User talk:Sanahunzai

'RISE OF MACHINES' We the Homo sapiens with our ingenious knack have crafted spectacular designs and our chronicle is a witness to the marvelous Egyptian Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Lighthouse of Alexandria and mesmerizing Taj Mahal that glorifies love. The triumph is how beautifully depicted “Had I been present at the time of creation I would have given some useful hints for better order of the universe”. The voyage of ingenuity is still on and we the beings have designed the machines to look into the deep space, to traverse the planets, to unveil the nanoworld, to commune the distant spheres and are innovating ultra complex machines to execute the multifaceted tasks to gratify our inquisitive mind. The unquenched thirst of innovations is inducing us with ability to develop Quantum Computers, DNA computers, Expert Systems, Evolutionary Computations, Neural Networks, Humanoid Robots and Cyborgs to match the human intelligence and capabilities. Where we will be ushered by the rise of such machines yet it is not clear but there is a concern that machines might displace or compete with humans in the first half of the twenty first century. No doubt today the machines are better performers than the human beings in executing some of physical and mental tasks but they are sheer nothing in the absence of human mental input. However recent advancements in the arena of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics is paving way to the machine intelligence and scientists are optimistic that robots will be able to approximate human-like intelligence in the first half of the 21st century keeping in mind the Moore’s observation (so called law) which denotes that the processing speed of microcomputers doubles every after eighteen months. Honda has debuted the most advanced humanoid robot named ASIMO capable to execute advance level of physical and mental activities such as interpreting the postures and gestures of humans and moving independently in response. ASIMO’s ability to interact with humans has advanced significantly-it can greet approaching people, follow them, move in the direction they indicate, and even recognize their faces and address them by name. Further, utilizing networks such as the Internet, ASIMO can provide information while executing tasks such as reception duties. The ASIMO as Good Will Ambassador of Robots have visited many countries and enthralled the audience by its intelligent conduct. The ASIMO at a dinner in the Czech greeted guests including Premiers of Czechoslovak and Japan and proposed a champagne with toast and announced I am a still child therefore I cannot drink this.

The modus operandi for evolution of electronic life with human like intelligence is already in the incubators and Stephen Hawking argues in his Book The Universe in a Nutshell, an inspiring sequel to his famed book A Brief History of Time, “some people say that computers can never show true intelligence, whatever that may be. But it seems to me that if very complicated chemical molecules can operate in humans to make them intelligent, then equally complicated electronic circuits can also make computers act in an intelligent way” And if they are intelligent then they can devote their abilities to design the next generation of machine intelligence. This next generation will be even smarter and might be able to design their more sophisticated successors in even shorter time.

Nevertheless whatever are assumptions, creating an Artificial Intelligence matching to a human intelligence is not imminent and still remains an indistinct dream specially in the absence of all requisite hardware, software and input/out devices. Our fastest super computer Blue Gene/L with the processing speed of 22.8 trillion floating point operation per second (teraflops) has not yet reached to human brain processing level. The software for an Artificial Intelligence is not possible without figuring out the biological brains and it is only relatively recent that we have begun to understand the computational mechanism of biological brains. The basic input/output devices are now available but they are not down-to-earth components to become a part of a large scale multiprocessing and VLSI setup to generate human level intelligence. However there are technological advancements and all impediments related to hardware, software and input/output devices are being addressed and by the 2050 we may see a formidable machine intelligence. The Quantum Computers, DNA computers, neural networks are not a distant design and with their advent in the next decade the hardware barrier will not be a concern at all. The IBM and the Ecole Polvtechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland (EFPL) have started a project nicknamed “Blue Brain” to simulate the Human Brain by utilizing huge computational capacity of IBM’s eServer Blue Gene Supercomputer. The Swiss Neuroscientists will study the Neocortex (the largest and most complex part, constituting 85% of the human brain’s total mass and thought to be responsible for the cognitive functions of language, learning, memory and complex thought) and will produce software replica of the neocortex and thereafter to produce a 3 D Model of the Entire Brain. The product of this biology-inspired method will not be an explicitly coded mature artificial intelligence. Rather, it will be system that has the same ability as a toddler to learn from experience and to be educated. The system will need to be taught in order to attain the abilities of adult humans.

What if the machines mutated to a man like thinking entity. If Moore's law continues to hold in this era, the speed of artificial intelligences will double at least every two years. Within fourteen years after human-level artificial intelligence is reached, there could be machines that think more than a hundred times more rapidly than humans do. In reality, progress could be even more rapid than that, because there would likely be parallel improvements in the efficiency of the software that these machines use. The interval during which the machines and humans are roughly matched will likely be brief. Shortly thereafter, humans will be unable to compete intellectually with artificial minds.

We have already loosed a pure intellect game of chess to the IBM Deeper Blue in 1997 and shall this continue in coming arena then our machine slaves may become our masters and we will be left with a comment “It is nothing about Science, it was one zeal to beat human being (Kasparov) and when a Big Corporation with unlimited resources would like to do so, there are many ways to achieve the result”.

The machine intelligence sooner or later will be a reality but the postulation the machines might cause extinction of mankind propagated in sci-fi block busters Hall, Terminator, Star Trek is nothing but a irrational Phobia since all precautionary measures and safe guards will be already in operation before evolution of a digital contender. Isaac Asimov created the three laws of robotics in a literary attempt to control the competition of robots with humans:

•	A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

•	A robot must obey the orders given to it by the human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

•	A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I assume the evolution of machine life is imperative to discover the neighboring planets notably the Mars to develop an environment conducive for living organisms. Imagine Intelligent ASIMOs engaged in a mission on the Mars for habitation of Human Beings and the zeal and zest of human beings on the earth.