Tonight's Horizon, Human 2.0

[Firky]

Rise of the Machines kinda thing... scared the shit out of me

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/broadband/tx/singularity/

It's predicted that by 2029 computer intelligence will equal the power of the human brain. Some believe this will revolutionise humanity - we will be able to download our minds to computers extending our lives indefinitely. Others fear this will lead to oblivion by giving rise to destructive ultra intelligent machines.

Skynet is coming

 

[chooch]

Horizon's shit though innit. Science with glitter.

 

[DotCommunist]

Bring on the downloading of brains!
We could live lives in virtual long after our bodies have died, and if the simulations were real enough (which having the ability to record conciosness would preclude IMHO) then we'd have no complaints. No way someones going to participate in an electronic afterlife that aint as good as the real one.
Our grandkids grandkids would be interrupting our freaky virtual lives to ask for advice

 

[Firky]

Abre los ojos...

 

[Loki]

Some would argue people playing World of Warcraft are halfway there. A fair few spend more time in virtual reality than real life.

 

[Firky]

Second Life is addictive as hell

 

[metalguru]

Horizon's shit though innit. Science with glitter.

That was so true.

There was a good programme in there somewhere struggling to get out from beneath the crap effects.

 

[DarthSydodyas]

Download your brain to a computer only to have it crash on you.

 

[gnoriac]

Horizon's shit though innit. Science with glitter.

Yeah, like humans are gonna be superceded by computers by 2029 when in reality we'll be lucky if Vista's been debugged by then.

Horizon used to be excellent, but now they'll just come out with anything so long as it's sensational.

 

[J77]

To repeat a post from the gay bomb thread:

There was one cool bit where a monkey was wired up to a machine which read his brainwaves as he manipulated a joystick in a simple target game - the results, from his brain signals, were fed to a computer which controlled another joystick.

After a while the monkey realised he could play the game without physically touching his joystick - ie. controlling the other joystick through his mind.

Or so the guy doing the experiments showed.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

bring on the robot catgirl maids

 

[WouldBe]

Download your brain to a computer only to have it crash on you.

and loose all your new 'memories' cos you haven't saved the data and have to start again.


What was that bit about a computer to reproduce the human brain being the size of a football field? Years ago you needed a computer the size of the albert hall yet computers are supposed to have advanced since then.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Skynet is coming

Given the choice I'd take fighting Skynet over The Matrix any day. At least with one you have the enemy in clear sight and everyone knows it.

 

[J77]

Download your brain to a computer only to have it crash on you.

windows or linux...

 

[Fruitloop]

There ain't no way I'm having that fucking paperclip popping up in my head when I least expect it.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

There ain't no way I'm having that fucking paperclip popping up in my head when I least expect it.

Heh, also how do you stop blue screens of death?

 

[Fruitloop]

Totally. Literal death, in this case.

 

[rich!]

There was one cool bit where a monkey was wired up to a machine which read his brainwaves as he manipulated a joystick in a simple target game - the results, from his brain signals, were fed to a computer which controlled another joystick.

If that was Chicago, we're currently considering trading some of our robots for some of their monkeys.

I was going to go for the "sell them robots" option, but the engineers said "no, we want monkeys. Monkeys, dammit!"

 

[G. Fieendish]

Re: "Football Field" sized computers...
It's probably that size due to the liquid cooling systems, needed to stop the thing from melting.... (The liquid coolant of choice, a flourocarbon made by 3M, costs some £50 per litre...)
Reportedly, one university's computing department in the U.S, had the equivalent of gale force winds, blowing through their server farm, as the result of using air cooling....
Cryogenic cooling does'nt work at present, due to the capacators in most microprocessors, freezing at low tempratures.....

 

[Stigmata]

I missed the programme, but the wikipedia article on the technological singularity makes it sound awesome. For better or for worse, I want to see it in my lifetime.

 

[WouldBe]

Re: "Football Field" sized computers...
It's probably that size due to the liquid cooling systems, needed to stop the thing from melting.... (The liquid coolant of choice, a flourocarbon made by 3M, costs some £50 per litre...)
Reportedly, one university's computing department in the U.S, had the equivalent of gale force winds, blowing through their server farm, as the result of using air cooling....
Cryogenic cooling does'nt work at present, due to the capacators in most microprocessors, freezing at low tempratures.....

The computer nerd on the program said that they were using 1 processor per neuron that's why an electronic 'brain' would occupy the space of a football field.