On Wed, 9 Feb 2005, Brad Wyble wrote: > Hardware advancements are necessary, but I think you guys spend alot of > time chasing white elephants. AGI's are not going to magically appear > just because hardware gets fast enough to run them, a myth that is > strongly implied by some of the singularity sites I've read.
[snip] > Spend your time learning how to use what we have now, that's what > evolution did, starting from the primitive processing capabilities of > single celled organisms. Actually at Cycorp we spend very little time thinking about hardware advancements, other than for specific sponsored hardware-oriented research. I agree with posters here that given a couple of orders of magnitude more powerful processors, weak AI programs will be economical to develop and deploy. I believe this phenomenon will become widespread in about 10 years. In 2014, according to trend, the semiconductor manufacturers may reach the 16 nanometer lithography node, with 32 CPU cores per chip, perhaps 150+ times more capable than today's x86 chip. Cycorp's approach to AI does not depend on understanding biological brain function. The following web site documents our progress towards creating a human-like competency in answering high school chemistry questions: http://www.projecthalo.com/halotempl.asp?cid=214 Without exactly specifying the investment required to achieve the above competency, I believe that it is a small fraction of the competencies involved in a stereotypical white collar job. When CPUs get cheap enough, it will be economical to deploy weak-AI applications to augment and replace vast numbers of white collar jobs. It is a false comfort to deny the possibility of a disastrous Singularity because of the intellectual difficulty of soon creating safe AI. I believe that the danger is exponentially increasing from very small levels and will be more obvious in about 10 years. Note that my statements are mine alone and do not represent my employer in any way. Cheers. -Steve -- =========================================================== Stephen L. Reed phone: 512.342.4036 Cycorp, Suite 100 fax: 512.342.4040 3721 Executive Center Drive email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Austin, TX 78731 web: http://www.cyc.com download OpenCyc at http://www.opencyc.org =========================================================== ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
