The NY Times has an article on Artificial Intelligence (AI) by John Markoff (no, not the guy who developed the mathematics for random processes) titled "The Coming Superbrain" which some might find interesting. He makes connections to pop culture objects such as the movie "Terminator Salvation" and science fiction literature as well as research and speculation in formal areas of AI research. The article is available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/weekinreview/24markoff.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
A film that is mentioned in the article that folks might want to keep an eye out for is "Transcendent Man" which appears to focus on the issue of when the machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence (probably by the end of the 21st century). A key person advocating this position is Raymond Kurzweil, creator of various muscial devices, and the text-to-speech "reader" (also author of "The Spiritual Age of Machines" and "The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology" among others; more info is available on Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Kurzweil ). The article tries to provide a balanced view between the hopes and fears that researchers have about machine intelligence becoming greater than human intelligence but for a more complete treatment I'd suggest looking at Chapter 3 of Hamid Ekbia's "Artificial Dreams". The Figures 3.2 and 3.3 on page 74 provides a graphic representation of the growth of computing over time though Ekbia is skeptical about a number of points in Kurzweil's position. Ekbia's book also provides alternative perspectives on current AI and one could do much worse than to read this at the beach or wherever you plan on relaxing this summer. A review of Ekbia's book recently appeared in PsycCritiques. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
