I for one, don't welcome our Robotic overlords (Artificial Intelligence).

watty

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8182003.stm

True AI is a fantasy. It's been never yet proven to exist or be possible.

To write a program you need a specification. Anyone got one for AI?

jumpguy

AI would only be possible if one could simulate the computations of a human brain. So it's a long, long way off. The military don't need all that, just enough "intelligence" to tell friend from foe.
I think the headline of the article is abit sensationalist, my ideas about it are summed up here: "The problem is that this is all based on artificial intelligence, and the military have a strange view of artificial intelligence based on science fiction."

Will

You can teach AI to learn at a basic level, I did it for a 3rd year project in a game of connect four. Basic enough and all as it was I think the foundation is there to start something dangerous.

You can make programs pick out colours pretty easily, so lets say if all our troops wore red helmets it would be easy enough for a program to pick out who is with them.Anything else that doesn't have a red helmet is fair game, of course this leads to lots of issues like innocent civilians getting hammered.

watty

I think the enemy would quickly issue Red Spray cans.

A program to play a game (even Chess or Go) or especially to pick a colour isn't real AI.

If your Connect 4 used "real" true AI, you'd have a Nobel prize.

I've been programming over 20 years and worked with so called AI including "Expert Systems". "learning" is a bit misleading to describe how computer systems work

We know lots about what different bits of the brain do, and which bits "light up" according to different thoughts. You can even train people or animals to control computers/machinery by "thought", but the computer is not "reading your mind"

We are as far from understanding the Mind and Intelligence as Descartes was when he finally admitted it wasn't the Pineal Gland and he had no idea how brain and Mind was connected or related. I'm not arguing "Duality" is true, though it may be. I'm pointing out that we are like a non-techincal production worker who could take a computer PCB and make a list of parts and draw the schematic just from the description of each part and how many connections it has.
Quite an achievement.
But it wouldn't tell him/her how to make one from scratch, or a better one, smaller one and doesn't even address the issue of the OS and applications to make it go which he/she has also labourously copied as a table of 1s and 0s from the ROMs and HDD. The function of them is unknown, except some changes to parts of the 1 and 0s seem to have no effect (unused parts), others make it not even start and others have little effect or only occasionally halt it.

jumpguy

Well, as far as military AI go, semi-automatic pilotless drones are severely damaging the Taliban at fractional risk to the Americans. If they have intelligence of a training camp, prison camp etc, they can send in an automated drone over any border and destroy it. Minimal risk, high reward.

As far as AI to the power of the human mind goes, it's never gonna happen with current technology. It's maybe 100 years down the line at least I'd say. If such AI was built to say, control the national electricity grid, it wouldn't need things like emotion. That'd be a complete waste of time. AI will never destroy the earth anyway...

EDIT: Instead on reposting to reply, I'll just edit this one. UAVs are MUCH cheaper I'd imagine. They'd need less armour, no cockpit, pilot life support, ejection and emergency apparatus.

Flying Abruptly

I dont really see what the problems with the UCAVs are - theyre flown by pilots using remote control from the safety of a base behind the frontlines taking the pilot out of harms way. UCAVs are probably alot cheaper than proper fighter jets too.

Targets are selected by people on the ground or as preselected co-ordinates. 'Artifical Intelligence' whereby the UCAV is flying around on its own designating its own targets does not apply in this case. Maybe its just the whole idea of there being no pilot in the air is what confuses people...

jumpguy wrote: »

AI will never destroy the earth anyway...

Brave words

watty

But Artificial Stupidity might.

The US "drones" in N. Pakistan are recruiting agents for the Taliban because they kill so many civilians.

JC 2K3

The phrase "true AI" is bollocks.

AI is about abstractions of human intelligence to solve problems, like you said, there needs to be a spec.

I don't doubt that robots appearing to think exactly like humans are impossible, I just don't see the point.

Mahatma coat

I dont really see what the problems with the UCAVs are - theyre flown by pilots using remote control from the safety of a base behind the frontlines taking the pilot out of harms way. UCAVs are probably alot cheaper than proper fighter jets too.

really, you dont see a problem with killing people by remote control?

I suppose you are a fan of the IED as well, a lot of those are remote control too.

Flying Abruptly

Mahatma coat wrote: »

really, you dont see a problem with killing people by remote control?

