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from the i-for-one-welcome-our-new-computer-overlords dept.
kef writes:
"By 2029, computers will be able to understand our language, learn from experience and outsmart even the most intelligent humans, according to Google's director of engineering Ray Kurzweil.
Kurzweil says:
Computers are on the threshold of reading and understanding the semantic content of a language, but not quite at human levels. But since they can read a million times more material than humans they can make up for that with quantity. So IBM's Watson is a pretty weak reader on each page, but it read the 200m pages of Wikipedia. And basically what I'm doing at Google is to try to go beyond what Watson could do. To do it at Google scale. Which is to say to have the computer read tens of billions of pages. Watson doesn't understand the implications of what it's reading. It's doing a sort of pattern matching. It doesn't understand that if John sold his red Volvo to Mary that involves a transaction or possession and ownership being transferred. It doesn't understand that kind of information and so we are going to actually encode that, really try to teach it to understand the meaning of what these documents are saying.
Skynet anyone?"
(Score: 5, Funny) by aristarchus on Monday February 24 2014, @06:25AM
And how is this different than millions of undergraduate students? Now if we could improve their understanding--nothing would stand in our way. But if we can't, bring on the AIs.
(unfortunate side-effect of a rural upbringing, I always see "AI" as "artificial insemination")
(Score: 2, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday February 24 2014, @07:35AM
(nah, too easy. Let me try something else)
Keeping to the topic of "reading billions of pages" and the above mentioned meaning of AI in a rural upbringing, I'd like to remind Ray Kurzweil two important aspects:
If, against astronomical odds, the first of them would become true today... (uhh, but I still like better the use of Rule 34 as applied to tentacles).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2014, @11:12AM
Hmmm ... I notice that the time frame for strong AI and for fusion coincides. That's a clear correlation which needs an explanation. Therefore I conclude that one of the following is true:
☺ (If this doesn't render correctly for you, here's the ASCII version: :-) )
(Score: 1) by JeanCroix on Monday February 24 2014, @02:54PM
Nope. Just Chuck Testa.
(Score: 1) by lx on Monday February 24 2014, @10:58AM
(unfortunate side-effect of a rural upbringing, I always see "AI" as "artificial insemination")
Are you familiar with the movie Demon Seed [imdb.com] from 1977? It managed to combine both meanings and 1970s fear of computers.
(Score: 1) by linsane on Monday February 24 2014, @01:13PM
Never quite got round to watching that one myself, however last week watched "Her" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/ [imdb.com]
I was fully expecting it to be a bit on the weak side having read the preamble that it was about Joaquin Phoenix falling in love with his operating system, however it was very thought provoking. Scarlett Johansonn proves that she still has the magic even though she is just a dismbodied voice, well worth the time and ticket price and one that would appeal to female better halves too.
(Score: 1) by lx on Monday February 24 2014, @05:25PM
I'll have to watch that then. I'm always up for a bit of Scarlett.
(Score: 1) by metamonkey on Monday February 24 2014, @08:54PM
Just a voice? What a waste of Scarlett Johansonn.
Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
(Score: 1) by nightsky30 on Monday February 24 2014, @12:46PM
bring on the AIs.
(unfortunate side-effect of a rural upbringing, I always see "AI" as "artificial insemination")
You're doing it wrong ;)