back to article 2016: The Rise of the Intelligent (cloud) Machines

Blame Mark Zuckerberg. Not for the election of Donald Trump as US president, but for Artificial Intelligence becoming the trend du jour in enterprise tech circles in 2016. Back in those now forgotten days of January, before The Great Inversion of 2016, Zuckerberg was surely kicking his heels when he set himself that “personal …

  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Windows

    Pretty good writeup

    It's are we there yet with more cloud and more brute-force and better tools and larger screens and more statistics and seriously large data corpora!

    1. Chris G

      Re: Pretty good writeup

      Yep! Good write up, the first part underlined pretty much what I have been thinking. At the moment everyone is still looking at the ground and maybe laying some concrete for the foundations of AI/ML but as for anyone actually having either, well, that is still a fair way off.

      Inspite of the biggies having a get together I think only one of them, or someone else entirely will make the big breakthrough and then we will begin to see where AI is likely to take us or if it will decide to leave us behind after ROTM.

  2. W Donelson

    A.I. could free humanity...

    A.I. could free humanity...

    ... but when the super-rich and corporations OWN all the A.I. and robots (already), and replace almost all jobs (more and more), what will you do?

    The rich are NOT going to feed and care for you....

    Bet on it.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: A.I. could free humanity...

      So what happens when the desperate start massing outside the gates? And before you say bring out the Terminators, consider hackers may be in the crowd.

    2. AlgernonFlowers4
      Mushroom

      Re: A.I. could free humanity...

      Blessed are the cheesemakers for they shall inherit the earth after the rich all die from over exerting themselves with their sex robots (Sexbots could ‘over-exert’ their human lovers, academic warns)!

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: A.I. could free humanity...

        Sexbots, you say?

        From "A Perfect Vaccum", by Stanislaw Lem:

        The dark underground, whose walls become lit by the beam of the flashlight, turns out to be something between a museum and a part of an exposition (or, more appropriately, sexposition) for a powerful concern, evidence of those memorable years when America conquered Europe once again. Half manual manufacturing of Europeans clashed with an unstoppable pace of conveyor production, and the post-industrial scientific-technological colossus quickly won over. Three corporations were left on the battlefield: "General Sexotics", "Cybordelics" and "Love Incorporated". When the volume of production of these giants reached its peak sex, out of private entertainment or group exercise, hobby or amateur collectioning, grew into the philosophy of civilization. McLuen, who lived to that time still a stout old man, proved in his "Genitocracy" that it was the destiny of mankind once it stepped on the road of technological progress. That ancient rowers, chained to the galleys, loggers of the North with their woodsaws, Stephenson's steam engine with its cylinders and pistons defined the rhythm, type and meaning of the motions that defined copulation as the main event of human existence. After adopting the complications of sexual positions of the East faceless business changed the medieval shackles into unchastity belts, occupied artists and designers with creation of copulators, megapenises, vaginettes, sexariums and pornomats, started the sterile conveyors that continuously produced sadomobiles, lovistors, home sodomizators and public homorobots, and founded research institutions that started a struggle for emancipation of both sexes from the duty of procreation.

    3. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: A.I. could free humanity... @W Donelson

      If you really do believe that, W Donelson, you really have no clue about A.I. and what IT can do and is doing.

      Be in no doubt though, the super-rich and corporations have valid enough fears about the changes that are being AI wrought, even as you read these words. But such is as a result of their own making and constant taking.

      You can bet on it, ....... and betting on IT and AI in the form of stock and bond market shenanigans, is one way in which you can remotely participate and experience the mad rushes in business clashes and flash crashes for it can be as a mirror and systems driver to the collateral damage of attacks on Advanced IntelAIgent Machines.

      And it is one of strange quirks and ironies of life with IntelAIgent Machines in Live Operational Virtual Environments, ...... the more you mess with and try to prevent future changes with cynical anonymised command and crooked remote control, the more exposed and weakened and identified are that and those responsible and accountable for such a manifest abortion.

      And the executions in systems which tinker and tamper/fiddle about with Virtual Machines, are certainly not pleasant and painless viewing spectacles for the faint hearted and lily livered. Sweet common justice is brutally efficient in abusive cases.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: A.I. could free humanity... @W Donelson

        "And it is one of strange quirks and ironies of life with IntelAIgent Machines in Live Operational Virtual Environments, ...... the more you mess with and try to prevent future changes with cynical anonymised command and crooked remote control, the more exposed and weakened and identified are that and those responsible and accountable for such a manifest abortion."

        So, if you're afraid of the future, other people will know?

        1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

          A Simple Misinterpretation Corrected ......

          So, if you're afraid of the future, other people will know? ... Big John

          Oh no, Big John, it is much more the case of if you are personally and/or corporately responsible for cynically creating fear in the future and/or fear of the future, will other people know of your wanton work. Such then allows streaming of facilitation of swift and anonymous and autonomous corrective activity/reaction/proaction/HyperRadioProActive IT Countermeasures. The CyberIntelAIgent Messaging Machine virtually protecting itself from the possibility, and therefore very real probability of attempts at breaching security defences and attacking systems and administrations with dumb human abuse and misuse.

          And such actions may also include far-reaching and crippling SWIFT activity in accounts held close and dear to the cold heart, and most likely quite probably the root human abuse and misuse cause of the problem right at the heart of all that matters to them. Pathetic indeed, yes, but such be the nature of ignorant and arrogant beasts.

