Pre-order the future here. Publication date in the UK is June 5. US is June 25 I believe.
https://www.dk.com/uk/book/9780241647479-the-childrens-book-of-the-future
The future really is here
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Category Archives: Robots
Robots, love and intimacy
Map of the History of AI
Just working on another revision of my artificial intelligence (AI) foundations map. But I like Greg Orme’s idea of turning this map into a series of monthly instalments, each looking at a particular area of computing, AI or robotics. So, for example, one could focus on how literature has influenced robotics and vice versa. Ovid’s Metamorphosis would be a good a place to start, but so might Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, itself influenced by the Year Without Summer (1816), which was caused by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. (Who knew one could draw a link between a super-volcano in 1815, Mary Shelley in 1818, Isaac Asimov’s iRobot in 1950 and Ex Machina 2015?). If you were really going for it you might even link a 2020 episode of Dr Who (The Haunting of Villa Diodati) in which abnormal weather is linked to the Cybermen.
Or we could look at the origins of the Internet (ARPANET, 1969-1990) and link this to ARPA/DARPA, JCR (Lick) Licklider, Bob Taylor, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, but also HG Wells World Brain (1936-8) and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s and Vladimir Vernadsky’s ‘The Noosphere’ in 1927 (also attributed to Le Roy). But did you know that Bob Kahn’s father was the futurist Herman Kahn, who worked at RAND, who provided the inspiration for the Dr Strangelove character in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film of the same name.
Anyway, bear with, a new improved version of the AI-sphere coming soon…and donl’ forget that once I’ve got the history of artificail intelligence done, my next job is to step into the future and speculate about the future of computing, data science, artificiual intelligence and robotics.
Thought for the Day
In the future it will be illegal to pretend you are human if you are not. (RW)
Robots Vs. People
I attended a conference on AI at Cambridge University last week and one of the most interesting points was why we were developing robots to look after old people – why not just use people? The answer could be that we are running out of people, especially younger people, as is the case in Japan, but this simply begs another question. Why don’t we either educate younger people on the importance of looking after older people, especially one’s own relatives, or simply conscript younger people into the NHS for short periods (a wonderfully provocative idea proposed by Prof. Ian Maconochie at an Imperial College London lecture the other week).
The Future of Childcare?
No reasoning behind the image. Simply in Madrid with some time on my hands. (At least the robot isn’t on the phone).
The End of Surgery?
Spotted this the other day (London Evening Standard). Interesting, but I imagine that human input will be minimal once the robotic surgeons take over (20 years?). Longer -term I suspect that surgery won’t exist at all except for child-birth (at least that’s what various surgeons keep telling me).
AI ‘Watson’
I’ve been attending a conference called the Singularity Summit: Imagination, Memory, Consciousness, Agency and Values, part of the AI and Humanity series at Jesus College Cambridge. One of the great things about going to Jesus College is you can stand in the taxi queue outside Cambridge station and shout the immortal line: “Is anyone else waiting for Jesus?”. Anyway, a wonderful two days. A few standout quotes below. BTW, one thing that really stood out for me talking to people that work in serious AI research is the degree to which they are almost anti-tech. They don’t use computers outside of work, they have dumb phones or none at all, they aren’t on social media, they avoid digital media and they like to read and write using paper (“they (digital products) scatter your brain.”).
“Experts on X are rarely experts on the future of X.”
“There is no definition of intelligence that isn’t political.”
“The robots won’t take over because they couldn’t care less.”
“The fear of the arts and humanities people is that there isn’t anything unique about humans…the fear of the (AI) scientists and engineers is that there is.”
“Rapid change makes the future harder or even impossible to predict”
“The human mind cannot merely be a matter of matter”
“Experience drives perception.”
“Humans need comfort…they need to feel safe.”
“Machines that can substitute for intelligence.”
“Thoughts change with bio-physical change.”
“Humans develop over time. Machines don’t.” *
“The fantasy (fetish?) of the asocial person.”
“Is it wrong to steal from a robot?”
“Machines that are made to suffer”
“AI is a corporate idea” (i.e. born of the military-industrial complex)
(The world is being designed by) “WEIRD people (Western, Educated, Industrialised Rich, Democratic” (to which I might add people on the spectrum).
(Perhaps we develop) “a nurturing process for robots” **
* Links to a lovely idea – software that rusts.
** Would contradict machines not developing over time. (i.e. we release robots – or embodied AIs – into the world to learn over an extended period in much the same way that humans do. It might take a (human) lifetime, but you may only have to do it once.
Autonomous battlefield robots
One of the 100 technologies on my table of disruptive technologies is battlefield robots. Most people will probably think of six foot bipeds out of The Terminator, but tiny insect-sized killer robots might be more realistic and far more of a problem to contain.
Random #11
