Are Humans In Jeopardy?

Is the era of human supremacy coming to an end?

What to do now that computers can beat us at our own game. That game, of course, is "trivia," the ability to access random information on a variety of subjects, which would seem to be a prototypically human strength. Yet the contest on TV's "Jeopardy" was one of the most foregone conclusions ever presented for our viewing pleasure.

Following months of hype, Watson - IBM's supercomputer - faced off against the same two contestants it had already trounced in a trial run. After all the publicity, watching the event itself was kind of like seeing the Packers and Steelers on videotape a week after the Superbowl. But this latest victory is still a milepost in the history of artificial intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence and Chess

It's a victory that has been predicted since the earliest computers were in their infancy. Alan Turing, whose pioneering work with logic and theory laid the foundations for computer design (and helped to break the German Enigma code in World War II), could see no reason why his electronic offspring should not eventually meet and even surpass the capabilities of those who designed them.

That was quite a stretch of the imagination back when computers were little more than rapid calculating machines. Others at the time (the 1950's) believed there were certain types of thinking in which humans would always excel. Oddly enough, chess was often cited as an example. But as we now know, the game of chess is trivial for computers, given enough memory and processing power.

By the 1980's futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted that a computer would be able to defeat the best human chess master by 1998. He was wrong, because it happened in 1997 when IBM's Deep Blue overcame Russian grand master Gary Kasparov. By this time most of us were not even surprised, because in most cases we ourselves could not defeat a toy sold by Radio Shack.

If humans still had any claim to unique capabilities, it may have been in our ability to rapidly synthesize a solution based on hazy and tenuous relationships between apparently unrelated things. Though typified by parlor games like "Trivial Pursuits," the same mental ability gives us creativity, the capacity to invent, write music and literature, to produce art and original scientific theories.

But now we may have to cede this advantage to the next generation of supercomputer. Recently Kurzweil picked Watson as the favorite in the Jeopardy competition, saying that even if it lost it would soon improve enough to come back and win. At the rate they're going, he is convinced that within a few decades they will exceed the memory capacity and thinking ability not just of a single human, but of all humans combined.

Passing the Turing Test

What's next for artifical intelligence? Maybe all that's left is the so called "Turing Test." Alan Turing proposed setting up a pair of teletype machines, one leading to a computer, the other to a human operator. If someone conducting a conversation by teletype could not tell the difference between them, then the computer would pass the test - meaning that it had demonstrated human intelligence.

That sounded far-fetched at the time, but those working in the field of AI have come to believe the Turing Test is actually too easy. In fact, demonstrations have already been done which were good enough to fool a certain percentage of human subjects. But the methods used were not nearly advanced enough to be considered true thought.

So other tests will no doubt be devised, with computers - or whatever they come to be called - rising to the occasion, and passing over one bar after another. IBM's room full of computers will shrink to the size of a chip, as it has done before. And perhaps one day computers will be the ones proposing the tests, asking us to demonstrate what it means to be "human."

Nano Ethics

Just because it's small doesn't mean we can ignore it ...

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) wants us to get ready for the biggest change to come along since the Industrial Revolution.

If you think that change is already here in the form of computers or the Internet, think again. Those things are so 20th century. CRN (website at crnano.org) is concerned about the impact of "molecular manufacturing" -- the use of nanotechnology to produce not just very small objects, but large scale ones like appliances and even cars.

They foresee a near future in which every home has its own "fab" -- a device between the size of a microwave and a refrigerator that will be able to churn out copies of everything from tableware to cell phones, and at a fraction of the current cost.

Fabs Will Be Fabulous

These machines will even be able to make copies of themselves, so eventually they will be inexpensive as well. And if that sounds fantastic, consider that the first crude generation of such devices is here already in the form of 3D printers that can create complicated physical objects from computer designs. (Check out the many examples at Shapeways.com.)

At first take the whole idea sounds wonderful. But the people at CRN have devoted themselves to seeing the potential dark flip side of this revolution. They pose questions like these:

• What happens to the world economy when virtually all production jobs are suddenly eliminated?
• Will manufactured goods become less valuable than raw materials?
• Will companies that own product designs prosecute those who copy them, the way music companies go after pirates? (Already a problem with 3D printers.)
• What happens when terrorists gain the ability to replicate thousands of copies of a weapon, or to engineer a deadly virus? (Again, happening already.)

These issues and many more are thoughtfully presented in a series of scenarios they have developed, and

which they have published online. They explore the possible time-line for the advent of molecular manufacturing, who the key players might be, and how the many impacts of violent change could play out, both for good and ill.

About CRN

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology is a think tank founded by Mike Treder and Chris Phoenix. Treder is a biologist who also serves as Managing Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Phoenix studied nanotechnology at Stanford University while obtaining a degree in computer science.

Starting as a series of discussions between the two, they built CRN into a "virtual organization" with a substantial board of directors and an active schedule of presentations made to conferences around the world. Their aim is to influence those in responsible positions so they will be able to seize the opportunities of the new technology while avoiding the pitfalls.

One thing they do not question, however, is that the change will come. Once the possibility is there, someone somewhere will bring it into being. Ready or not, it's only a matter of when, and how.

KOBO - Now More Than Ever

It's not too late to support your local independent book seller ...

Of all the reading platforms for ebooks perhaps the one with the most fortuitous name is not Kindle or Nook but Kobo. (Let's omit the unimaginative Sony Reader Store, the goofy Google Play Store, and the total misnomer iTunes.) So until someone starts selling a Koob or Obko reader, Kobo is the only one to call itself by an anagram of what it's all about: THE BOOK.

But I've become a fan of Kobo for more than just the name. It might be my best chance to defend my rights as a reader and to keep my friendly local bookseller in business.