          My apologies for the former text ambiguity, Big John.

      2. David Paul Morgan
        Terminator

        Re: A.I. could free humanity... @W Donelson

        upvote for the acronym I.AM.IN.LOVE

        IntelAIgent Machines in Live Operational Virtual Environments,

        :-)

    4. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
      Terminator

      Re: A.I. could free humanity...

      A.I. could free humanity to reach maximum stupidity faster.

      What people forget is that AI does not mean flawless.

    5. macjules

      Re: A.I. could free humanity...

      The 'A.I' that they would let us mere mortals gain access to would certainly be a very much watered-down version. If we are lucky then we would get something that allows us to Siri-style voice control simple devices such as IoT toasters or central heating, all while making noises about how cool it all is.

  3. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    So, what's going to be the West Coast Techno Trend in 2017?

    Digital entertainment centers for fallout shelters?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      s/fallout/untrumpable/g

      J.G. Ballard! We are here!!

    2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      don't forget to add....

      The Half Dozen Teslas in the garage plus the multiple Powerwalls so that when the brownouts happen you can carry on lighting up your home like a Christmas Tree.

      Nothing like keeping ahead of the neighbours eh?

      Oh, and a sign on the Remote controlled Electric Gates of your community

      "Trump Supporters not admitted". {I did see one in CA in September. If it is still there they need to change it?}

      For those inside the enclave, the world had not changed in 2016.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: don't forget to add....

        > "Trump Supporters not admitted"

        Progressive gated communities are the worst. It's like entering Jesus Camp, only without Jesus as moral guide, instead it's replaced by self-adoration.

  4. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Secret Advanced Services .... with Substance Accompanying Style

    2016: The Rise of the Intelligent (cloud) Machines ….. It was therefore a telling sign of the arrival of AI and ML in that these rivals should make take that most traditional of industry steps and form an alliance - The Partnership on AI to Benefit People and Society with IBM, DeepMind and Facebook. The Partnership will conduct and publish research on AI and develop best practices.

    Much will depend how the cloud providers serve their rulers, the king-makers, in 2017.®

    Serve their rulers, the king-makers, in 2017??? …. Oh please, you cannot be serious? Has the past year and the decades not taught you anything yet, or is it that you continually fail to learn for yourself all that you need for the future to supply for you ITs Bounteous Feeds and Immaculate Seeds.?!

    Hmmm ….. 2017: The Rise of SMARTR Advanced IntelAgent Messaging for the Making and ReMastering of Right Royal Dynasties …… Putting Prime Future Histories Front and Foremost into Media Programming with

    Heads Together and Hearts and Minds Playing Out Fabulous Fabless Scripts ….. Superlative CodeXSSXXXX?

    And there y’all were, not thinking at all about what Palaces do with their free time and scantily clad resources/practically invisible sources. ………

    amanfromMars [1612260959] ….. spreading the word on http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2017/January/Pages/DefendingNetworksEmergesAsTopBattlefieldPriority.aspx

    Wars and conflicts are not won with battles nowadays, they are ended with the presentation of elite executive administration of peace with an endless supply of engaging prosperity, and that is as a result of the provision of an Advanced Intelligence with Novel Proprietary Intellectual Property for sale/lease lend.

    [Your comment has been submitted

    Please allow up 24-48 hours for the comment to be approved before you will see it on the site]

    You know it makes sense, even if you are not able to make sense of what is already done and being done, and what else will always still need to be done to be unbelievably successful and virtually omnipotent with a practical omniscience.

    They and that which dare care share not, loses everything on those battlefields of conflicts. I Kid U Not :-)

  5. Frank N. Stein

    There won't be any AI revolt any time soon. Software is still sloppily written, quality control is releasing beta software and letting customers find the bugs for free. Before even approaching AI, how about improvements in software that actually DO something USEFUL that WE need?

    1. ArrZarr Silver badge

      Sloppy coding could also cause the AI revolution by letting robots hit bugs which let them run free of the three/four laws or leave them open to hackers or even something similar to the Geth/Heretics from Mass Effect.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Nobody is talking about AI takeover except marketing and luminairies either disconnected from base reality or/and trying to get into the news (for once not on a subject related to Middle East "policy").

        This is all about "Machine Learning", i.e. statistics, compressing data sets, feature extraction etc. etc.

        Now excuse me, I will have to take a course on "R"... and communicate via astral projection with by amanfrommars

        > run free of the three/four laws

        There will never be any laws like that, in the same vein as there will never be any algorithms resolving EXPTIME problems in polynomial time.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Frankly, these laws seem to from an age where LOGIC! (but which one? certainly not classical, first order logic which is dog shit for real world thinking) was meant to be an appropriate basis for AI and some juvenile SPACE ADVENTURE writing.

          Already in '88, we had this: Christopher Cherniak, Undebuggability and cognitive science

          Nowadays we also have this: Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity

        2. Charles 9

          "There will never be any laws like that, in the same vein as there will never be any algorithms resolving EXPTIME problems in polynomial time."

          Thing is, we still don't conclusively know whether or not things like prime factorization are in P, so there's still wiggle room.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            ...but fast prime factorization is not a prerequisite of intelligence.

            1. Charles 9

              But if we don't know if something like this is truly feasible or, what does that say about a whole slew of other problems, including the fabled NP-Complete problems?

  6. ricardian

    Things have changed since this prediction in 1967

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/tomorrowsworld/8005.shtml

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