Related Articles:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/robot-computer-conscious.htm
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/high-tech-gadgets/technological-singularity1.htm
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/concrobt.htm
The term/notion "singularity"(in technological field) is coined by Vernor Vinge, a former professor of mathematics at the San Diego State University. His basic idea is that the technology is developing at such a dazzling speed,towards an irreversible destiny and one day we might merge together with our AI companies and evolve into a new species---or even worse,our AI companies might evolve into robots with self-awareness and decide that human beings are redundant or unwanted...Such a scenario has been accepted by many people and reflected in many novels and movies,and based on the theory that the data density of an integrated circuit could double every 18 months,this hypothesis is quite "reliable".
However,some engineers and scientists have questioned this hypothesis through the limit of circuitry itself. Till today, we can already build microprocessors with transistors that only 45-nanometers wide("a human hair can have a diameter of up to 180,000 nanometers"),but to continue with this trend and to make more and more delicate and complex circuitry(which means to make computer smaller, faster, more powerful, and finally achieve the capacity of human brain),we would soon get into the field of quantum physics, and then face the problem of quantum tunneling(which means "electrons can pass through extremely thin material as if the material weren't there " and we would lose control of them).From this point of view, the potential would have already" ran out" before a computer can achieve such complex capacity as "self-awareness".But they also admit, there are more than one way to build circuits and chips, and the potential technologies like optics and nanotechnology are also developing very fast.We are still uncertain about what could happen in the far future.
No comments:
Post a Comment