Well this one raises too many questions to be properly answered in a single post.
Lets start with some basics.
1. It took evolution about 4 billion years to come up with man. What-say we give computing & robotics a bit more time than it has had so far before we judge what it can, and cannot do.
Would you have concluded evolution, after 3 billion years of operation, would come up with man when it was still operating on single celled entities?
2. Match a human. What does that mean? I don't think it means mimic a human but a typcial computer of today is capable of performing calculations at a speed no human can match. A computer can reliably store more data (particularly connected to the network) than any human. A computer/robot can perform repetitive tasks more reliably than any human. A computer can analyse and spot trends in volumes of data no human can match.
I think we can already come up with many activities that a computer/robot can already do that are unmatched by us.
The big revolution of the last few years has been the smartphone. The real difference between a smartphone and a computer has been, apart from size, the inputs to the system. GPS, cameras, microphones, gyroscopes and so on. Smartphones are more "aware" of their environment than anything artificial before.
Note that some of these new "senses" are beyond things that we ourselves have.
If, at the same time, we look at neutral networks, fuzzy logic, nano-technologies and the rest we can build a picture of the future that would have a robot being capable of things we cannot dream of.
We could, for example, provide them with vision deep into the infra-red and out into the ultra violet. We could give them hearing that would range from infrasound to ultrasound.
Sensory information can be made to outstrip everything we have.
A bold prediction indeed that they will never match us.
Its possible to say they will never be us - but who said that was ever the aim?
As HAL asked in 2010 - "Will I dream?"
You might yet HAL, you might yet.
Lets start with some basics.
1. It took evolution about 4 billion years to come up with man. What-say we give computing & robotics a bit more time than it has had so far before we judge what it can, and cannot do.
Would you have concluded evolution, after 3 billion years of operation, would come up with man when it was still operating on single celled entities?
2. Match a human. What does that mean? I don't think it means mimic a human but a typcial computer of today is capable of performing calculations at a speed no human can match. A computer can reliably store more data (particularly connected to the network) than any human. A computer/robot can perform repetitive tasks more reliably than any human. A computer can analyse and spot trends in volumes of data no human can match.
I think we can already come up with many activities that a computer/robot can already do that are unmatched by us.
The big revolution of the last few years has been the smartphone. The real difference between a smartphone and a computer has been, apart from size, the inputs to the system. GPS, cameras, microphones, gyroscopes and so on. Smartphones are more "aware" of their environment than anything artificial before.
Note that some of these new "senses" are beyond things that we ourselves have.
If, at the same time, we look at neutral networks, fuzzy logic, nano-technologies and the rest we can build a picture of the future that would have a robot being capable of things we cannot dream of.
We could, for example, provide them with vision deep into the infra-red and out into the ultra violet. We could give them hearing that would range from infrasound to ultrasound.
Sensory information can be made to outstrip everything we have.
A bold prediction indeed that they will never match us.
Its possible to say they will never be us - but who said that was ever the aim?
As HAL asked in 2010 - "Will I dream?"
You might yet HAL, you might yet.
