SingularityHub
AI Uses Titan Supercomputer to Create Deep Neural Nets in Less Than a Day
By Peter Rejcek -Jan 03, 2018 https://singularityhub.com/2018/01/03/a ... han-a-day/
It seems like just yesterday the concept of computers creating more advanced computers which would then create even faster and more advanced computers was just a concept. Now it is a reality. And yet we still have individuals who cannot see the future forest before the virtual trees as is the case of the skeptical author, Mr. Jason Rhode, in the following article.The prospect of artificially intelligent machines creating other artificially intelligent machines took a big step forward in 2017. However, we’re far from the runaway technological singularity futurists are predicting by mid-century or earlier, let alone murderous cyborgs or AI avatar assassins.
The first big boost this year came from Google. The tech giant announced it was developing automated machine learning (AutoML), writing algorithms that can do some of the heavy lifting by identifying the right neural networks for a specific job. Now researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), using the most powerful supercomputer in the US, have developed an AI system that can generate neural networks as good if not better than any developed by a human in less than a day.
It can take months for the brainiest, best-paid data scientists to develop deep learning software, which sends data through a complex web of mathematical algorithms. The system is modeled after the human brain and known as an artificial neural network. Even Google’s AutoML took weeks to design a superior image recognition system, one of the more standard operations for AI systems today.
Salon
The right-wing politics of the "Singularity"
By Jason Rhode, May 26, 2018 https://www.salon.com/2018/05/26/the-ri ... ngularity/
I wish to remind Mr. Rhode of the power of fiction and fantasy. Rational thought has its place in the world but so does creativity. His problem is a lack of imagination. The following article illustrates my point.The problem of proof
I am embarrassed to make such a minor, pedantic point in discussing a question as big as the Singularity, but—well, it's just that, quite simply, there is no evidence to support it.
None. It is speculation informed by fiction. The Singularity is fantasy covered by a patina of rational thought, but. It. Is. Not. Rational. PowerPoint-informed imagination is not sufficient cause for physical existence. Belief in approaching AI, or even mildly human-like AI, requires considerable delusion. Our spreadsheets and databases possess no mindfulness. And the Singularity has all the problems of AI, coupled with the manic imagination of people who spend too much time looking at graphs. Technology does not create itself any more than boy bands do.
The argument behind Singularity amounts to bare extrapolation, and that's it. Look at how fast computers are getting! Wow, what if we extend the line out to eternity? Singularity thinking is like a man who finishes watching the Star Wars trilogy in 1998, right before the Phantom Menace comes out. Then he goes home and plots out the sequels. Allowing for advances in moviemaking, his chart tells him that this next movie will be the greatest event in cinematic history.
SingularityHub
Why Companies and Armies Are Hiring Science Fiction Writers
By Marc Prosser -Aug 06, 2019 https://singularityhub.com/2019/08/06/w ... n-writers/
Indeed, I can imagine in my mind's flight of fantasy the creators of the Titan super computer having probably thought about using their new technology upon Titan itself to produce an even more powerful and intelligent version of itself. Maybe creating an even faster, newer and more creative Titan with updated neural networks.Are you a science fiction writer? Do you have command of the French language? If you can answer yes to both questions, a new job opportunity may be just the thing for you.
The recently formed French Defense Innovation Agency (DIA) is looking to assemble a ‘red team’ of science fiction writers and futurists. The BBC reports that the team will use “[…]role play and other techniques to imagine how terrorist organizations or foreign states could use advanced technology.”
Their job will be to identify possible future disruptions that the military itself might not have considered.
Initially, the idea of an army turning to sci-fi writers to help predict future threats may sound like, well, something out of science fiction. However, it is an approach that has been deployed by military institutions, including NATO and reportedly the US Army, and multinational companies.
Part of the reason is science fiction’s track record of becoming science fact.
1984: Are We There Yet?
In the wake of the 2016 US election, George Orwell’s 1984 made a somewhat surprising return to bestseller lists. At the time, much was made of similarities between utterances coming from members of Trump’s White House and the government of 1984’s Oceania, none moreso than Kellyanne Conway’s ‘alternative facts’ and ‘blackwhite’—both of which are clearly ‘duckspeak.’
Perhaps more sinister are similarities between 1984’s depictions of mass surveillance and the Chinese Government’s social credit system, or big tech companies’ data collection strategies.
But not all science fiction predictions-come-true are as dark as Orwell’s. AI and the idea of virtual assistants both featured prominently in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Arthur C. Clarke, who collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the movie, wrote extensively of driverless cars long before Waymo was but a twinkle in Google’s eye. Drones featured in the Back to the Future films from the 80s (walking dogs, no less) and Ray Bradbury wrote about in-ear headphones around 1950. The list(s) go on.
Not all science fiction comes true, of course. Personally, I’m still waiting on Marty McFly’s hoverboard and the whale bus that people around the turn of the 20th century thought was just around the corner.
So you see, humanity does not progress by rational thought alone. But I still take heed to what Sterling said in the previous post and think about it often,
In any event, speeds of one thousand or two hundred million times faster than today's computers all seem like a freight train barreling towards us. The computer revolution is coming fast but will anyone be able to control the collisions should the trains go off the tracks?