A while back, I wrote about AI’s impossible task: To mimic me. Well, not me with my limitations, but the human brain, maybe yours, in short, to pass the Turing test. (First aside: At times I wonder whether or not some humans could pass that test) Now, I read that DeepSouth * will go into operation next year, churning 228 trillion synaptic operations per second, enough to chew gum, walk up steps, and think about winning the lottery simultaneously. When I wrote negatively about AI’s ability, I assumed that its chance of becoming very human-like was about as slim as my chance of winning the PowerBall or MegaMillions. But, it seems, I was wrong. (Second aside: Someone wins the money eventually, and it seems that geeks at Western Sydney University have, in fact, hit the jackpot, or so we’ll soon see)
If DeepSouth does what those Western Sydney University geeks claim it can do, then we’re in for some very interesting and challenging times, especially since so much of our world is interconnected through computers. Those AI warnings of people like the late Stephen Hawking might become our daily fears. AI might see us, as HAL saw the astronauts in 2001: A Space Odyssey, as irrelevant, unnecessary, even inimical to the task at hand. I just went from highly skeptical that computers could pass the Turing test to a state of trepidation. (Third aside: The most powerful man on the planet has tripped up steps with no gum in his mouth and no thought of winning the lottery—tripped when all he had on his mind was going up steps to enter a plane—Fourth aside: in its first standup show, DeepSouth will call that “pulling a Biden” to the gleeful whirring of a simulated audience)
I don’t know much about DeepSouth’s physical construction. It might be like IBM’s first foray into really big computing, a machine that requires an entire building and special air conditioning. I remember the days when the “computer center” on my campus was located in the cold basement of the library, the big computers locked away from the public in a glass-enclosed room with attendees to whom I handed my laboriously punched cards and from whom I received, after a long wait, a printout on very large sheets of paper with holed, perforated edges. (Fifth aside: What we do today on a laptop took up an inordinate amount of time back then, 80 columns of punches on each card) But just as those first bulky computers shrank and sped up, so future computers will undergo miniaturization and increasing speed, now, I guess, at a projected 228 trillion synaptic operations per second. That gives this new super computer the potential to walk around someday veiled in a simulated human form—or maybe in a real human in imitation of the Pod People of Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers, the1954 book and the subsequent movies. (Sixth aside: How do I know it’s really you reading this? Seventh aside: How do I know that I really wrote this?)
So, I guess if I want to continue writing this blog, I should muscle up and hurry because DeepSouth, if it gets the urge, will in a second or two polish off an essay that takes me a full mug of coffee and a revision. And DeepSouth won’t have to go back to catch typos because it won’t make any.
If I was wrong back then when I wrote that computers would never pass the Turing test, I should apologize before DeepSouth recognizes me as an enemy and figures a way to do to me what HAL did to the crew of Discovery One, the ship that carried them to Europa. Or it might exile me to the Great Sandy Desert or the Great Victoria Desert, where I will “go walkabout” till I die of dehydration.
Dear DeepSouth,
Please forgive me. I meant no offense when I said AI would never muster up, never pass a Turing test. It was my hubris talking. It was my inability to see that I might be inferior to an artificial brain. Just remember this as you review my couple thousand blogs that we’re filled with my insecurities, biases, and ignorance. And please keep in those artificial synaptic connections knowledge that we humans often write wishes as facts. I had wished for continued human superiority over machines. I now acquiesce. I yield. You’re smarter than I.
Very truly yours (Please don’t hurt me),
Donald
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-world-s-first-human-brain-scale-supercomputer-will-go-live-next-year/ar-AA1ly3UC
If DeepSouth does what those Western Sydney University geeks claim it can do, then we’re in for some very interesting and challenging times, especially since so much of our world is interconnected through computers. Those AI warnings of people like the late Stephen Hawking might become our daily fears. AI might see us, as HAL saw the astronauts in 2001: A Space Odyssey, as irrelevant, unnecessary, even inimical to the task at hand. I just went from highly skeptical that computers could pass the Turing test to a state of trepidation. (Third aside: The most powerful man on the planet has tripped up steps with no gum in his mouth and no thought of winning the lottery—tripped when all he had on his mind was going up steps to enter a plane—Fourth aside: in its first standup show, DeepSouth will call that “pulling a Biden” to the gleeful whirring of a simulated audience)
I don’t know much about DeepSouth’s physical construction. It might be like IBM’s first foray into really big computing, a machine that requires an entire building and special air conditioning. I remember the days when the “computer center” on my campus was located in the cold basement of the library, the big computers locked away from the public in a glass-enclosed room with attendees to whom I handed my laboriously punched cards and from whom I received, after a long wait, a printout on very large sheets of paper with holed, perforated edges. (Fifth aside: What we do today on a laptop took up an inordinate amount of time back then, 80 columns of punches on each card) But just as those first bulky computers shrank and sped up, so future computers will undergo miniaturization and increasing speed, now, I guess, at a projected 228 trillion synaptic operations per second. That gives this new super computer the potential to walk around someday veiled in a simulated human form—or maybe in a real human in imitation of the Pod People of Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers, the1954 book and the subsequent movies. (Sixth aside: How do I know it’s really you reading this? Seventh aside: How do I know that I really wrote this?)
So, I guess if I want to continue writing this blog, I should muscle up and hurry because DeepSouth, if it gets the urge, will in a second or two polish off an essay that takes me a full mug of coffee and a revision. And DeepSouth won’t have to go back to catch typos because it won’t make any.
If I was wrong back then when I wrote that computers would never pass the Turing test, I should apologize before DeepSouth recognizes me as an enemy and figures a way to do to me what HAL did to the crew of Discovery One, the ship that carried them to Europa. Or it might exile me to the Great Sandy Desert or the Great Victoria Desert, where I will “go walkabout” till I die of dehydration.
Dear DeepSouth,
Please forgive me. I meant no offense when I said AI would never muster up, never pass a Turing test. It was my hubris talking. It was my inability to see that I might be inferior to an artificial brain. Just remember this as you review my couple thousand blogs that we’re filled with my insecurities, biases, and ignorance. And please keep in those artificial synaptic connections knowledge that we humans often write wishes as facts. I had wished for continued human superiority over machines. I now acquiesce. I yield. You’re smarter than I.
Very truly yours (Please don’t hurt me),
Donald
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-world-s-first-human-brain-scale-supercomputer-will-go-live-next-year/ar-AA1ly3UC
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