Tag: Automation

Professor Margaret Boden’s talk at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risks

Professor Boden has been in the AI business long enough to have worked with John McCarthy and some of the other founders of the science of artificial intelligence. During her animated and compelling talk to a highly engaged audience at CSER in Cambridge last month, the sparkle in her eye betrayed the fun she still gets from it. The main thrust of her talk was that those who believe that an artificial general intelligence (AGI) may be created within the next century are going to be disappointed. She was at pains to emphasise that the project is feasible in principle, but she...

New book: "Surviving AI". Review copies available

I've just finished writing a non-fiction book on artificial intelligence, called Surviving AI. It starts with a brief history of the science and a description of its current state.  It goes on to look at the benefits and risks that AI presents in the short and medium term, with a short story highlighting the improvements to everyday life that are in the pipeline, and discussions of technological unemployment and killer robots. Then it gets into artificial general intelligence - machines with human-level cognition: whether we can create one, and if so when; whether we will like it if we do, and what we should do about...

Singularity University Summit, Seville, March 2015

Hyatt Hotels has revenues of $4bn and a market value of $8.4bn. AirBnB has revenues of $250m, 13 staff, pretty much no assets, and a market value of $14bn. It will soon be the world’s largest hotel company. Über was founded in 2009 and has a market cap of $40bn, despite – again – having pretty much no physical assets. It has taxi drivers up in arms all over the world. Magic Leap, a virtual reality company, raised $50m in February 2014 and then $550m in October. It persuaded the second set of investors to contribute by showing them a...

Pandora’s Brain is published!

Pandora's Brain is available today on Amazon sites around the world in both ebook and paperback formats. I'm celebrating by attending the Singularity University Summit in Seville.  The content of this conference has been inspiring and uplifting but also very grounded.  As you would expect, the word "exponential" has been used a great deal, but the presenters - mostly SU faculty - have focused on changes expected in the near term, and have provided solid evidence and examples to support their claims about the future they envisage. I've met some great SU people - including AI expert Neil Jacobstein, medical expert Daniel...