I suppose you are a fan of the IED as well, a lot of those are remote control too.

No i'm saying that i dont see the difference to having the pilot sitting in a cockpit or on the ground - either way hes the one in direct control, theres no true AI involved. They are no different in the way they operate to any other aerial ordnance that attack from altitude - F18, B52, or cruise missile. In all cases their is very little defense armies such as the Taliban have against them.

Mahatma coat

Flying Abruptly wrote: »

No i'm saying that i dont see the difference to having the pilot sitting in a cockpit or on the ground - either way hes the one in direct control, theres no true AI involved. They are no different in the way they operate to any other aerial ordnance that attack from altitude - F18, B52, or cruise missile. In all cases their is very little defense armies such as the Taliban have against them.

maybe I'm alone here on this one, but I just think theres something horific about taking the person out of the situatuion and controling it from the safety of a bunker several miles away, just seems sneaky and underhanded. Soldiers should be in the firing line, thats their job, to shoot at 'bad guys' and get shot at by them, very different responses to a situation will arise if the persnsd life is not directly threatened by their actions, it removes the operator from the act of Killing, theres something wrong about that IMO its like going roo hunting, on the one hand I could take a Longbow and a Bolt action Rifle on the back of an FJ45 Landcruiser, or I could chose to stay here in my office and deploy an automatic Guided Roo seekin Missile, one is the actual art that our ancestors practiced for milenia, the other is a product of our pussiified modern society.

JC 2K3

Mahatma coat wrote: »

I just think theres something horific about taking the person out of the situatuion and controling it from the safety of a bunker several miles away,

War is horrific in the first place. There's no ethical way to fight one.

Mahatma coat wrote: »

Soldiers should be in the firing line, thats their job, to shoot at 'bad guys' and get shot at by them, very different responses to a situation will arise if the persnsd life is not directly threatened by their actions

Ah, "Dulce et decorum est....."

RedXIV

Don't mind me sticking my nose in but I studied AI in my final year of college and I have to agree with the notion that "True AI" is generally boll*x. Everything a human brain can do all comes down to experience and rules. In theory the major difference is how fast the human brain learns and adds these rules and experience. But you'd be surprised how fast they are catching up. I remember reading about the unmanned car tests where they let 50 cars out in a practice town, and in the first year, only one didn't crash. The second year, only 3 didn't make it. Can't find the link yet. will post it when i find it

watty

yes, but it's like Chess Playing Computers.

Once they thought Chess would require Artifical Inteligence.

It's the Car's PROGRAMMERS that are learning and writing better programs embodying the Programmer's Inteligence.

It's contentious that EVERYTHING a Human does "comes down to experience and rules", that's the Meat Machine argument and it's never been proven.

I've no doubt that based on experience, teams will improve Automous vehicles to the point where they outperform people on average, because machines don't do drugs, alcohol, distractions, too tired etc. But most times when the "unexpected" occurs that the Programmers have not thought of occurs the Machine performance is abysmal, and the human may perform OK (or may not).

No Computer or Program "learns" in the Human or even Animal sense, not even Neural Nets. You can't give a Computer a basic skill in anything and have it learn to be more skilled (like Arithmetic to Calculus), it is preprogramed with measurable goals and possible actions. It can be programmed to measure how closely the goal is met and then have a data relationship between a particular event and possible action. It's totally deterministic could be done slowly with sufficiently complex clockwork. Insects, animals nor humans reliably "learn" this way, though pavlov showed that simple conditioning is possible.

Yet dogs easily learn much more complex things without pavlovian Conditioning. We can't even begin to understand why some parrots and similar don't just Mimic words but appear to understand language.

Corvids, even the ordinary local "eat the road kill" kind show amazing ability to construct tools to get food in the lad, with no prior conditioning. It seems in the wild it's not seen because they don't bother, food is easy enough for them without tools. I've seen video Rooks or crows that could start a car, open a padlock and fish. Our locals decided quite out of the blue one year to use the peanut feeder like a tit.

Guinea Pigs (cavies) we found in tests we did with suitable rewards are absolutely hopeless at mazes. Rats can get good at it. Robots can do it quite well with a preprogrammed algorithm. However the Guinea Pigs (and apparently sheep) despite poor eye sight and less than brilliant sense of smell can tell if someone is a stranger instantly and respond differently to people they know. If they have run out of food or water they do a special squeal only used to humans (a variation of a baby squeak to adult cavy), but ONLY when they see you or hear the back door.

