Thread: What are the chances?

All that these chess computers do is analise the current position and consider the possible future outcomes of every move that it has available to it. This is also how the great chess players of the world beat poeple. Whilst you are thinking about whether you might lose your pawn on the next move, Kasparov is planning on how to take your queen in nine moves time. In a sense, all the computers can do is replicate this with their high processor speeds being able to crunch numbers at an insane rate. The number of moves you have to crunch grows exponentially as you increase the number of moves into the future.

What these machines can't do is think for themselves. AI is getting better but there is a long way to go yet.

"What is the possibility that we live in an exactly the same world as The Matrix described it? Or something similar?"

Pretty much no possiblity, the scenario in the matrix is fairly absurd, humans as a power source = ridiculous.

However if you want musings on a far flung future world i'll give you a few random thoughts:

I see no reason why AI could not at some point advance to a state where it was considered more "intelligent" than humans of today, so what then?

Will computers rise up and over throw us? I rather think not, i suspect Asimov's robot stories present a more likely future than Terminator or The Matrix.

But both ignore the possibility that WE will get smarter via neural implant technology, our understanding of neural processes is always increasing as is the technology needed to bridge the biology - electronics gap. It seems inevitable that a time will come when we will be able to enhance our neurology with technology.

Speculation on what such a world would evolve into start sounding more and more like a cheesy sci-fi book, suffice to say that i think Stephen Hawkings prediction of "group conciousness" proceeds along similar lines.

Originally posted by Fountain
Riiiiiight-so you have just removed millions of puters from the world huh?

That would be how many run M/S products succesfully.

And you did say....most.....

Are you sure there are more 'PC's' running with NO M/S products? I mean none at all. Want to bet? Note the word 'PC' before you answer.

the word sarcasm comes to mind, srry, i thought it was obvious.

A self-replicating machine (most likely a nanomachine) developing some sort of mutation and reproducing out of control and destroying everything in its wake - like cancer, only on a global scale - is not really out of the question, although I think that society would develop enough protective measures ahead of time to mostly eliminate the danger.

More likely, I think, is that in the very distant future humans will choose to replace themselves with different "posthuman" entities (maybe machines, maybe genetically engineered organisms, maybe some sort of cybernetic hybrid) more suited to the environment of the future than the evolutionarily limited humans of today.