POLL: Is A Terminator Scenario Possible?

h+ magazine - May 21, 2009

Vinge, Brin, Goertzel and others respond

David Brin
David Brin is a SF and non-fiction writer. Among his most influential books are The Uplift War, Earth, The Postman, and the non-fictional The Transparent Society

A director's #1 need is to get the hero into dire, pulse-pounding jeopardy as quickly as possible! Preferably against some overwhelming authority figure for the audience to hate, and for the hero to bring down, with little more than guts, defiance and sheer will. Hey, I can dig it. I've gone to that well myself. And the surest trick is to assume, from the start, that civilization failed. That nobody blew a whistle, no professionals checked things out, no institutions functioned and that masses of bright citizens never had a clue. Hey, it could go down that way!

Ben Goertzel
Ben Goertzel is an AI researcher, head of Novemente LLC, Director of Research of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. AI columnist for h+ magazine

Some SkyNet analogue taking over the world? Well, if someone built a global computer security system and intentionally made it highly intelligent, autonomous and creative... so as to allow it to better combat complex security threats (and ever-more-intelligent computer worms and viruses) ... well, perhaps so. It's not beyond the pale. A narrow-AI computer security system wouldn't spontaneously develop general intelligence, initiative and so forth.... but an AGI computer security system might... and the boundary between narrow AI and AGI may grow blurry in the next decades...

Read more>>

Follow me on Twitter. Technological Singularity and Futurism is updated often; the easiest way to get your regular dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Could the net become self-aware? (3quarksdaily.com)
• Repent! The Singularity Is Near! (plastic.com)