Rattner: Machines more intelligent than us by 2050

Author: Tim Smalley
Published: 22nd August 2008
Comments (33) Stumble
Rattner: Machines more intelligent than us by 2050

Justin Rattner worryingly believes that machines have the potential to become more intelligent than humans by 2050.

In a rather distressing look into the future of how man and machine will be closer together in the future, Justin Rattner said that robots could be more intelligent than us by 2050.

“The industry has taken much greater strides than anyone ever imagined 40 years ago,” he said. “There is speculation that we may be approaching an inflection point where the rate of technology advancements is accelerating at an exponential rate, and machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason, in the not so distant future.”

Rattner explained that if robots are to become more personal, they need to be able to move and manipulate objects in cluttered and dynamic environments. They need to understand and be able to analyse and adapt to what’s going on in their surroundings using sensors.

He demonstrated two robots developed in Intel research labs during his keynote – the first one looked fairly harmless, and just got on with tidying away some mugs that’d be left out for it. The second, however, was a little more menacing.

It was able to follow an apple around using an electric field pre-touch sensor in its arm. It then reached out and grabbed the apple from Rattner, uttering “found it, got it” in the process. It then passed the apple back to Rattner and he took a bite from it. It was as if this was a prompt for the robot to go a bit crazy, as it started reaching out to grab Rattner’s arm, again uttering “found it, got it” as it got hold of him.

I’m not sure about you, but I’m not exactly comfortable about what might happen in the future – I don’t want some crazy bat robot reaching out to grab my neck, while uttering “found it, got it” as it tightens its grip. Maybe those movies about Robots taking over the world might come true in the end? Discuss in the forums.
Quote RallyRoach 22nd August 2008, 19:42
I for one welcome our new robot overlords...
Quote chrisb2e9 22nd August 2008, 19:47
^lol

Lots of potential for good here, but Man being man i'm sure that there is even more potential for evil.
Quote Glider 22nd August 2008, 19:55
They already are a lot more intelligent then some people are right now... And that's even when they are turned off...
Quote MajestiX 22nd August 2008, 19:57
it should be a sooner date, they didn't factor in the decline of human intelligence. Don't know what's worse the media, the education system or the additives in the food.
Quote s3v3n 22nd August 2008, 20:10
What also isn't factored in is cybornetic implants, and preconception genetic alteration. Moral rights take a second seat when you are on the verge of being enslaved by sentinels.
Quote ParaHelix.org 22nd August 2008, 20:21
I have researched artificial intelligence (or A.I) many times over the years, but at the end of the day, these robots would have to defend their own power stations if they wanted to take over, or holy LaWd, *pulls the batteries out*. *AHAHAHA OMFG THEY GOT SOLAR PANELS ON THEIR HEAD!!!! RUN!!!! RUN FOR DARKNESS!!!!
Quote ParaHelix.org 22nd August 2008, 20:21
I suppose the entire topic depends on what you define as intelligence.
Quote ParaHelix.org 22nd August 2008, 20:27
Take over? motive people? anyone got any motive for these robots to "take over"? think they have evil human brains and one is gonna go all Nazi on us? I think people are watching iRobot too many times. If anything in the future (very distant future, havnt we only just invented robots that can stand up,,,and fall?) did happen then it would only be out very own initial programming that it would follow.
Quote ParaHelix.org 22nd August 2008, 20:28
AHHH GET THE EMP BOMBS READY!
Quote Glider 22nd August 2008, 20:30
Quote:
Originally Posted by s3v3n
What also isn't factored in is cybornetic implants, and preconception genetic alteration. Moral rights take a second seat when you are on the verge of being enslaved by sentinels.

Ignorance is bliss!
Quote theevilelephant 22nd August 2008, 20:52
im not as confident as he is. 42years is a long time in technological terms but for robots to truly become more intelligent than humans there have to be a few drastic changes. At the moment all these robots use fixed algorithms, they "learn" by analyzing and changing their data sets. We needs robots able to re-write their own algorithms, allowing to change the way they learn and actually learn new things, things their initial programming didnt cater for.

Yes the arm that goes mental for an apple while shouting odd things is a bit unnerving, but at the end of the day... dude its going mental.... over an APPLE. If that doesnt make you laugh untill it just looks pathetic instead of scary....

Anyway I will be fine my degree is in AI and Robotics so if robots kill you all they will be my robots. mwuahhahaha
Quote Glider 22nd August 2008, 20:57
Quote:
Originally Posted by theevilelephant
dude its going mental.... over an APPLE.
Exactly my tought everytime I manage to get myself trapped in the Apple subforum... :D


I'll be good now
Quote p3n 22nd August 2008, 21:41
I doubt anything can pass as human until they work out quantum (light transistors) and even then it will need to be 'dynamic' to learn things in a 'human' way ... could be much less than 40 years could be much more...
Quote DXR_13KE 22nd August 2008, 21:43
i would love to get a cybernetic implant.... imagine accessing the internet any time and download knowledge about stuff almost instantly, like in the matrix. it is a shame that the other side of the coin is total annihilation....
Quote Sebbo 22nd August 2008, 22:12
not sure if he picked 2050 because of this, but...
there's this series of competitions for primary, high school and university (post-grad) students called Robocup, which has the ultimate goal of having a team of humanoid, fully autonomous robots play (and beat) the World Cup soccer winners by 2050... look around on youtube, there's some incredible stuff out already
in case you couldn't tell, this is a topic close to my heart ^_^
Quote Liquid K9 22nd August 2008, 22:37
I have AI this year in college, Im looking forward to it. so much so I bought Artificial Intelligence: a modern approach in anticipation, so its fair to say this topic is close to my heart.

I fear politicians more than robots. Robots will never take over the world, no more than a child can control their parents entire lives. Sure they can whine until they make them go to the shops, but ultimately they are dependant on the parents. Thats how I see robots - our children.

Politics *have* put robots in the battlefield (UAV's for instance), Humanoid robots are the next step. I fear that a robot soldier, lacking compassion - or any human 'instinct' has no right being on the battlefield. For a start, it makes the entire concept of war even more ridiculous than it already is.

So yeah... robots COULD take over the world. but only if we allow it.

Im not convinced it would be a terrible thing in anycase :p
Quote Arkanrais 23rd August 2008, 03:15
yay, the technological singularity (wiki it).
I wouldn't mind getting rid of this meatbag of a body and having it replaced with some mirror polished alu and a few pointy and lasering appendages.
HALF SHARK, HALF ROBOT, ALL MAN!
Quote The_Beast 23rd August 2008, 03:25
I think it would be very cool to have a robot that can learn new things
Quote johnmustrule 23rd August 2008, 04:30
Acording to Moors law:

2015 A supercomputer will surpass average human intelligence
2050 A supercomputer will surpass the combined intellegenceof the human race and a 2000$ computer will surpass average human intelligence

I'll see if I can find a video of this later
Quote BlackMage23 23rd August 2008, 08:48
Computers are already more intelligent then most of the UK's teenagers.
Quote TheCherub 23rd August 2008, 08:53
Not convinced by this one. At the end of the day, a robot is always going to require a program to run, which will have been written by a human. Given the adage that you have to be a better programmer to debug a program than to write it, by definition there won't be any robots more intelligent than humans.
Quote proxess 23rd August 2008, 11:29
any video of this?
Quote Veles 24th August 2008, 02:22
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCherub
Not convinced by this one. At the end of the day, a robot is always going to require a program to run, which will have been written by a human

Not necessarily
Quote Liquid K9 24th August 2008, 02:26
Quote:
Originally Posted by Veles
Not necessarily

yeah, I wanted to say this a couple times before when these posts come up....

programs can not only be taught to LEARN but also to A) reprogram themselves and B) create derivatives. Assuming that only humans can learn to program, and by extension create robot-software, is a very limited point of view, that to me at least holds little weight if any.
Quote jjsyht 24th August 2008, 07:39
Quote:
Originally Posted by theevilelephant
im not as confident as he is. 42years is a long time in technological terms but for robots to truly become more intelligent than humans there have to be a few drastic changes. At the moment all these robots use fixed algorithms, they "learn" by analyzing and changing their data sets. We needs robots able to re-write their own algorithms, allowing to change the way they learn and actually learn new things, things their initial programming didnt cater for.

Its getting done. Google Evolutionary Algorithm, or more specifically Genetic Programming.
Quote friskies 24th August 2008, 13:15
This is old news, many years ago i saw this documentary called robocop where they made a superior robot out of a dead guy or something. Intel is far behind if all they`ve made is an arm!
Quote Carcarius 24th August 2008, 20:46
One way to look at it is that robots follow along in the natural evolution of life. They are extended from man and will one day, with advances to energy and nanotechnology, be pretty self-sufficient without the need to consume anything. They could draw use a mix of solar power, nuclear power, or any manner of energy creation and storage that hasn't been conceived yet. In this way, I don't see robots as the doom to mankind. Just an extension and/or evolution. Robots, if smart enough will realize that the universe is their playground, not Earth. They will likely leave us to hopefully share their experiences (a/v feeds, materials forensic data, etc..) since it is increasingly unlikely that humans will ever put the effort to space exploration. We have too many problems to deal with at home to leave to explore the cosmos.
Quote Carcarius 24th August 2008, 20:56
Robots will some day be pretty intelligent but they can be tricked/hacked (same thing?) by a human or possibly even other robots. So there will need to be forethought into security mechanisms during our engineering process of future robots. What are the current security mechanisms that life forms use today? I'm not going through a list and naming them since I can't name them all (others here in the forums can add their thoughts here). Robots will likely use any existing wireless technologies with the option of wired technologies as well. So, the primary communications media would likely be wireless. Could somebody/something easily inject a signal that cold cause a change in behavior in a robot listening in on a given wavelength? Certainly. So there is plenty of room for mischief here. We know it will happen, so I hope they are thinking of ways to mitigate this ahead of time.
Quote crompers 25th August 2008, 13:00
i wonder how long before they invent the masturbateobot ("found it, rubbed it off).......
Quote Glider 25th August 2008, 13:44
Quote:
Originally Posted by crompers
i wonder how long before they invent the masturbateobot ("found it, rubbed it off).......
Just google 'dildonics'...
Quote dragontail 25th August 2008, 20:07
Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackMage23
Computers are already more intelligent then most of the UK's teenagers.
QFT.
Quote salesman 25th August 2008, 21:33
Why is intel saying this in a keynote? All Justin Rattner is doing is showing off what intel has accomplished, hence why it is called keynote, which is impressive.

However 2050 is a lot of time for us, Humans, to kill each other before we even realize this dream of intel's (and so many other people in the world) to make a robot that is better then a human in rather startling ways. I believe the future holds great potential all we gotta do is get along.
Quote ParaHelix.org 25th August 2008, 23:51
If there is anything which makes Humans different it is the fact that we make almost all decisions based on emotion, artificial intelligence, however, can never have emotion, atleast not true emotion which again brings me to the question, what is intelligence? If we do not understand that, we have nothing more than a logical calculator.
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