Singularity Class Script

OPENING REMARKS

You got an eight page handout last session so you have an idea of what is to come and have had a chance to think about it. There is a 30 page discussion on our web site alone with a page of 80-some links that could not be condensed into the videos and a page of headlines from the last month.

I don't know if these videos will work. There were no Nova IPTV shows, or Learning Company, or TED talks that addressed the subject directly so I had to make these and I have never done this before. Two months of almost full time work went into this session.

There are two videos.
  *   The First Video is mostly of THE NOW, the current state of the art with an intent to show the range of things going on that support and lead us towards the future and The Singularity. We concentrate here on robotics and artificial intelligence, but be aware that human augmentation, genetics, and nano-technology are equal partners. Each of these five have many sub-facets.
  *   Part Two is about THE SINGULARITY. We don't know much about it ; that is why I wanted to research it and get some thoughts of other thinking people like you about the associated issues. It is going to occur in 26 years and will be more significant than Global non-Warming which just may raise temperatures by a degree by the end of the Century, something on which we are wasting a lot of time, talk, and money. Nobody is talking about the Singularity, which will be a whole lot sooner and have a whole lot more impact on civilization

The first clip is the best of the bunch in describing artificial intelligence.
    The long section on Robots is because of what the Fukushima tidal wave disaster imposed on a nuclear power plant. Japan was the leader in robot technology and could do nothing with their clever dancing robots to control the ongoing disaster. What you will be seeing is the preliminary contest by DARPA to build a disaster response robot. I watched it live last December. It was boring. The final test next June should provide us with robots that will be of some value in future disasters.
    A couple of years ago DARPA had a similar contest for self driving vehicles. In the first test, not one vehicle achieved one mile. The second and subsequent were magical. You see these features reaching the public today -- self parking, lane keeping, automatic breaking, etc. Goggle is now test a car without a steering wheel or break pedals that will soon be on the market in limited numbers.
    This is intended to raise questions about things such as : Autonomous cars, autonomous manufacturing, education, health and life span, and the Golden Age we might expect.

A couple of key points. There is linear growth, 2,3,4,5 ; Exponential growth 2,4,8,16 ; and even super-exponential growth 2,4,16,256. (tetration)+ Would you take a deal that I give you $2 and you give me 2 cents, but a super-exponential amount in succeeding days? If you did, you would owe me 4 billion pennies by the end of the week. Can such growth happen? One guy's idea attracts attention ... and money and manpower pour in and great things happen seeming overnight. A snowball becomes an avalanche. The computer I learned on had 8KB and cost the Sylvania research center a quarter million dollars in 1972. These movies are on a thumb drive with 32 million KB and cost $16 at Staples last week for a 4 million-fold increase in capacity, and, AND a similar decrease in price resulting in super-exponential growth in price performance, There is has been a fantastic increase in computer power and it will accelerate.

The second big point is that :
  An airplane does not have feathers, but it flies.
  A submarine does not have fins, but is races under water.
 Can an intelligent robot do what a human can do? It is not too early to start thinking, "What does it mean to be human?"

So many subjects are broached that we can run off in dozens of directions. And we are touching only on Robots and Programming AI here, something we all think we know something about. Human enhancement, Genetics, and NanoTechnology are parts of this picture and are equally as important, but we had to draw the line and these "new age" topics didn't make the cut.

My apologies in advance for all the short coming of the video
Lets roll.

    Video Part One 22 min

CONCLUSION Part I.

Robots are pretty clunky right now, but so was the Wright Flyer airplane. It looked and performed nothing like a moon mission capsule. The breath of types of robots is intriguing -- for jobs that humans cannot do or are too expensive. One-for-one health care support of the aged interest us here. Endless patience in Education. Work in dangerous environments such as disasters, fighting fires, battle fields with thousands of lives saved.
    Watson is to give an idea of what robot intelligence is about.
    Did you notice the Turing test. If you can't detect if you are interacting with a human or robot, what difference does it make if it runs of bread or batteries? Those idiots on dial-up help lines reading from an answer sheet could be easily replaced with a mechanical voice without an Asian accent.
    Towards the end, What effect is it having on you that one of the smartest men in the world has declared himself obsolete. What does that bode for the rest of us?
    The advent of robots and artificial intelligence may mean a Golden Age. Much as electricity changed life in Iowa about 80 years ago. Each woman's Monday was spent over a wash tub, soon she is blessed with a cappuccino while the family car takes the kids to soccer practice.

Anybody want to start discussion on the positive benefits of intelligence in robots?

. . .

INTRO to Part II.

The mathematical singularity is the point at which two parallel lines intersect. A concept as academic as infinity or imaginary numbers. The name has been applied to the point at which computer intelligence equals human intelligence. This is a brief point in the robotic growth to super intelligence. The questions you might become interested in answering are the impacts upon society. Will there be a Golden Age? How will it come about? Who participates? How is that determined?

    Video Part Two 22 min

CONCLUSIONS Part II.

At the rate of artificial intelligent growth, if Sheldon's brain were uploaded to a computer in sixty years, he would be the dumbest robot on the block. But what do you think of immortality?

Can human enhancement keep with the sure progress of artificial brains and capabilities? Will robots be our servants or will they develop their own goals? Will they be friendly towards humans? As much as we are towards dogs?

Hollywood has cute machines becoming human-like or fierce warring robots. I had to include Kara to put a pleasant face on the awakening of consciousness. But is consciousness necessary? We have government officials that suggest otherwise.

The most populous male job in the U.S. is driving -- trucks, vans, taxis. What becomes of the job of truck driver in the coming decade? Joe Biden, our national clown, says that unemployment is a time for enjoyment of leisure, a time to get to know the kids. But this is serious business ... and not just for the Teamsters Union.
    When Swift (or whatever it is called now) automates, what happens to the Mexican (or whatever the immigrant group of the month is) what will they be doing? Living on golden welfare like the rest of us? Or rioting?

Who will benefit from the new day? Will it become a Golden Age of leisure as robots serve us. George Orwell had a semi-benevolent government that sounds strangely like the singleton, that is, the overall controlling mind of robots, The Machine of "Person of Interest".

A no singularity point of view was presented. Does his argument boil down to when the singularity will occur, not wither? Ray says in 2029. The consensus I have found is 2040. The worst nay-sayer might suggest 2174, -- but not never. It will come. Will the singleton be friendly to Humans? Will the inferior race of man be served? Or tolerated? Or hunted down? Is there any possibility than men will be considered the gods of robots? How can we expect human-level ethics and responsibility of robots when we cannot instill human-level ethics and responsibility in men?

Nobody else but me would ask the question is mankind worth saving? Is the "5000 years of civilization in 3-minutes" telling about the nature of humans for all past, the present, and can be supposed for all future existence? There was a "Twilight Zone" episode in which some astronauts return to earth in the future, and when they ask the robot caretaker why they have to be embalmed, are told" "You are men. As long as there are men, there can be no peace." Anybody want to start on any of the many possibilities?

. . .

WRAP-UP

We can expect some interesting times ahead. We in the upper echelons of 21st century United States will benefit from a Golden Age. In an ideal world, everybody would benefit. But The Singularity will occur with such swiftness the Golden Age will not be able to be distributed very far before it is over. We know that 99.9% of the species that have ever lived are now extinct, including our cousins Neanderthal and Cro Magnon. We all know we will die, yet we live today. We know that the USA will fall, much as Rome and all the others, yet we live today. We know that humankind will go extinct, now we have one more reason, yet we live today. Why worry about it?