Hover Cars now?

[Cyruz]

1.) The technology to build a flying car has been around for awhile...you can have one built for a few million dollars...you just can't use it because of the Oil Industry's Monopoly over even the Government's Vehicular Laws, making the use of a non-fuelled vehicle illegal.

2.) Humans are incapabale of making something more intelligent then themselves, as they couldn't comprehend the construction of it...more knowledgeable maybe, but intelligence greater than the creator is impossible.

3.) Most countries have their weapons divisions connected through a VERY secure network, that uses a more advanced encryption method than RSA because it's too easy to crack...RSA has never been cracked in the decades of it's existence, no computer is fast enough to do that without the key code...it would take years.

[Dingy]

2.) Humans are incapabale of making something more intelligent then themselves, as they couldn't comprehend the construction of it...more knowledgeable maybe, but intelligence greater than the creator is impossible.

I beg to differ. Everything created evolves--even intelligence. I'm not saying that humans sit and make a blueprint of something more intelligent than themselves. All I'm saying is that even if you create something with equal intelligence it has the capacity and the right to evolutionary growth...and thus will follow the logic of evolution.

Also I found this article on msn...give it a read, it's has some relevance--

Supercomputers should be ultimately judged based on the good they do for humanity and not just for bragging about their speed.

Supercomputers are not what people like you and me are expected to use, but they are generating quite a bit of steam these days. The Supercomputing 2004 conference is running from November 6th to 12th in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the official update of the Top500 supercomputer list will be done on 8th November. Naturally, every supercomputer manufacturer is trying to ensure that his machine gets to the top of the heap and becomes king of the hill.

For a while, NEC�s Earth Simulator was the fastest machine in the world. Then, on September 29th, IBM�s Blue Gene/L stole the crown by maxing out at 36 teraflops (one teraflop represents a million, million floating-point operations). Not to be outdone, NEC came out with the SX8 on October 21st, and this could run at twice the speed, though this was not confirmed by tests.

But the latest-and this could have changed before this story is uploaded-is NASA�s Columbia, a supercomputer named in memory of the tragic space shuttle which blew up in February 2003. This computer runs at 42.7 teraflops, and is the fastest so far. But it is questionable if it will win, because if NEC manages to prove that its SX8 really runs twice as fast as IBM�s Blue Gene/L, then it will win the bragging rights. Of course, IBM could be tweaking up its own machine to deliver every ounce of performance and emerge on top. Or, some unknown manufacturer is probably smacking his lips and briskly rubbing his hands because he has a

supercomputer that probably runs faster than any of the ones mentioned above.

In this speed craze, the sole voice of reason seems to be that of Hamid Arabnia, editor of the Journal of Supercomputing and a computer scientist at the University of Georgia. Hamid rightfully points out that speed alone is not the criteria-the supercomputer also needs to be cost effective.

While I fully agree with Hamid, I think that one should look at supercomputers from an entirely different perspective-their contribution to humanity. After all, these speed demons are created to handle weighty issues like modelling weather conditions, and finding a cure for AIDS and cancer. Stuff like that.

Humanity has always recognized the need to reward the more brilliant among their peers with awards that show that their contributions are well received. But, there are different ways of recognizing and rewarding genius. Unfortunately, the supercomputing fraternity seems to have taken the Olympics 100 meters dash methodology, which says that the supercomputer with the fastest teraflops wins. While this is one way of looking at things, it is purely technical, and doesn�t show the supercomputer�s victory in true light.

We need to adopt a methodology similar to that used by the Nobel Prize Committees. Let us not just reward a supercomputer for being fast. Instead, let us look at the supercomputer and see what it has achieved for humanity. Has it helped decode the DNA of some complex organism? Has it bought us closer in our seemingly never-ending quest to cure diseases like AIDS and cancer? Has it enabled a better prediction of weather, and can it help us analyse global warming from a new perspective? If such a methodology is adopted, one could find that a 5-year-old supercomputer, operating at a paltry 15 teraflops, has perhaps helped mankind far more than a 2-year-old supercomputer that runs at 25 teraflops.

While supercomputers today are doing a decent job, highlighting such issues will help turn the minds of designers away from mere speed numbers and towards something concrete. Today, somebody creating a new supercomputer will probably be interested solely in breaking the 50 teraflops or the 100 teraflops landmark. If better recognition is there for ground-breaking supercomputers, then designers could think more in terms of creating a supercomputer that can track weather accurately over a period of the next three months. Approaching the issue from this angle could be more beneficial for both the designers of these supercomputers, their users, and their ultimate benefactors-humanity.

All said and done, we should never forget that humanity has built supercomputers not merely so that they can run fast, but also to ensure that they solve some of our problems for us. Let us judge them from the point of view of their true core competence.

[Ryu]

And there you have it.

[Schutzstaffel]

2.) Humans are incapabale of making something more intelligent then themselves, as they couldn't comprehend the construction of it...more knowledgeable maybe, but intelligence greater than the creator is impossible.

Quoted for emphasis.

[Dingy]

Agreed that it has to be proven that intelligence has any survival value however to say that an intelligent being is incapable of creation of superior intelligence would be narrow-minded.

[Schutzstaffel]

You may now proceed in calling me narrow-minded.

[Dingy]

I don't think you're narrow-minded, I just think that you didn't understand my position, and even if you did, you simply chose to ignore it in favour of your own opinions

[Schutzstaffel]

I ignore it further because it simply doesn't make sense.. I cannot see any person creating technology that is "more intelligent" than its creator.
We ourselves do not fully understand Human intelligence- thus creating something beyond our comprehension does not seem possible.
The things computers can do now are solve problems that we're too lazy to solve.. that does not make them more intelligent than us.

[Dingy]

No it doesn't make them more intelligent than us...however, intelligence is defined as 'The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge', thereby meaning that even a computer, which is our very own creationis capable of both acquiring and applying knowledge. It might not be superior that ours, all I'm saying is that it has the ability to evolve and thus in a situation (incomprehensible by many) it may become superior to our very own intelligence.

[Schutzstaffel]

I see.. But the question that keeps asking itself over and over and over again in my very mind seems to be: How can a computer evolve to become more intelligent than a human in a certain situation?

[Ryu]

Ok, People make computers to do stuff faster and better than we can do it our selfs "This would be called a tool" yes.

But at the same time who is to say that we would not make something that will make a choise better and faster than we would, and to make a choise would be to calculate the odds and come up with an answer this would be AI.

People program Viruses to be smarter than the people trying to get rid of it, a Virus that can do what it has to to stay alive and to effect as many system componants as possible.

So are you going to tell me that we can't/wont be able to make machines that are smarter than us?

[Dingy]

I see.. But the question that keeps asking itself over and over and over again in my very mind seems to be: How can a computer evolve to become more intelligent than a human in a certain situation?

The said situation at present does not exist. However I am open to the possibility of it's existence in the future. As stated earlier I am quite technology impaired, so I cannot really explain artificial intelligence, however I do understand the whys of it, in my own little laymanish way.
What I am saying is that technology however it maybe can reach a stage where it can control its own level of intelligence, i.e., conforming to the aforementioned definition of 'intelligence', it can control the acquisition and application of knowledge.

[Ryu]

http://alice.pandorabots.com/
And oliverbot is nice work, I know this is not true AI, but it is well done anyway.

[Dingy]

OMG! That woman or whatever it was phreaked me out so bad!

[Ryu]

Like I said it's not the AI that we are talking about, but it IS AI!