"Visions of the Future" Intelligence Revolution

The Intelligence Revolution - [Physicist and Futurist Michio] Kaku explains how he believes artificial intelligence will revolutionize the world. Also, Kaku investigates virtual reality technology and its potential. Controversially, Kaku documents the work of scientists using a combination of artificial intelligence and neuroscience technology transform a person suffering from major depressive disorder into one who is happy and content by the push of a button. 

List of technologies: 

Autonomous car
Ubiquitous computing and Internet of things
E-textiles
Head-mounted display
Virtual retinal display
Virtual reality
Augmented reality
Immersive virtual reality
Robotics and artificial intelligence
Cyborgology, Bionics and human enhancement

Reference: Visions of the Future.

My notes

From scientific discovery, to scientific mastery. The Intelligence Revolution. Redesign of our own minds, with the exponential growth of computer power. How could we have lived in a world that was so dumb?

The car is driving itself, with the processing power of eight desktop computers. Our roads will also be smart. `Futurama (1940). Traffic accidents and traffic jams will be non-existent. 

Ubiquitous computing. Connecting to everything, embedded in everything. Computers have become invisible. The internet will be everywhere, including your sunglasses. Your eyeglasses could be your future home entertainment device. 

500 years ago the book triggered a revolutionary renaissance... 

Dancing with partners in remote locations. Tele-immersion. Product business, selling apparel and accessories for avatars. Virtual reality will become more like real reality. 

Walter Mitty had fierce fantasies at night. 

Jaron Lanier, Virtual Reality Pioneer. Some of this technology will just be built into the human body. What happens when we prefer virtual networks over our real networks? We spend about 20 hours a week in virtual reality. 

From creators of machine intelligence, to creators of intelligent machines. More and more machines are designed to think for themselves. Pattern recognition. 

Combine computer science with neuroscience. It took Honda 20 years to create Asimo into as close to human functioning as possible. Ability to respond to conversation. Some of your closest friends may not be human (rf. `AI [2001]). 

`A for Andromeda (1961). Emotions are critical for higher intelligence. Decisions are dependent on emotion, as it adds valence to what we have to decide on.  Rosalind Picard, Affective Computing Systems (MIT). 

In Tokyo there are rules that will govern robotics. We do have a choice in how we create these robotics. 

Deep Brain Stimulation, e.g., implants for treating depression. For Diane it was instantaneous to feel so good. Then the fine-tuning was done. The difference between night and day. 

Implants can more than just repair the brain (e.g., strokes and Alzheimer), but also augment and improve the brain. Memory chip. Vision chip. Thinking chip. The proof of principle already exists. John Granacki, bioengineering (USC).

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD