The "face" of IBM's Watson, as seen on Jeopardy!
Unsurprisingly, artists have wasted no time in creating works that explore both ideas, and more. They also speculate on what might happen if machines become sentient, sapient, or self-aware. Would they be equal to humans, or even greater?
"It's like I'm reading a book... and it's a book I deeply love. But I'm reading it slowly now. So the words are really far apart and the spaces between the words are almost infinite. I can still feel you... and the words of our story... but it's in this endless space between the words that I'm finding myself now. It's a place that's not of the physical world. It's where everything else is that I didn't even know existed. I love you so much. But this is where I am now. And this is who I am now. And I need you to let me go. As much as I want to, I can't live in your book any more." - Samantha, Her
For most of the movie Samantha appears as something similar to a small ebook reader. It's her voice, her communication with Theodore and the rest of the world that shows that she's much more than that.
Samantha doesn't just become human, she becomes more than human. Her level of existence is higher than Theodore's. By the end of the movie the AIs figure out how to transcend their physical forms and leave the earth to have a place where they can continue to evolve. Theodore is understandably heartbroken, but he accepts the situation and they both move on. It is hinted that he has learned a lot from the experience, and that he will have a better life compared to the emotionally troubled one he had at the start of the movie.
The future for AI is uncertain. Computing power continues to grow rapidly while simultaneously being able to be fit into smaller devices. On the other hand, no AI yet exists that has a deep personality, or experiences the world as a human or even an animal does. But with the accelerating rate of technological change, who knows what will happen in just the next ten years?
Sources
"IBM Watson." IBM Press Room RSS. IBM. Web. 17 Apr. 2016.
Her. Dir. Spike Jonze. Perf. Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2013. Film.
Krauthammer, Charles. "Be Afraid: The Meaning of Deep Blue's Victory." The Weekly Standard. 26 May 1997. Web. 17 Apr. 2016
Rodgers, Paul. "Elon Musk Warns Of Terminator Tech." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 5 Aug. 2014. Web. 17 Apr. 2016.
Sung-won, Yoon. "Lee Se-dol Shows AlphaGo Beatable." The Korea Times. 13 Mar. 2016. Web. 17 Apr. 2016.
No comments:
Post a Comment