George Rebane

Forbes.com has an excellent extended survey of the current state and portents of AI and robotics.  ‘The AI Report’ is comprised of 24 short articles for the intelligent non-technical reader.  They range from descriptions of how machine or artificial intelligence is currently being developed and embodied, to how AI and robots are being used in corporate and institutional environments.  Various authors conjecture on our progress to the Singularity; all agree that there will be an eventual intimate melding of man and machine.  And this has already started.

RR readers new to these pages will gain a better understanding of my own extension of these technology advances to current and near-term socio-political themes.  The bottom line is very simple – if I don’t understand the advances in machine intelligence and robotics, then I will neither comprehend nor be able to interpret the tsunamis that are reshaping today’s social issues such as healthcare, unemployment, education, security, finance, entertainment, and technology abetted tyranny.  In that state of ignorance I will have these issues framed only by a politician’s blather.  If I can’t grasp what a wheel is, I will have a hard time talking about cars.  It is that fundamental.

We deserve only the future that we are able and willing to shape.