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- Washington - The inventions
of the 20th century - atomic energy, airplanes, rockets to the moon, autos
for everyone, the telephone, television, transistors, the computer, Velcro,
face lifts and the forward pass - what crude stuff! These are tools of
primitive people. Very soon in the next millennium are coming inventions
so strange, so powerful, so transcendental as to confound all understanding
of what is natural and what is not, and what it actually means to be human
and to be alive. About to be developed and unloosed on the planet is an
intelligence far greater than that of humankind. Yes, computers that think
- much faster, more broadly, more deeply - than people do. And yes, some
scientists contend, computers that feel and have self-awareness. They will
be based, not on silicon, but on carbon, neurons, elements of life. Farfetched?
Those who think so could be unaware of what machines already do. Computers
can recognize faces. Computers can understand continuous speech. Computers
can compose in the style of Bach. Computers can improvise jazz. Computers
guide missiles, pick stocks, diagnose electrocardiograms, discern types
of cancer, prove mathematical theorems, write poetry, play ping pong, make
up jokes. How well do they do these things? That's sometimes disputable.
Missiles can go awry. Jokes can fall flat. Computer-generated trading is
blamed in large part for the 1987 stock market crash. Yet consider: only
two years ago a computer defeated the reigning world champion, Gary Kasparov,
at chess. That supercomputer, IBM's Deep Blue, already is something of
a slowpoke. The speed of computers - their ability to do calculations -
now is doubling every year. The rate is accelerating.
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- What's Ahead Predictions of genius computers are not
mere notions of pop futurists. They are the firm expectation of respected
scientists, such as those at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who've been working for 40 years
toward engineering these systems. Researchers there are manipulating the
DNA of living cells, and making strides toward merging biological processes
into computers. This lab reports it is now building robots that are more
"aware" and "more able to interact with humans at a human
level." The lab's scientists say they are developing new ways to interact
with computers "through language, gesture, posture and expression."
Confident forecasts of man-made intelligence beyond man's own are voiced
by Ray Kurzweil, who has been named an Inventor of the Year by MIT and
by the Boston Museum of Science. In his latest book, "The Age of Spiritual
Machines," Kurzweil sets out the following timeline: By 2010, instant
translation telephones. You can call a foreign country, speak in your language,
have your words translated into the language of the person called, and
hear that person's reply, no matter what language used, in your own tongue
- all in real time. By 2020, a $1,000 computer will match the processing
speed of the human brain - about 20 billion calculations per second. By
2030, a personal computer will be able to simulate the brain power of a
small village, or 1,000 human minds. By 2048, a PC will have the brain
power of the entire population of the United States. By 2099, one computer
will have a billion times greater computing capacity than all humans on
earth. Kurzweil also expects that within 20 years people will "have
relationships with automated personalities" and use them as "teachers,
companions, and lovers." That's right, real conversations with machines,
and virtual sex, made possible through holographic imaging and tactile
sensors. Ultimately, Kurzweil thinks there'll be what he calls "sexbots"
- sexual robots. In 30 years, he contends, the distinction between humans
and computers will be so blurred "that when machines claim to be conscious
we will have no choice but to believe them." We will decide then that
computers have civil rights. There's Descartes' dictum: "I think,
therefore I am." So, if a machine thinks, it "is," isn't
it?
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- Past Technology Scares Excited by this? Scared? If so,
it's natural. If, late in 1899, our great-grandparents could have known
of inventions to come in this century, no doubt they would have been alarmed
then, too. None had traveled any faster than on horseback. The idea of
flying through the air to another city would have been terrifying. That
they could speak to distant relatives by pushing some buttons would have
seemed unnatural. That everybody would stay up late nights staring at a
tube with live pictures of people playing games, being violent, making
love, would have seemed unspeakably decadent. "Society was transformed,"
says Arthur Molella of the Smithsonian's Center for the Study of Invention
and Innovation. "The automobile, the airplane, they changed our conception
of distance. The telephone, communications technology, utterly revolutionized
our sense of community, who's our neighbor, who's not. Atomic energy was
something like the philosopher's stone and it had profound effects on our
concept of universe and ourselves."
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- Domination by Computers Molella says society will be
again transformed by what is just over the horizon: "We are going
to see the adoption of biological models into computering. We're speaking
of integrated circuits that basically are biologically grounded rather
than based on silicon. Computers are going all the way to human thought.
"We're going to be able to see into human heredity and engineer that
heredity." That power is likely to unleash some deep human concerns,
too. How can this society, still now divided over issues of abortion and
the questions it raises over when human life begins, come suddenly to terms
with the advent of awareness, or "life," in a machine? What about
when people unplug such machines, "aborting" that consciousness?
How, in a time when three states recently insisted that creationism be
taught on a par with evolution, will some accept that machines have "evolved"
into intelligence? If these computers will be able, as some scientists
are saying, to actually replicate themselves, what's the role of people?
What's to keep the computers from enslaving humans? Haven't humans always
subjugated animals they deem of lesser intelligence - including, frequently,
other humans? Scientists' answers to such questions at this point aren't
entirely reassuring. Observes Kurzweil: Once machines begin to make better
decisions than humans, humans may be likely to leave the difficult decisions
to them. Thus, "If machines are permitted to make all their own decisions...the
fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines." But,
can the progression of computers be slowed, or stopped? Designers are no
more likely to do that than they are to strive toward slower transit systems
or dumber safety designs. An increasingly complex society demands increasingly
complex computing. Here's the good news: the prospect of domination by
computers won't be so frightening to people of the 21st century. If we
start worrying about it now, it's just because we're so, well, primitive.
People of the next century will be much more sophisticated. They will be,
in fact, machined. If machines are becoming us, we're becoming them. The
kinds and numbers of devices now being inserted in people to help them
function may astonish: artificial skin, synthetic replacements for arteries
and veins, titanium patches for broken skulls, devices to replace jaws
and every joint and fingers and toes, implants that control bladders, prostheses
with pumps to make penile erections.
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- Bioengineering Humans As of this year there's a cochlear
implant for the ear that corrects hearing across the whole sonic spectrum.
Developed, but still in the experimental stage, is a retinal implant -
a solar-powered computer connected to the optic nerve that provides sight
by communicating by way of tiny TV cameras worn in special eyeglasses.
Coming soon: neuron transistors connected to spinal nerves to control artificial
human limbs, neuron implants to give movement to the paralyzed. Neural
implant therapy has been approved already in Europe. In demonstrations,
patients frozen by Parkinson's disease have stood and walked easily after
a switch was thrown. Along with bioengineering of computers there'll be
bioengineering of humans. It's being done to plants now to make them grow
faster, taller, and more disease resistant. With the completion of the
Human Genome Project, the mapping of all DNA (done with computers), people
will be able to filter out any genetic defects in their children. We can
be blonder if we want, and seven feet tall, with longer legs, stronger
arms, naturally straighter teeth and naturally curly hair We'll be handsomer,
we'll be healthier, we'll be just as smart as we can be. But dumber than
machines.
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