Rise of the Machines - Artificial Intelligence

No, we are not talking about the Terminator Series. We are talking about machines as in reality taking over the human race, seems like a farfetched idea but trends suggest otherwise. Over time the computing power of the processors have increased in accordance of the Moore’s Law, if this continues, soon we shall have a processor which shall be able to deduct real life situations, better than a human brain would do. The only limit in this game is the algorithms we write for these processors are not that advanced, but only until now. We are in line to develop the state of art Artificial Intelligence algorithm. Programs which can behave like humans, and have better decisive techniques and resources often.

Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain's pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence. The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. Though the technology he uses to communicate, involves a basic form of AI.

The theoretical physicist, who has the motor neuron disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is using a new system developed by Intel to speak. Machine learning experts from the British company Swift key were also involved in its creation. Their technology, already employed as a smartphone keyboard app, learns how the professor thinks and suggests the words he might want to use next.

Prof Hawking says the primitive forms of artificial intelligence developed so far have already proved very useful, but he fears the consequences of creating something that can match or surpass humans. Humans are limited by biological evolution, which is a slow process and shall not be able to compete with exponentially growing computing prowess and astute algorithms.

Stanley Kubrick's film 2001 and its murderous computer HAL encapsulate many people's fears of how AI could pose a threat to human life. "It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate," he said.

But others are less pessimistic, not all are so gloomy about AI's prospects.

"I believe we will remain in charge of the technology for a decently long time and the potential of it to solve many of the world problems will be realized," said Rollo Carpenter, creator of Cleverbot.

If you have not used Cleverbot, it is a program that chats with you as if you are chatting with a human, you can download an Android version or an Apple IOS version of this App.

Cleverbot's software learns from its past conversations, and has gained high scores in the Turing test, fooling a high proportion of people into believing they are talking to a human. Mr Carpenter says we are a long way from having the computing power or developing the algorithms needed to achieve full artificial intelligence, but believes it will come in the next few decades.

Truth is we really do not know what shall happen to us once we write the code for the ultimate machine, once which exceeds our own intelligence and has the power to learn by itself. It may be of infinite help to us, or we can be ignored by it and sidelined or the worst, we can be completely destroyed by it.

In the short term, there are concerns that clever machines capable of undertaking tasks done by humans until now will swiftly destroy millions of jobs. Mr. Elon Musk, chief executive of rocket-maker Space X, also fears artificial intelligence. In the longer run, the technology entrepreneur  has warned that AI is "our biggest existential threat Elon Musk".