Contact:
Patrick Tucker
Associate Editor
THE FUTURIST
Director of Communications
World Future Society
301-656-8274
ptucker@wfs.org
February 1, 2008
FUTURIST Magazine Reveals Tomorrow’s AI Revolution
Bethesda
MD— The
advent
of a
artificial
general
intelligence—a
machine
capable
of the
richness
of
expression,
restive
intellect,
and
nuance
of
thought
that we
associate
with
humanity—promises
to
generate
tremendous
wealth
for the
companies
and
inventors
that
develop
it. In
the
March-April
2008
issue of
THE
FUTURIST
magazine,
(
www.wfs.org/futurist.htm
) senior
editor
Patrick
Tucker
speaks
to the
thinkers
and
researchers
at the
forefront
of AI
and
reveals
the
intellectual
battle
taking
place
over how
soon an
artificial
general
intelligence
might
arrive
and what
it might
mean for
the rest
of us.
“The decreasing price and increasing power of computer processing suggests that, in the decades ahead, narrow AIs will become more effective, numerous, and cheap. But these trends don’t necessarily herald the sort of radical intellectual breakthrough necessary to construct an artificial general intelligence,” says Tucker. “Many of the core semantic and philosophical problems that science faced several decades ago are as palpable as ever today. How exactly do you write a computer program that can think like a human?”
Tucker talks with Google research director Peter Norvig, MIT robotics head Rodney Brooks, Powerset CEO Barney Pell, Self-Aware Systems founder Steve Omohundro and many others to cast light on the near and long-term future of AI.
”As we continue to transfer our knowledge to the Web, posting more blogs, technical reports, news articles, academic writings, etc., and as we continue to develop programs and AI systems to help us categorize, store, retrieve, and analyze data, so those interlinked systems are accumulating more data about human civilization,” says Tucker. “We may be hastening a day when any labor-intensive task can be automated or outsourced to an artificially intelligent entity, a day when such entities might be able to communicate, perform, govern, and even create art more effectively, persuasively, or beautifully than human beings.”
An electronic version of Tucker’s article can be obtained from the Web site of THE FUTURIST magazine ( www.wfs.org/futurist.htm ) where many of his interviews are available for free ( www.wfs.org/Dec-janfiles/AIInt.htm) Individuals can also pick up the March-April 2008 issue of THE FUTURIST for $4.95 at bookstores and newsstands or write the World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Ave., Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814. Order online at www.wfs.org.
THE FUTURIST is a bimonthly magazine focused on innovation, creative thinking, and emerging social, economic, environmental, and technological trends.
Among the thinkers and experts who have contributed to THE FUTURIST are Gene Roddenberry, Al Gore, Newt Gingrich, Richard Lamm, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, Buckminster Fuller, Frederik Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Vaclav Havel, Hazel Henderson, Margaret Mead, Robert McNamara, Betty Friedan, Nicholas Negroponte, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Lester R. Brown, Arthur C. Clarke, Douglas Rushkoff, Ray Kurzweil, William J. Mitchell, and U.S. Comptroller David M. Walker.
Editors: More information about the World Future Society may be obtained from the Society’s Web site, www.wfs.org.
“The decreasing price and increasing power of computer processing suggests that, in the decades ahead, narrow AIs will become more effective, numerous, and cheap. But these trends don’t necessarily herald the sort of radical intellectual breakthrough necessary to construct an artificial general intelligence,” says Tucker. “Many of the core semantic and philosophical problems that science faced several decades ago are as palpable as ever today. How exactly do you write a computer program that can think like a human?”
Tucker talks with Google research director Peter Norvig, MIT robotics head Rodney Brooks, Powerset CEO Barney Pell, Self-Aware Systems founder Steve Omohundro and many others to cast light on the near and long-term future of AI.
”As we continue to transfer our knowledge to the Web, posting more blogs, technical reports, news articles, academic writings, etc., and as we continue to develop programs and AI systems to help us categorize, store, retrieve, and analyze data, so those interlinked systems are accumulating more data about human civilization,” says Tucker. “We may be hastening a day when any labor-intensive task can be automated or outsourced to an artificially intelligent entity, a day when such entities might be able to communicate, perform, govern, and even create art more effectively, persuasively, or beautifully than human beings.”
An electronic version of Tucker’s article can be obtained from the Web site of THE FUTURIST magazine ( www.wfs.org/futurist.htm ) where many of his interviews are available for free ( www.wfs.org/Dec-janfiles/AIInt.htm) Individuals can also pick up the March-April 2008 issue of THE FUTURIST for $4.95 at bookstores and newsstands or write the World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Ave., Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814. Order online at www.wfs.org.
THE FUTURIST is a bimonthly magazine focused on innovation, creative thinking, and emerging social, economic, environmental, and technological trends.
Among the thinkers and experts who have contributed to THE FUTURIST are Gene Roddenberry, Al Gore, Newt Gingrich, Richard Lamm, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, Buckminster Fuller, Frederik Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Vaclav Havel, Hazel Henderson, Margaret Mead, Robert McNamara, Betty Friedan, Nicholas Negroponte, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Lester R. Brown, Arthur C. Clarke, Douglas Rushkoff, Ray Kurzweil, William J. Mitchell, and U.S. Comptroller David M. Walker.
Editors: More information about the World Future Society may be obtained from the Society’s Web site, www.wfs.org.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Patrick
Tucker
World
Future
Society
Email
World
Future
Society
301-656-8274