We live in a time of immense and often rapid change. Being in the midst of all of this, it’s easy for us to see much of the world in negative terms. Perhaps nothing illustrates this tendency so much as AI doomerism. Certainly, there’s been some degree of this alarmist […]
Since the advent of the computer age and quite possibly before, popular media has seized on the idea of a superintelligent machine and turned it into a clichéd tale of warning. Too often a monolithic mind with an ill-defined need for global destruction or domination is eventually thwarted because a […]
My latest article, “Are You Smarter Than a Sixth-Generation Computer?” leads off this month’s issue of The Futurist magazine. (Sept/Oct 2012) The article explores the need for a standard metric for AIs and is based on my paper, “Toward a Standard Metric of Machine Intelligence”, which I recently published in […]
In futures thinking, often it’s important to look back in order to look ahead. This week marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, offering the perfect opportunity to do both.
I’m beginning a short series at Psychology Today about the ongoing advances being made in machine intelligence. I’d originally thought about using “The Ascent of Machine” for the series title — after Jacob Bronowski’s wonderful work, “The Ascent of Man”, which I found so inspiring when it first came out. […]
Earlier this week, Charles Stross posted his thoughts on why he doesn’t think the Technological Singularity will happen. If you’re not familiar with the concept, the Technological Singularity is defined as that point in the future when a self-improving artificial general intelligence (AGI) achieves superintelligence. As Stross recommends, if you’re […]
I’m excited to announce I was recently invited to write a blog for Psychology Today. As with this blog, “The Intelligence Report” will explore the evolving relationship between intelligence and technology. It will include new posts as well as some cross-posting from this blog when the topic is a good […]
I consider myself a techno-optimist, but Watson’s performance in Jeopardy’s IBM Challenge has definitely exceeded my expectations. While I did predict Watson would win the competition, I didn’t think it would be so dominant. This was a contest I thought machine intelligence might win by a narrow margin, but the […]
On January 13, 2011, IBM’s Watson supercomputer competed in a practice round of Jeopardy, the long-running trivia quiz show. Playing against the program’s two most successful champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, Watson won the preliminary match. Is this all a big publicity stunt? Of course it is. But it […]
Recent reports that China is barreling ahead in its development of supercomputers should give the U.S. considerable cause for concern. China has devoted significant resources to their supercomputer program in recent years, resulting in their ranking earlier this year at the number two spot on the TOP500 list. TOP500.org ranks […]