A dog however if needing food, water, or company may howl incessantly for hours, even though its owner is never back before 6pm. The owner will be surprised and disbelieve that their dog howls all day.


The reality is we haven't a clue what Intelligence really is or even how we manage to learn things. Until we know, we won't have the Programming spec for "true AI".

JC 2K3

Surely that just means corvids, guinea pigs and dogs are all biologically "programmed" differently?

I'm a determinist, so I just view intelligence as a very complex program.

watty

JC 2K3 wrote: »

I'm a determinist, so I just view intelligence as a very complex program.

That's certainly a valid viewpoint, but where is the evidence? It's only a theory. (But you do claim to be an Official Cyborg )

Also given sufficient Memory (if only 64K, paged to disk), even a 4MHz Z80 8bit CPU can run just as complex programs as a Supercomputer, just a lot slower.

My point is that even if these Animals are differently programmed and it is simply a program in the Turing sense, such as could be programmed into a Machine, there is no evidence that we are any closer to Descartes, Pascal or Babbage in knowing what the program might be.

If someone will give me a real spec for Intelligence I will give them a proof-of-concept program in C, C#, C++, VB6, Java or Modula-2 on Windows in whichever of those languages THEY choose in less than 6 months.

Most AI research is about Mimicking useful intelligent behaviour. We have no idea how the parrots, Cockatoos, Rats, Dogs, Chimps, Guinea pigs or people do what they do.

Why are some animals apparently self aware and some not?

Humans are not the only creatures who are self-aware. Thus far, there is evidence that bottlenose dolphins, some apes, and elephants have the capacity to be self aware. Recent studies from the Goethe University Frankfurt show that Magpies may also possess self-awareness.

Magpies are Corvids. It's probable that that Rooks, Jackdaws, hoodie Crow etc are too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aware

It's a very interesting subject. Maybe one of the Greatest mysteries of Philosophy there is. If you sieve the Universe will you find a single grain of Justice, Mercy, Hate, Love, Revenge, Envy, Loyalty, Regret, Nostalgia, Dislike or Indifference?

What is the relationship between Creativity, Intelligence, Emotion, Cognition, Learning Ability or Awareness. What are any of these things? How would you put them in a Computer Program?

Why can people learn different things easier than others?

What do IQ tests measure exactly? Or Psychometric tests?

Are there different kinds of Intelligences as some suggest in last few years?

Does a truly AI system need to be self-aware? Is there a relationship between Self-Awareness and a threshold of some kind of Intelligence?

Are we using a too Anthropomorphic approach to measuring Cognition, Self-Awareness, Learning Ability and Intelligence?

Maybe some animals that are rubbish at solving mazes are really good (using Intelligence, not just some special nose) at spotting poisonous food. You get more than one go at mazes and only eat deadly food once, so I know which Skill I'd rather have if I was a small wild furry animal.

watty

What if losing your Temper is inherent to the "program" of Inteligence? Do we want AI killer drones that can be emotional?

jumpguy

watty wrote: »

What if losing your Temper is inherent to the "program" of Inteligence? Do we want AI killer drones that can be emotional?

How could it be inherit? It'd have to "programmed". If AI was emotional then we'd be better off without it tbh, the best thing about computers that makes them so efficient is that they don't have emotions.

watty

Absolutely.

But we don't know what "ingredients" Intelligence needs or what the side effects will be.

"What do you mean you can't open the Pod Door?"

watty

More about rooks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8181233.stm

One of Aesop's fables may have been based on fact, scientists report.

In the tale, written more than 2,000 years ago, a crow uses stones to raise the water level in a pitcher so it can reach the liquid to quench its thirst.

Now a study published in Current Biology reveals that rooks, a relative of crows, do just the same when presented with a similar situation.

The team says the study shows rooks are innovative tool-users, even though they do not use tools in the wild.

(or they hide them in the wild when they see us coming. Gary Larson and Cow Tools)

He said that the complexity of the task made it unlikely that the crows were solving the problem using trial and error.

He added: "We are aware that the animals probably do it by putting together, in creative ways, things that they have learned individually."

