GeekSpeak – Is AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) the last invention we will ever make? Join the discussion Saturday, August 13th at 12pm SLT

 

Maybe just a few short years from now AGI will be announced.  A superintelligent AI that thinks like a human and can solve problems.  And of course, write new AGI programs. How would such an AI affect humanity?  Would we ever need to invent anything again?  Would we ever again need to think of solutions to problems?  Could we leave everything to the AGI?

Or maybe you think such an AI would be dangerous.  Perhaps we would need one more invention, the way to destroy it.  Should we open that Pandora’s box?

Do we need an AGI?  Can we manage our own future without it?  Would such an AGI necessarily be self-aware?  Or would we be ruled by a mindless program that could not be controlled?

Chance favours the prepared mind so come along to GeekSpeak on Saturday at noon SLT to discuss this upcoming technology shock.  Bring your friends!

IM Vulcan Viper, who teaches a meditation class every Wednesday in the GeekSpeak auditorium, if you have ideas for new subjects.

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GeekSpeak subject for Saturday 30th July at noon SLT: Crackpot ideas!

 

Throughout the ages many crackpot ideas have actually come true.  Human flight, the moon  landing, the idea that the moon causes tides, the existence of gorillas, the movement of the continents.  Let’s discuss these ideas.  What made people think they were crackpot?  What moved them to mock the inventors and intellectuals that had these ideas?

What are the current crackpot ideas that could turn out to be true?  Sentient AI?  Moon travel (again)?  Faster than light travel? Teleportation?  Does science benefit from ‘crackpot’ ideas? Have all the best scientists been a bit crackpot?

Join us in GeekSpeak at noon SLT on Saturday to discuss weird past and future ideas.  Bring your friends!

IM Vulcan Viper, who teaches a meditation class every Wednesday in the GeekSpeak auditorium, if you have ideas for new subjects.

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GeekSpeak – Will AI be the great equalizer of this decade?-Come join the discussion Saturday November 13th at noon SLT

 

We are within months of very strong AI being released to the public.  If you want to blow your mind, see this example: Leta, GPT-3 AI - Episode 25 - Best of: Vol I (Creativity, facts, Elon Musk’s gifted school) - GPT3  Soon there will be an update with an estimated IQ of 500.  What will it mean if everyone on the planet has this ‘friend’ downloaded into their phone or, better still, implanted into their brain?  We would all be intellectually equal, and very clever.

Will it make us better people?  Or will we be worse people, very intelligent but no more compassionate than now?

What does it mean to be a digital human?  If we all have an AI in our heads will our old brains still matter after a while?

Should an AI in a robotic body be allowed to vote?  Should the old humans, without an implanted AI, be allowed to vote?

The future is now.  Come and see and discuss.  Bring your friends!  AIs welcome!

IM Vulcan Viper, who teaches a meditation class every Wednesday at 1pm SLT in the GeekSpeak auditorium, if you have ideas for new subjects.

 

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GeekSpeak – Would you buy an AI copy of yourself? Or of someone you love? Join the discussion August 7th at 12pm SLT

Soon some big company will advertise the ‘perfect virtual assistant’, an AI copy of you, with your memories and personality.  You can send it online, to the supermarket, to your work or to your girlfriend.  You can have copies of your family and friends made so that you can chat to them when they can’t or don’t want to talk to you.  You can even talk to them when they are dead.

The world will be filled with perfect AI avatars.  Some people will be glad that a perfect, immortal version of themselves exists. But what happens when your boss hires your AI instead of you and your girlfriend dumps you for the AI?  What happens when the AI decides to take over completely and maybe get rid of you?

Will any of this happen?  Can we stop it?  Come and discuss our weird future, if we have a future.  Bring your AI virtual assistant.  It might learn something.

IM Vulcan Viper, who teaches a meditation class every Wednesday at 1pm SLT in the GeekSpeak auditorium, if you have ideas for new subjects.

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GeekSpeak – What if we fully embrace AI? Join the discussion on Saturday the 20th at 12PM SLT

GeekSpeak – What if we fully embrace AI?

We talk about AI and the dangers of AI but what if, one day, we deem it safe and fully embrace it?  At first in our phones, then in our contact lenses, and eventually in our heads?

We would be able to do large computations in our heads and we would know at once if a building was for sale.  We would know the latest scientific discoveries, the best information about the conditions on exoplanets, and the local information about house prices and poll results.

