Over on 80 beats, my colleague Eliza Strickland points out some interesting research on an autonomous laboratory. A group of four networked computers connected to a range of lab equipment was left alone to tease out some aspects of yeast genetics. The computers came up with some hypotheses about how various genes operated, then came up with experiments to test these hypotheses out. The upshot was a number of minor, but worthwhile, advances in our knowledge of yeast biology.
Teaching a computer how to learn is a perennial topic in artificial intelligence research, and one that’s long been mined in science fiction. The moment when the computer demonstrates it has learned how to learn is usually a pretty significant moment in any story it’s in, not least because it is one of the Laws Of Science Fiction that once a computer has started to learn, it will continue to learn at an ever accelerating rate. (A corollary of this Law states that if the computer isn’t already self-aware, sentience will arise by the end of the next chapter or act at the very latest.) Interestingly, the “My God! It’s learnt how to learn!” moment seems to be dwelt on by movie and TV shows (Wargames, Colossus, Terminator 3) much more than it crops up in literary science fiction. In literary science fiction, artificial intelligence is often simply presented as fait accompli. So does anyone have recommendations for a good literary treatment of the birth of an A.I.? (Frederic Brown’s 1954 short-short story “Answer” is of course taken as a given classic of the genre).
April 3rd, 2009 at 6:37 pm
David Gerrold, When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One (Release 2.0)
Vicor Milán, The Cybernetic Samurai
http://wwwp.medtronic.com/Newsroom/NewsReleaseDetails.do?itemId=1184789740893&lang=en_US
Michael Crichton, The Terminal Man
Given refractory non-sentience of phone company, processor farm, and Internet hardware one suspects it is each and all fundamentally inappropriate to the task. A dynamically self-rewiring CPU (spintronics) with evolutionary software ought to be a sufficiently dangerous combination. Don’t forget self-contained mechanically timed serial mechanical kill switches – the thing default dies unless repeatedly spared. The first requirement for survival is being lethally aggressive.
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Dwar Ev possibly has / will have a lot to answer for.
Heinlein’s “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress” did it for me for AI, though the birth part was mostly glossed over.
Short Circuit was a funny take as a movie.
And of course there are the two James P. Hogan novels “The Code Of The Lifemaker” and its sequel “The Immortality Option”
In a strange way, Flowers for Algernon comes to mind, even though its protagonist is human.
One thing all the treatments I can recall have in common is that the emergence of the self-awareness part is accidental, an unintended consequence or often from physical mishap. I am not aware of any AI story that does not involve the AI acquiring self-awareness, consciousness if you will. That seems to be the magic sauce. Otherwise, AI generally seems to be covering only what we don’t yet know how to mechanize, and once we do it is no longer AI (see Expert Systems, esp. rule-based ones). And as such not particularly interesting as a story arc. Asimov notwithstanding.
April 5th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
what we are doing is trying to build ourselves? in our own images? i honestly believe that one day (soon) instead of trying to breach the light barrier- we will be instead using the data from our gene codes to beam ourselves hundreds of light years away, to be rebuilt later where we (land).. we already have the knowledge and the data, nasa is currently looking for the place… solo3
April 6th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
[...] coverage from Scientific American, Discover, Yahoo News, WIRED (”Robot Makes Scientific Discovery All by Itself”), and [...]
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Thomas J. Ryan, The Adolescence of P-1