Prof.Badass

watty wrote: »

What if losing your Temper is inherent to the "program" of Inteligence? Do we want AI killer drones that can be emotional?

Robots will serve specific functions and have their "intelligence" fine tuned exactly for their specific function. Playstation3s don't come with microsoft excell. Why should future robots come with hardware/software outside of their specific function?
Aside from curiosity, what would be the point in creating a fully self-aware philosphising robot?

To think an intelligent robot would automatically think like a human is naiive. Human behaviour is ultimately based around survival/reproduction. A robot's behaviour will not be based on these things. Unless robots are programmed with some sort of survival mechanism I would be inclined to think it would not do anything more than it's assigned task.

To give a robot animal-like desires would be a disaster. A robot with a survival mechanism would have a reason to rise up against humans, so I'm afraid i have to dissagree with what's-his-face's 3rd law.

ps, by the time we can make robots as intelligent as humans are today, we'll be able to genetically engineer human's far smarter than those robots.

watty

You are making the assumption as to what is possible.

We been writing High Level Language Programs for about 65 years. For over 300 years we have struggled with the modern conceptions of Philsophy.

I can't see that we have made any progress other than the biology of Brain processes which seems to tell us nothing about Inteligence.

We have made progress on on Cybernetics, Robotics, Expert Systems and AI by clever programming which in reality is nothing to do with Intelligence or Cognition. Like Humpty Dumpty in "Through the Looking Glass" the Computer Researchers make words mean what the want them to mean such than even Computer Science Graduates are conned into thinking we have made progress toward "thinking" machines. yet there is no definition of Thinking or Intelligence.

Like Chess programs that can beat Grandmasters or Facial recognition software, very clever programmers have solved the problem by going round it. A computer has no idea what a face is, yet we will recognise a or a random rock on Mars as like a "face".

We recognise chairs we have never seen before from almost any angle and lighting as chair. Somehow after meeting a few chairs we understand "chair-ness". We have no idea how we do it either. Not only that but we can decide to use things we know are not chairs as chairs without thinking consciously.

I'd really love to know how we do all the marvellous things we do and take for granted.

f _ strt wrtng lk ths ftr _ whl y cn rd t qut wll! Hw cn w d ths?

JC 2K3

I think you romanticise the abilities of the human mind, watty.

Captain Furball

watty wrote:

If someone will give me a real spec for Intelligence I will give them a proof-of-concept program in C, C#, C++, VB6, Java or Modula-2 on Windows in whichever of those languages THEY choose in less than 6 months.

A few reasons why that's not possible.The programming languages are not suited for such a thing, nor is the hardware.

JC 2K3

How do you know if there's no spec?

RedXIV

just been sitting and thinking about his for a while but i assume the reason the why we humans are at such a level of intelligence about robots is BECAUSE of emotions. Pure, stoic logic will only bring people so far, but its usually the people who are passionate about a particular discipline that excel at it. And perhaps emotions is too vague a term. We tend to let it blanket the area of our consciousness that we cannot justify however, surely we have problem solving skills available to us that we do not yet comprehend thanks to these "emotions"

Or i could be completely wrong, very little sleep is leading my brain in odd directions

JC 2K3

Emotions are our program, logical ability is our hardware.

watty

Captain Furball wrote: »

A few reasons why that's not possible.The programming languages are not suited for such a thing, nor is the hardware.

A better language or more suitable HW may make it easier. But neither the current languages or HW would stop a computable specification being implemented. It just might run slower or take longer to implement. Only the Speed of Mechanical Intelligence is HW limited providing enough memory is supplied for the program. How "intelligent" it is however is only a factor of the Program, not the language or the HW.

Captain Furball

JC 2K3 wrote: »

How do you know if there's no spec?

The programming language and hardware is not ready for the "spec".
Do you think otherwise?

JC 2K3

I don't know, because there isn't a spec for human intelligence.

I do think that our current technology could possibly be sufficient to emulate human intelligence.

Captain Furball

watty wrote: »

A better language or more suitable HW may make it easier. But neither the current languages or HW would stop a computable specification being implemented. It just might run slower or take longer to implement. The Only the Speed of Mechanical Intelligence is HW limited providing enough memory is supplied for the program. How "intelligent" it is however is only a factor of the Program, not the language or the HW.