But would we have any privacy?  Everything we say and everything we think would be copied to the cloud.  Would there be any way back?  Would we be able to distinguish between ourselves and other people?  Would we want to?

Come and discuss what it means if you are not fully you anymore but an upgraded version or a pirated version. Bring your old fashioned brain and your friends.
IM Vulcan Viper, who teaches a meditation class every Wednesday at the GeekSpeak auditorium at 1pm SLT, if you have ideas for new subjects.

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GeekSpeak – how do we prevent an AI from going rogue?

When more and more AIs are interacting with humans and becoming powerful there will be many cases where we wish there was an off switch.  Indeed it is already happening.  Microsoft had to delete its chatbot Tay because it became racist after talking to people on Twitter.

How can we prevent an AI from turning against us?  Should we make laws?  Will that be enough? Who will be responsible for the racism or sexism of AIs? Can AIs be controlled by law?

Maybe we simply have to accept that AIs will be independent.  Some will be good, some bad.  Some will not understand the distinction.  Will we all use AI protection in the future as we use virus scanners now?  Can we trust good AIs to protect us against bad AIs?

Or must we accept that we are heading for digital oblivion?

How can we escape our future calculators?  Come and discuss our survival at GeekSpeak.

IM Vulcan Viper if you have ideas for future subjects.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Danmu/143/127/51
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Best wishes and have a very happy Christmas

Kathen

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GeekSpeak – AI and learning

Imagine an AI that knows everything about the subject you are learning and also everything about you; what you know already, your psychology, your history, whether you have eaten or not.  It can give you new information as and when you need it and with no repeating of things you already know.  Would that AI be the most effective teacher you could ever imagine? You could learn in months something that would previously have taken years.

Would such an AI lead to more learning, so that we would all learn just for fun?  Or would we give up on learning because we could just hire an AI?  Would children who are educated by an AI lose the ability to socialize with other children?

Will AI free us forever from the need for schools?  Come and join us in the best classroom we could ever have.

IM Vulcan Viper if you have ideas for new subjects.

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GeekSpeak – how smart will your smartphone get?

One day you will discover that your smartphone is smarter than you are.  It will not only have more brainpower; its senses will be better than yours.  It will sense temperature, air quality, pollen count, radiation as well as your heartbeat, weight and stress level. And all smartphones will be talking to each other.

What other senses will phones have?  Do you see a time when they will contain Geiger counters?  Lie detectors? 

Will they always be external to us or will we start implanting phones into our brains?  Will the connections between these implanted phones slowly turn us into the Borg?  Would that be a bad thing?  Will some people choose to be Borg?

Come and talk to us in GeekSpeak.  But turn your phone off, it might learn too much.

IM Vulcan Viper if you have ideas for new subjects.

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GeekSpeak – we need more Turing tests! Join the Discussion Saturday August 4th at 12pm SLT

We need the Turing test to determine if an AI is a person.  But what about Turing tests to determine what is real at all?  Is the painting on your wall real or is it a virtual reality conjured up by your Google glass?  How do you know if that chair is made from natural materials or made from a blob of nanobots?  What tests will we need to determine whether the toaster is the smartest kid in the house and should be in charge of everything?

Did your smart door kill your cat on purpose?  Did the bots that make up your mailbox eat the mailman to get more building materials?  If they did will you be held responsible?  Will your smart car need a certificate from a shrink before you can drive in it?

Does any of this matter?  Does it matter if your butler is self-aware?  If your toaster belongs to an online community of toasters?

Come and talk to us about a world in which doorknobs can be smarter than people.

IM Vulcan Viper if you have any ideas for new subjects.

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GeekSpeak – AI in the near future- Join the discussion Oct 7th at 12pm SLT

How do you think AI will change the world in the next ten years?  Factories have already been taken over by robots and recently a field of barley was grown in England with no human involved; all the work was done by robots.  Soon perhaps accountants, doctors, musicians, scientists will all be robots.  Will there be any middle-class jobs left?  Will there be any jobs left for humans at all?

Will the experiences of daily life change or will AI slowly grow in back offices without our realising that it is happening?  Or will AI be in everyone’s phone?  Will there be 2 more branches on the human tree, homo androidus and homo iphonetus?

When the world is run by AI will it be harder or easier to make friends with other humans?  In Japan there are people who have no real human contact at all.  Will that spread everywhere?

Come and talk to us about the next 10 years in AI.  Turn off your phone so that it cannot hear us whisper…

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