Robots Are Taking Over!!

[sire_012]

The Viking Youth (http://www.vikingyouth.com) sit down with Ken Gumms director of the documentary "Building Gods", a self-funded feature length film about the coming Super Intelligent machines and Artificial Intelligence. We discuss with Ken the philosophical, technological and spiritual implications of this seemingly imminent and inevitable development of human history.
Presently, Chatter-bots, CYC programs and the Blue Brain Project are all being developed to learn how the human brain works and will most likely achieve a marked level of success in our life time. But once we successfully map the human brain what will be the implications not only for where we stand as a species but where our goals individually and collectively might take us? And how will those change?
What will the hyper-intelligent machines look like? And how many intelligences will these machines have? Simply cognitive? Emotional? Athletic intelligence? Will Artificial Intelligent machines have a sense of pride about their creations or care for their creations as we have found in some humans?
Is this the end of humanity, the over-fetishizing of intelligence or maybe even the next step in human evolution? Big shit, bubba. Big shit for sure. To help clean the pallette on this high minded quest let us quote our very own and very dear Viking Alex... "Technological Singularity is just the Rapture, but for nerds."
Edited by Jason, Engineered by Keith Cleversley, Music by Lee Chameleon.

Viking Youth Power Hour (http://www.vikingyouth.com)

[forteanajones]

I've been calling the telephone entities who attempt to guide me to the correct option but often misinterpret random background sounds as commands, or completely fail to comprehend my words, robots. Yeah, they're software, but they're robots. The first time I was inconvenienced, the words "*$%$@#% robots!!" came quite naturally to me. I felt a little old, but only until I decided that that my reaction was probably uniquely sane. Plus I have to admit that I felt a little proud to feel old with respect to robots.

Things like Roomba, Robot Wars, Asimo and, er, Chuckie have been sent out into the world without making too much of an impression on me. They're probably just a form of friendly PR to mask the scary military beings who are being sent out to do the dirty work and reduce the Dexedrine handouts.

This robot really got my attention, though:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41348000/jpg/_41348135_rep_getty_203.jpg (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4714135.stm)

She has the ability to totally fool an uninformed person (who is in the same room) for a few seconds.

Edit: Sorry, I guess Chuckie wasn't really a robot.

[ January 15, 2006, 07:25 PM: Message edited by: forteanajones ]

[forteanajones]

Human Beings aren't the only ones being subjected to this shit:

http://acp.eugraph.com/insects
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-986190.html

[sire_012]

that's crazy, i'd love to get a chance to errr meet this robot lady. she's fairly sexy too, although her style of dress is a bit off the mark.

i think you might be over evaluating the role of robots in popular culture in as much as i don't think it's some great plan to acculturate us by the military industrial complex. i think it's more a matter of a rising current as direct result of the industrial and post-industrial shifts in culture.

however, i did feel, while interviewing ken for this show, that these brain builders and the transhumanists, etc. are working from a rather staggering and imbalanced fetishizing of cognitive intelligence. it's all about becoming 'the smartest' in this race to develop AI. that's fucked up, imo. some of the smartest people i've met i wouldn't trust behind the wheel of a car, or watering my plants most days, let alone holding them up as ideals and rushing us into a mass development of them. now that doesn't mean i'm excited about stupid people either, mind you. smile.gif but it does make me wish there were some researchers or lobbyists who were trying to develop models of emotional intelligence, or kinesthetic intelligence, or what creates the appearence of wisdom and instinct for sustainability.

interesting times.

[forteanajones]

Sorry, I didn't really listen to the broadcast before replying, as I should have, but even from your synopsis there was a point I missed, and you're totally right.

Maybe as the digital beings gain intelligence (as some would claim they did a long time ago, but that's probably a different angle), the other forms of intelligence which cannot be replicated will emmerge into the mainstream sciences and become respected.

Can you synthesize intuition and cohesive synchronistic responses? Can you capture all of neurodiversity?

[craazyman]

When they've built one that can achieve a simulacrum of emotional crisis, belt down five vodka tonics and then pass out on the floor poignant and vulnerable in a puddle of puke they'll be honing in on the human condition. Until then, it's all just math.

[ January 17, 2006, 12:42 PM: Message edited by: craazyman ]