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posted by cmn32480 on Sunday October 23 2016, @09:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the but-will-it-stop-for-coffee++? dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Udacity President Sebastian Thrun speaking at Vanity Fair's New Establishment Summit.

Prepare for your car to become an intellectual giant -- and for you to like it.

In a highly optimistic forecast at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in San Francisco, computer scientist Sebastian Thrun said artificial intelligence will radically reshape our lives for the better.

"In the last 200 or 300 years, we have made ourselves into superhumans," able to plow a field a thousand times faster than our ancestors, fly across the Atlantic Ocean and talk to a person in Australia, he said. Artificial intelligence will take us to the next step: "Rather than replacing our muscles, we're going to be making our brains stronger."

That'll start with artificially intelligent cars, said Thrun, who rose to Silicon Valley fame in his former job leading Google's self-driving car project.

"All the unborn cars get born with the full wisdom of their forefathers. AI cars will outpace all of us because they can learn faster," said Thrun, still a Stanford professor and now president of online learning site Udacity.

Artificial intelligence is spreading like wildfire across the technology industry, screening out junk email, labeling our photos, translating foreign languages and helping us type faster. But not everybody is so sanguine about the possibility of AI machines taking over high-skilled jobs.


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  • (Score: 1) by YeaWhatevs on Sunday October 23 2016, @10:39PM

    by YeaWhatevs (5623) on Sunday October 23 2016, @10:39PM (#417978)

    Hooo boy. I guess wild exaggeration is the best way to get press, but this is more in line with the crap you see on the green site.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by TheLink on Monday October 24 2016, @07:55AM

    by TheLink (332) on Monday October 24 2016, @07:55AM (#418068) Journal

    "Rather than replacing our muscles, we're going to be making our brains stronger."

    AI cars will outpace all of us because they can learn faster,

    Seems like his brain needs to be replaced. AI cars are about replacing brains not augmenting them or making them stronger.

    Augmenting would be driver assistance technologies (like better sensors, better processing and warnings) not driver replacement technologies.

    The technologies involved may be similar but the results and goals are a bit different in degree. The augmentation path leads to more of us becoming superhuman. The AI path leads to more of us becoming slaves, pets or livestock.

    Example of stronger brains = tech used to give us artificial eidetic memory, virtual telepathy, neural interface to control machines and receive input (extra video and audio channels into your brain, extra senses - geographical north - magnetic north is so old school ;), sonar[1] ), extra recognition (face, configurable image, gun-muzzle detection for military editions ;) ).

    Example of AI brains = you don't need such a good memory or bother your little brains with such stuff, Google AI will take care of you little one.

    Look at our smartphones - they are actually capable of a lot more (see how some have used Tasker: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-coolest-things-that-can-be-done-with-Tasker [quora.com] http://tasker.wikidot.com/profile-index [wikidot.com] ). However for most people their smartphone smarts is used more to serve Google and others: http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/235594-yes-google-play-is-tracking-you-and-thats-just-the-tip-of-a-very-large-iceberg [extremetech.com]

    So it's likely those upcoming AIs won't be serving you as much as they would be serving their real masters. How wonderful and exciting a future that will be right?

    [1] High level passive sonar can tell you a lot actually. I don't know about you but I can tell where an object is in a room if it makes a sound. High level passive sonar is similar but you tell where stuff is based on the sounds bouncing off, so even if the object is quiet you can still know where it is. The augmentation part is where we have a device do it instead of doing it ourselves[2]- listen where the echoes and "sound shadows" of existing sounds are to build up a 3D map of the environment and contents. The active version is a matter of generating extra sounds for the echoes if there are not enough external/ambient sounds or the sounds are not suitable for the desired resolution and accuracy.

    [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wby1CIhnYWI [youtube.com]

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday October 24 2016, @12:07PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 24 2016, @12:07PM (#418111)

      they are actually capable of a lot more

      Not disagreeing with your post or conclusions but I'd have used TV and specifically "smart TV" as an example.

      The delta between max theoretical benefit to humanity and the content that's actually shoveled out of TV in practice is kinda large. Also I'd guess a very large fraction of smart TV features are simply unused and the TV is just a large low resolution HDMI input monitor.

      Doesn't invalidate your argument or results I just had to trash talk "smart TVs" a bit as what I see as the epitome of your specified category of things.

      I would not be surprised if when real AI exists, rather than curing cancer its put to work on adding advertisements to web pages. I mean, isn't that what we do with non-artificial intelligent ivy league grads in silicon valley? I mean, sure, we all agree cancer suxs, but this dog food delivery over the internet startup needs a Stanford grad so you get one guess where the kid gets employed, and its not like AI will be immune to the same market forces...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @03:41AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @03:41AM (#418835)

        adding advertisements to web pages. I mean, isn't that what we do with non-artificial intelligent ivy league grads in silicon valley?

        Don't forget the tons of very clever people (physicists, mathematicians) in Wall Street and similar.

        Perhaps some of their fancy strategies aren't bullshit (some clearly are), but it effectively is like a bunch of clever people trying to beat each other in poker/chess and your savings/pensions being bets on one or a few of them.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @09:06AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @09:06AM (#418077)

    We're still looking for your submission ...