HAL 2003: Genius or a sign of an impending dystopian future?

[Tiger]

Meet HAL.

Who is HAL?

I am glad you asked, and the good people over at Ai Research have, regarding their interesting project, provided us with an answer:

“Artificial Intelligence Research (Ai) presents HAL: The Virtual Child: A software program capable of acquiring language like a child: Through practice and training, trial and error. HAL was developed based on the principles established by Alan Turing over half a century ago, in line with Turing’s own recipe for true AI: Build a “child machine”, a learning algorithm capable of learning from experience, and teach it to speak along the same developmental milestones demonstrated in language acquisition by human infants.”

Is that right? That’s not how I remember it!

I distinctly remember a wonderful movie by the name of 2001: A Space Odyssey offering us a slightly different take on the matter!

Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea that there are some individuals out there who dedicate their lives to research into artificial intelligence and if you happen to have an interest in this area I highly recommend visiting their site, but ignore the warnings in fictional works at your peril!

Just have a look at the language used in the excerpt above, it’s warm, friendly, and cuddly. When you read “Virtual Child”, “acquiring language like a child”, “child machine”, “human infants”, it makes you feel better, doesn’t it?

Sure, it’s all fun and games, until a computer goes rogue and starts killing people!

http://www.teamteabag.com/author/tigervamp/

[Tyler Lovemark]

I can't wait for people to start asking things like "what if it gets too smart?".  This question doesn't recall that spectacular demonstration in Japan that showed the world that a robot couldn't even walk down a few steps.

Although if the machines do invade, watch out for me.  I'll be the guy quoting Red Dawn.