Post by Emperor AAdmin on Jul 7, 2008 12:22:14 GMT -5
As I am going through various pieces of information it is becoming more and more evident that artificial intelligence is advancing at great speeds and approaching a point where they might be semi-autonomous in terms that they can think for themselves (fully would be the moment they can reproduce themselves and be self-dependent). Fast forward this technology for several 1000s of years and one can visualize more advanced forms created out of organic matter which are fully autonomous. Everything contained within them is a form of a instilled program as second link bellow might suggest.
Simply put how far fetched is the idea that all life forms (or at least more advanced versions) are form of some organic program that went into effect in distant past and was afterworlds left to their own devices (unless it is still monitored by its (technologically super advanced) creator(s))?
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Superimpose bellow story by 1000s of years and do you get us?
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Supergenes = mini-programs?
Simply put how far fetched is the idea that all life forms (or at least more advanced versions) are form of some organic program that went into effect in distant past and was afterworlds left to their own devices (unless it is still monitored by its (technologically super advanced) creator(s))?
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Superimpose bellow story by 1000s of years and do you get us?
Future space robots may think for themselves
msnbc.msn.com — Scientists envision 'bots working intelligently while exploring distant worlds.More… (General Sciences)
Future space robots may think for themselves
Scientists envision 'bots working intelligently while exploring distant worlds
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Pixar / Disney
EVE, otherwise known as the Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, represents an intelligent probe sent to an abandoned Earth in the film "WALL-E."
By Jeremy Hsu
updated 2:13 p.m. ET, Sat., July. 5, 2008
A spaceship descends with a thunderous roar and deposits a futuristic probe before taking off again. The Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator (EVE) soon activates and begins flying around, scanning the barren surface for signs of life.
Scientists today can only dream of having a robotic explorer like EVE from the Disney/Pixar film "WALL-E." But some researchers are working on autonomous spacecraft, airships and rovers that can cooperate intelligently while exploring distant worlds.
"The orbiter gives you global perspective, the aerial platform a more regional perspective, and that helps determine where to deploy ground assets in a targeted fashion," said Wolfgang Fink, a physicist at Caltech in Pasadena, California.
Fink's vision of "tier-scalable reconnaissance" starts with an orbiting spacecraft to make a global survey for interesting scientific targets, before deciding on its own where to deploy an airship such as a dirigible. The airship could look even closer at a region to find the best landing site, and finally drop a rover or some other surface explorer. That surface explorer could then move quickly to the target area.
A demonstration of how such a surface explorer might deploy will take place in the Mars Science Laboratory mission, slated for a 2009 launch. NASA's Sky Crane carrier will hover above the surface of Mars on retrorockets while lowering an SUV-sized rover using a winch and tether.
Wolfgang Fink / California Institute of Technology
An airship hovers above busy rovers and coordinates with orbiter spacecraft in this illustration of "tier-scalable reconnaissance."
Some Mars missions have already demonstrated the advantage of coordinating orbiters with surface explorers. Scientists used data from three Mars orbiters to determine the landing site for NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, and also turned orbiter cameras on the lander as it descended to the surface. Of the three orbiters, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has even helped NASA's separate Spirit and Opportunity Rovers navigate around obstacles on the Martian surface.
However, Fink and his collaborators want to take humans out of the loop and develop robots which can decide independently when and where to go. That becomes crucial for future missions to distant places such as the moons of Saturn or Jupiter, where a command signal from Earth can take over an hour to reach robotic explorers.
The key rests with software algorithms that help robots make command decisions on their own. Fink's group has begun testing such algorithms by using three small rovers and a camera that looks down on a simulated indoor landscape. The camera identifies both targets and obstacles, which allows the rovers to deploy and drive around obstacles to reach their targets — all without human intervention.
"Integration is the biggest challenge," Fink noted. "At Caltech, we are now at the point where we're implementing a test-bed outdoors to develop the software to demonstrate this in action."
The outdoors test would involve a miniature airship taking the place of the camera. Researchers from around the world would be able to give commands to the airship via Internet and watch it move and deploy the rovers on its own.
The field tests may pave the way for using similar command software on the proposed NASA and European mission to Titan or Europa. Fink and other researchers involved with the planning have begun discussing how such a mission might shape up by the 2017 launch date.
"A Titan mission would have the orbiter deploying a balloon, and we're already thinking about having a lander," Fink explained. "There you have a three-tier mission."
The tiered approach may eventually take the form of a robot that "does its own reconnaissance, goes out and looks for anomalies, finds something interesting and makes contact with the sender," Fink said, pointing to the Imperial probe from "The Empire Strikes Back" which lands on the ice planet Hoth.
Perhaps best of all, intelligent robots could react quickly to surprises and investigate anomalies — such as a geyser on Saturn's moon Enceladus, or a landslide on Mars.
"Curiosity in itself is not present in any of our machine systems," Fink said, remarking upon WALL-E's childlike tendencies which appear to distract EVE but eventually help her mission. "That curiosity drives action."
www.msnbc.msn.com/
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Supergenes = mini-programs?
Scientists Identify Genes to Turn People into Supergeniuses
io9.com — Published this weekend in PLoS Genetics, the study is extraordinary not just because of its futuristic implications, but because of the cool new super-rapid system the researchers used to identify which genes are active during brain development.More… (General Sciences)
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Brains, mad science, neuroscience, plos
Scientists Identify Genes that Could Turn Ordinary People into Supergeniuses (or Mindless Drones)
It's clear that there's a specific set of genes responsible for brain development when you're in the womb, and that those genes affect your ability to learn later on. But now a group of researchers in the U.S. and Canada have identified those genes. And their discovery could represent the first step in tweaking brain development. It's possible that that knocking out some of those genes or adding extra copies of them to a developing baby could result in the tailor-made human minds of Brave New World: Some will be born to develop cutting-edge technologies, and others to be slow-witted and compliant.
Published this weekend in PLoS Genetics, the study is extraordinary not just because of its futuristic implications, but because of the cool new super-rapid system the researchers used to identify which genes are active during brain development. The technique is called RNA interference, or RNAi:
Dr. Katharine Sepp and her fellow researchers took fresh neuronal cells extracted from embryos of the fruit fly genus Drosophila and screened them using RNA interference techniques. The team tested all genes, one by one in a rapid manner, for their potential role in neuronal development. The team then validated the method in mice.
A combination of live-cell imaging and quantitative analysis allowed Sepp et al to characterize neurons’ morphological phenotypes in response to RNAi-mediated gene knockdown. The researchers focused on 104 evolutionary conserved genes that, when downregulated by RNAi, have morphological defects. The team developed algorithms to help streamline the analysis of the thousands of images created in the process.
The analysis revealed unexpected, essential roles in neurite outgrowth for genes representing a wide range of functional categories including signalling molecules, enzymes, channels, receptors, and cytoskeletal proteins. Results also determined that genes known to be involved in protein and vesicle trafficking show similar RNAi phenotypes.
The researchers believe that this study provides an effective method for future studies of a large variety of genes, including those with important functions in the nervous system.
This research will open up new ways to tinker with brain development, but right now the genes have only been identified in flies and mice. Humans share a lot of genes with both creatures. Still, don't expect to order your supergenius baby next week. Or your army of slave drones.
Identification of Neural Outgrowth Genes Using Genome-Wide RNAi [PLoS Genetics]
io9.com/