8/10/2009 - HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. (AFNS) — The convergence of “exponentially advancing technologies” will form a “super-intelligence” so formidable that it could avert war, according to one of the world’s leading futurists.
Dr. James Canton, CEO and chairman of the Institute for Global Futures, a San Francisco-based think tank, is author of the book “The Extreme Future” and an adviser to leading companies, the military and other government agencies. He is consistently listed among the world’s leading speakers and has presented to diverse audiences around the globe.
Canton seems familiar with the Singularity concept and views the US as rushing towards an unchallenged status:
“The superiority of convergent technologies will prevent war,” Doctor Canton said, claiming their power would present an overwhelming deterrent to potential adversaries. While saying that the U.S. will build these super systems faster and better than other nations, he acknowledged that a new arms race is already under way.
I'm reading Wired For War right now, a book about AI and robotics on the battlefield. The military accounts for about half of the total R&D for a variety of projects ranging from insect-like spy drones to Hummers that drive themselves to pilotless drones. Many of the projects are in a nascent stage, but they already have incredible capabilities. The drones have been very successful over Iraq and Afghanistan.
Eventually, The Air Force would even like to develop pilotless fighter aircraft so they don't have to worry about accommodating that blob of delicate jelly sitting up front anymore.
I'm glad to see that I have the Air Force is on the machine-intelligence side of the debate!
The US military could eventually create a superintelligence, but it will be a different beast than the billions of humans that came before it. A superintelligence is something fundamentally new. A superintelligence can hold bigger ideas in its brain than you can. Human working memory can only hold 5-7 items at once, a superintelligence’s working memory might be able to hold millions of complex symbols simultaneously. It would be like comparing a man with a shovel to one of today's earth-movers.
Who knows what the Air Force or DARPA has going on under its blacked-out projects?