ARE WE MAKING COMPUTERS TOO SMART?

We have developed computers to make things easier for us, and how the computer age has taken jobs away from thousands, because employees couldn't keep up with the speed of automation. We have developed computers that can vacuum your floors, without too much assistance from humans. We even have a computer that can take care of small children, and help with certain types of hospital patients, called the robot nurse. Now we have computers that can think for themselves, and even reason things out.

They are using The Terminator Movies, and the Battlestar Galactica Movies, as the end result, wondering if this will be the end of humanity as we know it. These movies depict what has happened after humans have developed computers to think and to solve problems for themselves. These events lead up to a physical takeover of all mankind because we were inferior to the robots.
researchers believe, could soon lead to a more "general" AI, as flexible and self-aware as human intelligence, or to direct computer enhancement of the human brain.
Such superhuman intelligence could then improve on its own design, acting at the speed of computers, millions of times faster than our own brains. Biological evolution would no longer be the main storyline on Earth.

Not all Singularitarians agree with this scenario, including Bill Joy, founder of Sun Microsystems.

In his seminal Wired magazine article, "Why the future doesn't need us," Joy said the GNR technologies -- genetics, nanotechnology and robotics, the ones with the potential to self-replicate and mutate --pose a danger to the world because their development is widespread and government oversight is practically absent.

The prospect of a hybrid man/computer elite controlling enslaved masses is just one nightmare scenario put forward by Joy. Another is that intelligent systems would likely evolve an instinct for self-preservation, which could be bad news if humans are viewed as a threat.

Robot cars

The US Department of Defense announced on the July 30, 2002 a "Grand Challenge", for US-based teams to produce a vehicle that could autonomously navigate and reach a target in the desert of the south western USA.
In March 2004, the first competition was held, for a prize-money of $1 million. Not one of the 25 entrants completed the course. However, in the second competition held in October 2005 five different teams completed the 135-mile (217 km) course, and the Stanford University team won the $2 million prize.
November 3rd, 2007, the third competition was held and $3.5 million dollar in cash prizes, trophys and medals were awarded. Six driverless vehicles were able to complete the 55 miles of urban traffic in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge rally style race. 1st Place - Tartan Racing, Pittsburgh, PA; 2nd Place - Stanford Racing Team, Stanford, CA; 3rd Place - Victor Tango, Blacksburg, VA.

That’s cool, here’s self-driving BMW 330i. It is based on a military grade GPS system that can locate the car within few centimeters. This time driver can really take a rest in car like the passenger. Well, that’s a bit scary when it goes up to 140 kph.

LHC shuts down for 2 months over faulty wiring

The Large Hadron Collider is shut down for two months after an electrical glitch between two 30-ton magnets failed.

“What we know indicates there was a faulty connection between two cables joining two magnets together that warmed up to the point of melting and that resulted in helium being leaked into the tunnel,” said James Gillies, a spokesperson for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which operates the machine. (National Geo)
The problem delays the LHC for a full two months while the troubled section is warmed up, repaired and calmed down.

The thing that went wrong [at the LHC] is not such a big deal,” said Mike Harrison, a high-energy physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratories in Upton, New York.“The actual fix will be a day or two probably,” he said. “The problem is you have to warm it up and cool it down again. That’s what takes up time.”

All this pushes back the end of the world, which will occur when the LHC powers up sufficiently to generate stable black holes which will suck the earth inside out.

tech project (Plasma Window)

For my technology project I have started my research on the technology of my choice. The technology I chose to research was a new type of window. This new type of window is the plasma window. The plasma window is an ionized gas, or a gas with charged particles confined by electric and magnetic fields, that, under special conditions, separates atmospheric pressure from a vacuum. The plasma window, in which hot gas particles are trapped by electric and magnetic fields, prevents air from rushing into a vacuum chamber. At 12,000o Celsius (21,632oFarenheit), the plasma window is about 300 times as hot as the air at room temperature. This intense heat makes the ionized atoms and molecules move around faster and collide more often with air molecules, thus stopping most of them when they try to pass through the plasma window. Also, since the plasma window matches atmospheric pressure with only one-fortieth its density, less air pressure can escape from it into the vacuum, which is supposed to be devoid of pressure.

POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS

Electron-beam welding is used for piecing together metal parts in airplanes, ships, scientific equipment and semiconductors. Since existing nonvacuum electron-beam welders have dispersed electron beams, they are not focused enough for high-quality welds or to reach crevices. In-vacuum welding overcomes this problem, but the vacuum system limits the size of the assemblies to be welded. The plasma window facilitates high-quality, nonvacuum electron-beam welding at production rates that are at least twice as fast as in-vacuum welding. At an hourly operating cost of $150 for an electron-beam welder, production-cost savings would be substantial.
The plasma window can also aid in the operation of electron-beam melting, a method frequently used to recover scrap metals from recycled materials. The new invention effectively increases operating pressure of the electron-beam furnace tenfold. High pressure in the furnace prevents the evaporation of valuable metal alloys.

young frankenstein

This week we started to watch Mel Brooks's young frankenstein. Over 30 years later this film still provides a ton of laughs to audiences.

It's always good to see the late Marty Feldman, whose face was hysterical and perfect for this film. In fact, he, along with the camera-work, really make this film one to enjoy watching. Teri Garr was at her best and never looked as pretty as did in here. Add in the great talents of Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Gene Hackman, Peter Boyle, Cloris Leachman, etc., and you have a memorable movie with a lot of memorable scenes.

Looking at the Frankenstien "monster" in a tuxedo or sitting up in bed with a cigar reading The Wall Street Journal are just a few of the outlandish scenes, along Wilder entering the mansion commenting on the "nice knockers."

Kudos, also, for Mel Brooks having the good sense to film this in black-and- white. It may have been his best film, although "Blazing Saddles" would give it a run for its money. My only complaint was Wilder's constant yelling, which becomes abrasive and can give you a headache after awhile! Still, this has to be considered one of the best "comedy classics" ever.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

This week we have just finishes wathing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by Steph Lady. in this virsion we have We have Victor Frankenstein, who is going to college to study science. He is a very ambitions man, and he wants to study what no school will dare teach: Bringing The Dead, Back To Life! So he meets a man who works at this college, who is curious about the same things that Victor is, but for some reason, he refuses to let Victor take it too far. Then, when this man dies, there is nobody to stop Victor from taking his experiments to the next level!

The 'creature', was played absolutely masterfully by Robert De Niro. Before Frankenstein, the only movies I had seen with him were Analyze This and Analyze That, and those were comedies, so it was difficult to see his skills as a serious actor, but in playing Frankenstein's creation he created a character that is confused, alone, hostile, manipulative and clever: a very conflicted anti-hero. The scene at the end at Victor Frankenstein's funeral left me in shock by the sheer aura he projects - mixed hatred with compassion and confusion. In my opinion, his best moment is when he meets the ship's captain who asks him 'Who are you?' and the creature nods to his dead creator and responds 'He never gave me a name.' If nobody felt the power in that line, then I don't know what to say to them. I think De Niro deserved an Oscar, or at least a nomination for this role.

atomic cafe

The first week of sckool we watched a movie called atomic cafe frome October 29 1982. The film uses unique techniques. It is like a collage that 'sacrifices the conventions of continuity editing and the sense of a very specific location in time and place that follows from it to explore associations and patterns that involve temporal rhythms and spatial juxtaposition' (Nichols, 102). It is all about editing raw material and splicing segments? of military training films, civil defense films, archive footage, interviews, newsreel material, and fifties music. Many sequences are edited to show the most ridiculous side of the duck-and-cover drills and how naive the Americans were at that time. To make it more derisive the film shows how the military training films were so amateurishly acted and misleading, such as the scene about the beauty of the H-bomb. I believe that the filmmakers have made their point in choosing all the footage for the film. Perhaps the intention is to challenge and deprive the intended message of the original footage.

jurassic park

After I finished reading jurassic park on 9/14/08 I was wathching Discovery channal and they were talking about a new discovery.
"Leonardo" was found in Montana almost fully intact. Ninety percent of his body is covered in skin. We know what he ate for his last meal. What makes this so impressive? Leonardo is a 77 million-year-old dinosaur. Discovery Channel reveals what is unquestionably one of the most unexpected and important dinosaur discoveries of all time in the one-hour high-definition special Secrets of the Dinosaur Mummy, premiering Sunday, Sept. 14, at 9 p.m. (ET/PT).