Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
calls “artilects”, will be far more intelligent than humans and may even
threaten to dominate the world.
De Garis' views appear to take much of their inspiration from a vi-
sionary 1993 essay, “Singularity”, by Vernor Vinge, a mathematician and
science fiction author who at the time of writing the essay, was at the De-
partment of Mathematical Sciences at San Diego State University. The
thesis of Vinge's essay is that an exponential growth in technology will
reach a point beyond which we cannot even speculate about the con-
sequences. The abstract of the essay starts as dramatically as the essay
continues:
Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to cre-
ate superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be
ended.
Is such progress avoidable? If not to be avoided, can events be
guided so that we may survive? These questions are investigated.
Some possible answers (and some further dangers) are presented.
[14]
De Garis' opinion of Vinge's essay was quoted in
The New York Times
Magazine
of 1 August 1999:
Humans should not stand in the way of a higher form of evolution.
These machines are godlike. It is human destiny to create them.
[15]
And a thought-provoking glimpse into de Garis' own thoughts on the
future of artificial brains is provided in his own essay, “Cosmism Nano-
Electronics and 21
st
Century Global Ideological Warfare.”
The creation of artificial brains I believe will be achievable within
the next few years (at least with hundreds of thousands of artificial
neurons) whose circuitry is evolved at electronic speeds in special
hardware I call Darwin Machines. This period is the short to mid-
dle term. What concerns me is the longer term, i.e., well into the
21st century, if I and other brain builders succeed. What then?
I truly believe that the question which will dominate global politics
next century will be 'Who or what should be dominant species on
the planet?' In case this sounds far fetched, consider the following.
Imagine a computer with 10
30
components, i.e., a million trillion
trillion. This number dwarfs the number of neurons we have in our
brains by a factor of 10
18
, i.e., a billion billion human brains would
