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The Future's Bright (but only for the dim)
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
There is reason enough to be alarmed at the news this week that machines “will
achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029.” Even more disconcerting is the
realisation that scientists are not talking about the average level of human
intelligence demonstrated in your local comprehensive, but rather the advanced
level bestowed upon seriously smart folks, like us.
What’s more, according to inventor and futurist Mr. Ray Kurzweil of the US National
Academy of Engineering, we will soon “see tiny robots implanted in people’s brains
to make them more intelligent.” (The people that is, not the robots.) These sorts of
major scientific advancements deserve careful consideration by the ignorant wider
public before they are routinely rubber-stamped through the gleaming laboratories
of tomorrow.
Precision scientists like Mr. Ray Mondweil are quick to allay our inherent fears
concerning the rise of the machines by repeatedly reminding us that mechanical
devices already perform many tasks considerably better than humans historically
have, like sex and email.
But when white-coated boffins like Mr. Kurt Weil promise us in their sing-song
Brechtian tones that “We’ll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains… to make
us smarter” (though presumably no smarter than the nanobots themselves), we
would do well to remember that the launch codes for the world’s nuclear arsenals
are currently held hostage by machines. The nanobots will doubtless have seen the
Terminator movies: in fact, judging by the scripts, they probably wrote them.
Meanwhile, the prospect of wonkers like Mr. Colonel Kurtz “interacting directly with
our biological neurons” has profound implications for all mankind. When the most
criminal durbrain on the street is transformed into Albert Einstein by a simple
surgical procedure, those of us who have spent decades fine-tuning our second-
favourite organs should look nervously to the immediate future.
For what is the point in reading Homer in the original, if one could spend the next
twenty years enjoying oneself, slumped in a hammock with a bottle of Captain
Morgan’s?
If meddling scientists like Mr. Captain Kirk and his colleagues are bent on tinkering
with our little grey cells, there are surely only two sensible options right now for
evolutionary progress: being dim or being drunk. And preferably both.
– Dominic Hilton & A S H Smyth
© lizardmagazine.com, 2008
Back to the homepage
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
There is reason enough to be alarmed at the news this week that machines “will
achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029.” Even more disconcerting is the
realisation that scientists are not talking about the average level of human
intelligence demonstrated in your local comprehensive, but rather the advanced
level bestowed upon seriously smart folks, like us.
What’s more, according to inventor and futurist Mr. Ray Kurzweil of the US National
Academy of Engineering, we will soon “see tiny robots implanted in people’s brains
to make them more intelligent.” (The people that is, not the robots.) These sorts of
major scientific advancements deserve careful consideration by the ignorant wider
public before they are routinely rubber-stamped through the gleaming laboratories
of tomorrow.
Precision scientists like Mr. Ray Mondweil are quick to allay our inherent fears
concerning the rise of the machines by repeatedly reminding us that mechanical
devices already perform many tasks considerably better than humans historically
have, like sex and email.
But when white-coated boffins like Mr. Kurt Weil promise us in their sing-song
Brechtian tones that “We’ll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains… to make
us smarter” (though presumably no smarter than the nanobots themselves), we
would do well to remember that the launch codes for the world’s nuclear arsenals
are currently held hostage by machines. The nanobots will doubtless have seen the
Terminator movies: in fact, judging by the scripts, they probably wrote them.
Meanwhile, the prospect of wonkers like Mr. Colonel Kurtz “interacting directly with
our biological neurons” has profound implications for all mankind. When the most
criminal durbrain on the street is transformed into Albert Einstein by a simple
surgical procedure, those of us who have spent decades fine-tuning our second-
favourite organs should look nervously to the immediate future.
For what is the point in reading Homer in the original, if one could spend the next
twenty years enjoying oneself, slumped in a hammock with a bottle of Captain
Morgan’s?
If meddling scientists like Mr. Captain Kirk and his colleagues are bent on tinkering
with our little grey cells, there are surely only two sensible options right now for
evolutionary progress: being dim or being drunk. And preferably both.
– Dominic Hilton & A S H Smyth
© lizardmagazine.com, 2008
Back to the homepage
