http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2003/october29/nilsson-1029.html
Reflecting on his career as an Artificial Intelligence researcher, the article subject suggests that humans and computers will always be different, but the intellectual and creativity differences will narrow. This is sufficiently ambiguous to give one pause. On one reading, if the differences are sufficiently narrow, then AI will ultimately usurp human intelligence, because it is much more effective within the corporate structure. On the alternative reasoning, when our machines 'grow up' enough that the gap is sufficiently narrow for us to treat them as alternative autonomies, then the potential benefits from man-machine interaction could be boggling to the minds of both [and this is an issue where there is much SF writing of merit].
Of course, if you seek to determine which of these future will come about, based on the principles I have expressed elsewhere in this blog, the answer is obvious.
Posted by jho at October 30, 2003 11:18 AM