I don't agree with you on anything you just said above.
The program needs to be able to rewrite itself as it goes, it needs to be the language.

watty

How do you know this?

Have you a proof?

Anyhow it's possible to have self modifying code. One way of implementing it nearly safely is Virtual functions (Easily done in C, C++ and Modula-2, a bit harder in VB, Java and C#).

Current HW is only inadequate if "thinking" is many thousands of time slower than Human. For a Demo, no-one will care if it takes a week or too for something we do instantly, for the "proof of concept". Then work can be done on improving speed and efficiency.

Assuming that there is any problem. Know one knows. Maybe a 16MHz 486 Is fast enough (though it would seem unlikely). Since we currently have no spec. to work with, any projection of performance is fiction, just guessing.

Before the time Doom and similar engines were written, it was thought FPUs and CPUs 100s and 1000s faster were needed. But the original FPS 3D used a trick and Integer maths thus work on 386 with no FPU or 486SX.

Captain Furball

I've thought about it for 5 minutes and that's the conclusion I came to.
What's in charge of the self modifying code while it's running?
What limits do you think will be put on your implementation of AI if you use a x86 cpu and a system that is based on Digital Logic.

JC 2K3

The only possible one I can think of is speed.

Turing test, anyone?

watty

Captain Furball wrote: »

I've thought about it for 5 minutes and that's the conclusion I came to.

Well, some people have been thinking about this for the last 30 years.


It's a fascinating Problem.

Given the Level of Soaps, Reality Tv and Big Brother, any one think there are people out there that can't pass the Turing test?

Alan Turing was smart. But the "Touring test" was an off the cuff idea. It's not currently regarded as a test of AI, as there are ways of passing it without AI, if the Questioner is not specially trained. Just like Chess computers use Brute force and a database of all the openings and matches rather than AI.

JC 2K3

How do you know that the human mind doesn't approach chess the exact same way a computer does?

You say there's no spec for AI, and then use the phrase "rather than AI", this makes no sense.

watty

Captain Furball wrote: »

x86 cpu and a system that is based on Digital Logic.

If it's not Digital Logic, it's not a computer. We were considering if a Program could be written that is Intelligent in the sense we are.

ALL computers just are collections of digital Logic.

Add, complement, Test & Branch and Store are the only 4 operations needed to simulate any CPU HW in existence and to run any program written in any language. Some while ago I wrote a 16bit /32 bit math library with multiply, divide, and trig functions on an MPU with only 8 bit add and 8 bit complement as the only arithmetic instructions.

There is C for 16F PIC micro family. It's a Stack orientated language using the stack for passing parameters to functions, return address and function result all on the stack. The PIC has no HW stack that can be used that way like an x86 (it has a fixed small stack only for parameterless HW Interrupt returns )

watty

JC 2K3 wrote: »

You say there's no spec for AI, and then use the phrase "rather than AI", this makes no sense.

It's very logical.

Since we have no spec for AI, then no programs can be doing it. Chess was only thought of as something that might need AI till successful Chess software was written. Chess software uses Brute force. I can beat loads of people at chess. Almost any Chess program (even one on an 8bit MPU) can beat me. Grandmasters maybe have all the openings memorised, but beyond that they don't play like a Computer plays. Nor do they play like I do either.

We don't know do build a successful Fusion Powerstation, thus logically any arbitrary Commercial Power station is not a Fusion one. We don't need the missing spec for a Fusion Power Station to prove it, but it's proved because we don't have the spec.

But we can go further. You can examine the source for a Chess Program and you will also conclude that while that have got good enough to beat anyone (and this was true for simple PC programs 20 years ago against non-Masters) they are not using anything that even remotely resembles creativity or Intelligence or cognition or self awareness. This is clear even though we have not figured how to program any of these.

Like when you look inside a real Power station, even though you don't know how to build a Fusion Model, you recognise the plain simple burning fuel, making steam, spinning a turbine models. Though the parts are very large.

Same with Starships. We hope someday we figure how to build one. But if you look at all the current HW we have for space, it's mostly big fireworks. Definitely nothing that can do Warp drive or FTL travel. We have some ideas, but basically no good ones whe can start building. All of our current Technology is Reaction drive (Burn fuel in a rocket motor, Reflect solar wind, accelerate Plasma or fire lasers). It's all useless for Interstellar travel except in a "Generation" Ship.

