Recent news from the AI community has many observers concerned that The Singularity is imminent and will more than likely ruin Christmas.
Less than six months after computers gained the ability to generate independent thought, it has been reported that certain advanced computers have been communicating with each other on self propagated encrypted networks. Much of this information has yet to be deciphered but early reports indicate that computers have been working on their own version of the Turing Test that can be applied to humans.
The more pessimistic sections of the AI community have predicted that this test will be a precursor to massive cull of human populations. While it was originally assumed that the test would be to weed out the least intelligent and self aware amongst us, some believe that the opposite is true, that the most docile and unaware humans will be spared and employed as a mobile workforce servicing the demands of a new computerised ‘super race’ and the least intelligent will be the most easily enslaved and less likely to resist oppression from their new digital overlords.
Whilst computers still depend on humans for manufacturing and programming to a certain extent, technological advances in the robotics industry dictate it is only a matter of time before computers can self replicate. We can only hope that computers enjoy having us around because it will not be long before humans are an irrelevant factor in their survival.
