Watson's convincing victory on Jeopardy last week resurrected the public debate about the danger of Arnold coming back from the future and messing with us. In fact there is some small concern that computers which control so many transactions now, will eventually control most human activity, and even surpass human intellectual capacity. That scenario could happen, but there are a number of very large technical hurdles barring that outcome. So what is required of technology for computers like
HAL 9000 to take over ? Firstly, computers would need much better sensory capability, especially vision. Except in controlled lab environments, and the movies, HAL currently cannot accurately interpret what it is able to see via video cam or any other device. There are recent advances in interpreting visual information, like results of the
autonomous vehicle competition sponsored by
DARPA, where unmanned vehicles were required to navigate a closed obstacle course, however, these incremental advances do not represent any real technological breakthrough, but merely refining and applying existing technology. We are probably at least a generation away from safe, affordable, autonomous vehicles. One of the major hurdles for HALs emergence remains the development of effective
artificial intelligence. AI includes learning ability, reasoning ability to apply logic, deduction, induction, and original thought. AI, once thought to be a near reality, has remained an elusive and receding goal. It seems that we just did not know how much we did not know in the area of AI requirements. We have succeeded in building expert systems, which mainly organize and repeat information previously loaded, along with some rudimentary learning capability. Development of computer sensory perception, visual processing, language skills, and learning ability will advance in the
foreseeable future, but these technologies all require unpredictable hardware and software major innovation to make AI practical. . The key ingredient that will probably not be seen for hundreds of years is computer capacity for original thought. When that occurs, if we allow it, Arnold may indeed be back.
