Singularity Summit 2009: Open The Pod Bay Door, HAL
Ray Kurzweil's concept of the Singularity rests on two axioms: that computers will become more intelligent than humans, and that humans and computers will merge, allowing us access to that increased thinking power. So it only makes sense to begin the conference with discussions of those two fundamental concepts. No one disputed the emergence of intelligence beyond our own, but they did give me plenty of reasons to worry about how that process might take place. According to Anna Salamon, a former NASA researcher who now works for the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence that hosts the conference, artificial intelligence greater than our own is inevitable and dangerous. Salamon argued that biological brains have finite intellectual capacity. Just as a goldfish can't appreciate opera and a cat can't learn quantum mechanics, so too will humans soon confront problems beyond the comprehension of our slimy, mortal...