Robots Are Going To Take Over the World

It's predicted that sometime between 2020 and 2030 civilization will reach a point where technology will become more intelligent than humans. When I attended the singularity conference yesterday I was expecting a bunch of science fiction enthusiasts theorizing about robots taking over the world and turning the human body into a battery, just like we saw in the Matrix. The speakers were surprisingly grounded and talked about their current efforts as engineers and philosophers. Dr. Rodney Brooks of MIT and the founder of iRobot, was the key note speaker and revealed (with a bit of humor too) some of his firms experimentation with artificial intelligence. Most interesting is their work with programming robots to interact with humans and exhibit emotional reaction. Not surprisingly, Rodney explained how research and development on AI has taken off in the last few years since the US Government has funded the design of robots to reduce the numbers of humans in war zones. His company currently responsible for mass producing robots for consumer use.

As the discussion progressed it became clear(er) that there were a few different fields that study the increasing intelligence of technology; which you're probably familiar with if you've seen the Terminator. The premise is, when (not if) will machines become conscious? While much of the discussion here at the Singularity summit centers around theorizing on when this technological moment will come and how it will impact the human race, a few speakers, explained how they are working on robots that interact & converse by understanding and exhibiting human reactions.



Another interesting topic is based around accelerating change and the theory of exponentials. It sounds technical but it's pretty straight forward: technology is advancing at a faster pace. It's based on Moore's law, the principle that computing power doubles every 18 months. Moore's law is the rational being used to explain how the moment of singularity is fast approaching. Throughout the summit the one topic that seemed to get all these scientists hot and bothered was making a prediction about what would happen after Singularity has been achieved. Predicting the future after the moment of singularity is huge, and no one really has any idea what the consequences will be, we just realize it's fast approaching.

I think some of the ways we currently interact with "robots" aren't even realized, take Amazon's Mechanical Turk project for example. One of it's most recent programs allowed users to search satellite images from Google maps to find lost individuals. This is a great way to combine human intelligence with AI, but how do things change when the human component doesn't offer an advantage.

Another interesting topic of debate surrounded the proliferation of robotic rights. One argument centered on the hypocritical nature of humans and how we disregard the rights of others; proving that rights aren’t given, they are earned. At some point, it's argued, Artificial Intelligence will reach a point where it is self conscious and autonomous, at which point robots will seek to claim rights. Scientists are studying human behavior to understand how cognition (LIDA Cognitive Cycle) develops with the intention of understanding how machines could be moral.

The most public example of an autonomous machine is the success of an unmanned car winning the DARPA challenge by autonomously completing a 132 mile course in just under seven hours. Clearly this is just the beginning, but what if this car hit someone based on a decision it made that was in no way related to the individuals who programmed the car? Who is responsible? Does the car stand trial?

Another study referenced the Joshua Blue Project - a comptuer system patterned after the human mind, capable of autonomously learning to successfully function in a number of environments. It included the study of semantic processing and autonomous common sense knowledge acquisition. IBM has been looking at clues from human development and have been studying synaptic life cycles along with the human brain and eye tracking.

Dr. Barney Pell from Powerset spoke about the importance of robots in the work place. In this clip he explains the characteristics necessary for a robot to be a successful employee; including socialization with humans.




As I left the Summit I realized I was going to have to drive myself home, but at least I wouldn't have to worry about getting run over by some demoniacally possessed robotic car.