist, I’m assuming that your lives will all change as well.
Time
@Sam Ogden: Yeah, just like in ‘The Jerk’.
A Google search for “this will change everything” yields some interesting definitions of “everything”. I found an article from 2004 that said the (then) new wearable SIRIUS Satellite receivers would change everything. I must’ve missed that.
The total destruction of humanity.
What won’t change anything?
Evidence – when presented to an anti vaccinationist or a creationist or a …
Just one thing comes to mind: Plastics.
Or rather the 21st century equivalent… Transparent Aluminum.
Robot nurses.
http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-health-news/2008/04/23/robot-nurses-will-be-used-to-clean-hospital-wards-by-2020-65233-20807952/
Remember all the hoopla about ten years ago in anticipation (manufacturer-generated, that is) of what turned out to be the Segway? I recall talk of something so incredible that it would change everything…
so far the Vice magazine don’ts and there’s that new mall cop movie…so, uh…
What will change everything?
Getting laid would change everything.
Well it would for ME!
Hey listen, I aint been nookied since Bush Sr was the top dog. Becoming poonyfied would change my life pronto.
Ubermoogle, Question Authority: If you haven’t already you you eheck out Eleizer Yudkowsky’s work at http://www.overcomingbias.com he’s actually a researcher in AI and has written about AI morality.
What I think will change everything is when the US government finally spends itself into total insolvency in a couple of decades. If we’re lucky the rest of the world will see the writing on the wall and stop relying on you before it’s too late. Otherwise things will get ugly.
@Ubermoogle: Seriously though, I’d have to say that something along the lines of true AI would change everything, primarily because it could give us intelligent solutions to problems without bias clouding the judgement midway through.
———-
In what sense would that be “true” AI?
@ Denver7M
… just a thought here … but maybe if you didn’t call it “becoming poonyfied” you have a better chance at getting “nookie.”
:)
What will change everything?
A Vogon constructor fleet appearing in orbit around the Earth.
“What do you mean you didn’t know?! The plans have been posted at Alpha Centauri for the last five years! If you can’t be bothered to nip on down…!” :-D
@Ubermoogle:
The thought that A.I would somehow be inherently bias-free is a pretty biased remark.
@QuestionAuthority:
It doesn’t matter. The problem is never bias which is inevitable. The problem is the relationship of bias to thought and action which is manageable although most of the time unmanaged.
@James K:
I find it challenging to believe that with all we don’t know about our own ‘intelligence’, ‘morality’ , ‘free will’ et al that we somehow know enough to create a true AI. It would almost have to be accidental. On the other hand, we are quite good at making AAI by which I mean artficies that do a job of ‘seeming’ intelligent by a series of guesses and mimicry.
Crossing the streams.
@wytworm: I’m not implying that it WOULD be bias free, but that it certainly COULD be.
@James K: Neat. Thanks for the link. I know what I’ll be reading today.
@sethmanapio: Perhaps I’m abusing the definition a bit, and I might be a little optimistic about it generally, but I think an unbiased AI could give us a completely different perspective of things from what we’re used to as thinking, reproducing and self-preserving animals.
Yudkowsky feels the same way. That’s the fascinating thing about him, he’s dedicated to his cause while being fully aware of how mind-bendingly hard it is. He’s not even close to writing code, right now he’s trying to develop a philosophy of intelligence and morality to the point where it will be useful in creating AI.
@James K:
I suspect that in the end ‘writing code’ will be the inefficient way to go about it.