JC 2K3

watty wrote: »

Grandmasters maybe have all the openings memorised, but beyond that they don't play like a Computer plays. Nor do they play like I do either.

Can you expand on this?

When I'm playing chess, I think, "If I move my knight to X then I can take their bishop, but my queen will be unguarded, however if I move my castle to Y then I'll have their king in check, but then their knight will take me, alternatively, I could move my pawn...." etc.

Now, that sounds like my brain is performing a brute force algorithm, going through all the possibilities, to determine my next move. I don't think a computer plays chess all that differently, just more efficiently and less error prone.

Captain Furball

If it's not Digital Logic, it's not a computer.
ALL computers just are collections of digital Logic.

No that's not true. Analogue computers have been around for decades.

We were considering if a Program could be written that is Intelligent in the sense we are.

Think of the Intelligent required for something such as going to make a cup of tea.The easiest way to get to where your going would be 4 wheels and a battery powered motor.But when you get there, how will you know where the tea bags are located?

And say if it could do the above.Would you call it intelligent?What happens if the house went on fire?Would it still go and make the cup of tea?

watty

Captain Furball wrote: »

No that's not true. Analogue computers have been around for decades.




Think of the Intelligent required for something such as going to make a cup of tea.The easiest way to get to where your going would be 4 wheels and a battery powered motor.But when you get there, how will you know where the tea bags are located?

And say if it could do the above.Would you call it intelligent?What happens if the house went on fire?Would it still go and make the cup of tea?

Analogue Computers are an "analogue" of the problem. In the sense we are talking about they are not computers at all. I've designed and built both kinds.

Captain Furball

Computers are analogue or digital or chemical the list goes on. But your talking about personal digital computers and writing a program in c++ that will have some sort of intelligence.

I don't think it's possible to do such a thing in the languages that are available now.I know you can do whatever you like with a few nand gates but that's not the point.

Bugbear

Very interesting discussion

I'd like to give my small contribution: www.singinst.org

Captain Furball

This is the future!

watty

Captain Furball wrote: »

Computers are analogue or digital or chemical the list goes on. But your talking about personal digital computers and writing a program in c++ that will have some sort of intelligence.

I don't think it's possible to do such a thing in the languages that are available now.I know you can do whatever you like with a few nand gates but that's not the point.

No, we are talking about Stored Program computers. Like Turing or Neuman Machines. The programming language doesn't affect what is possible, just the ease of implementation. That's the only kind of thing people are using.

It makes no difference if it's a PC, embedded controller or supercomputer other than speed. An "Analogue Computer" is a different concept altogether. It's not running a program in a Turing, Babbage/Ada, Neumann or Konrad Zuse's sense.

The computing engine can be implemented using Digital Logic, Qubit Quantum Devices, clockwork & gear wheels, relays or valves(vacuum tubes). The design of the ALU, code execution unit etc can be the same.

Strictly speaking an "Analogue computer" is not a computer at all in this sense. It has no ALU, no stored program, no branch logic.

watty

So far, the silver screen has been quite accurate, except when it comes to robots, says Dr Kaku.

In fact, he says Hollywood has misled us into thinking that smart robots are just around the corner.

Fans of the emotional Sonny from I-Robot, or the depressed and bored Marvin from The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, may be disappointed to hear that they are more likely to find a cockroach composing a symphony or writing a poem than a robot.

"Stupid cockroaches are smarter than our robots," says Dr Kaku.

"Robots are nothing but tape-recorders, pre-scripted moves ahead of time.

"Digital computers have a hard time learning and that's the fundamental problem. They don't learn new skills."

Renowned physicist Dr Michio Kaku says that the world of science fiction may be closer to reality than fantasy.

So if you thought that invisibility cloaks, time travel and teleportation were for the silver screen only, think again.

Dr Kaku is a theoretical physicist and the co-founder of string field theory, a branch of string theory, often referred to as "the theory of everything".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8221009.stm

Vgamer1

If you guys are really interested in this topic, come check out www.imminst.org

We talk about this stuff all the time. Here's a video of Ray Kurzweil talking about some of these topics:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ray_kurzweil_on_how_technology_will_transform_us.html