Some history: In the beginning (1971) a fledgling ecosystem came to life. Project Gutenberg began offering free public domain texts after Michael Hart "invented" the idea of an ebook. By 1998 primitive reading devices came into existence, along with several variants of copy protected text formats, and they all began vying for supremacy, each offering their own limited selection of content, each supporting one or more of the available file types, but none of them dominant. They had dim, low resolution LCD screens, and were less fun to read on than your laptop -- which at the time weighed 6 pounds and heated up your legs like a toaster oven.

The first big breakthrough came with ePaper display technology. This replaced LCD screens with something much more clear, rendering black on off-white text at nearly the resolution of laser printers. Better still, these new screens drew battery power only when the page was turned, resulting in times between charges measured in weeks instead of hours. Now we're getting somewhere!

At this point Amazon exploded over the landscape like a nuclear bomb. Sony and other lesser known vendors came to market with ePaper more or less simultaneously, but Sony is now marginalized and the others are long gone because only Amazon recognized the key ingredient -- it's not the device, it's the ecosystem. Using its might as ubiquitous retailer and its ability to sell devices at or below cost, it was able to foist its own proprietary format on vast numbers of consumers who didn't care how much they were being locked in to a single vendor as long as they could get whatever they wanted from Amazon, instantly.

They key word there was instantly -- and wirelessly. It was Amazon's genius to "give away" cellular data plans with each Kindle so that you could buy your books at the beach instead of taking them with you, reducing the delivery time to zero. Can you spell "impulse buy?"

I confess it took time for this idea to grab me. My own first reading device (2008) was a Sony and it didn't even have Wi-Fi. (I didn't have it in my own home yet either.) No problem. Just download books to my PC, then plug in the USB cable and copy them over. A chore of few minutes followed by weeks of happy reading. It was much later before I experienced the instant gratification of hear-about-it / download it / read it.

I'm not sorry about the delay however. I instinctively shied away from the hermetically sealed world of Amazon with its books that can be read by nothing else. Faced with this juggernaut of competition, most other vendors had rushed to support the ePub standard and Adobe's digital rights management, in principle allowing you to buy content from whoever you wanted and read it any way you wanted. Most other reading devices will also view PDFs and plain text files, but if you want to read those on your Kindle you have to send them to Amazon first to be automatically converted to Amazon's proprietary format. This really rubs me the wrong way. I need permission to read a draft of my own novel? Not only that, they have the gall to charge you 15 cents per megabyte for the privilege.

So I trudged along with my Sony, taking advantage of the wealth of free digital books available from Project Gutenberg and Feedbooks, while still buying most of my new books in paper form. But that fledgling ecosystem was not standing still. Meanwhile the iPhone and iPad happened, then Android phones and tablets. Prices plunged and features exploded. My Sony with all its limitations cost over $300. Suddenly for a hundred bucks less you could get a general purpose tablet with full color display, sound, video, wifi, email, web browser, etc etc etc. And the miracle workers who first brought this to market was not Amazon but ... Barnes and Noble.

The venerable bricks-and-mortar bookstore had jumped on the bandwagon late, but in time to make a splash. The Nook was the first real budget priced Android tablet, subsidized and only slightly limited by having a restricted version of the App Market (now the Play Store) to prevent people from, for example, installing Kindle software and downloading books from Amazon. That's fair, right? Just try installing Nook software on a Kindle.

B&N did a lot of things right. Their hardware came out before the color version of the Kindle, and new models competed well on features as Amazon took a turn playing catchup. B&N followed up with the first back-lit ePaper device. The predictable price war ensued, benefiting the customers of both. But now it's beginning to look like the party could be over.

Faced with slumping sales in spite of its arguably superior product, B&N first began to whimper about getting out of the hardware business, then appeared to play a trump card by releasing a software upgrade that removed all restrictions on their Android tablet. Match that, Amazon!

Why would they do such a thing? Well, for the same reason I bought my Android tablet elsewhere. Namely, Google had got into the market, offering full featured tablets with no software restrictions for not much more than Amazon and B&N were charging for their locked up ones. Given the choice, why would you choose the ones that were needlessly crippled? On a Nexus you can install apps from both of the "other" booksellers and buy from whoever you want -- in addition to Google.

For awhile I was buying books from B&N on my tablet, if only to root for the underdog. But now B&N appears to be considering selling off its entire digital content division. I don't know what they're thinking. Dumping the up and coming thing to devote themselves to selling paper books and magazines? Haven't they learned anything from the experiment? Worst of all, the potential buyer may turn out to be Microsoft, which could mean the death knell for both parts of the company.

Which brings us to Kobo. Remember them? As I reported after hearing their presentation at the Miami Book Fair, Kobo was once going to be the salvation of Borders Books. The partnership was their answer to the Kindle and Nook, and it was Kobo's answer to having a brick-and-mortar anchor in the world. Kobo had great hardware at competitive prices, a commitment to open standards, and their own online book infrastructure. When Borders went under and Kobo became an orphan I was worried about them but maybe I shouldn't have been. They were orphans before the partnership, so they had little to lose while Borders needed them like a life raft.

So Kobo is still around, with newer and prettier devices. They were acquired by Rakuten, said to be "the Amazon of Japan," and have made another savvy move. They replaced Borders with a network of independent booksellers. With a bold stroke, one underdog hooked up with another. Now you can have the best of both worlds, acquiring ebooks while giving your support to your favorite local bookstore. You can create a Kobo account and install their reading app on your tablet or PC even if you don't have a Kobo device. Just be sure to register through your bookstore's website so your account will link to them.

Better do it quick. Today, no Borders. Tomorrow, perhaps no Barnes and Noble? What about the day after that? It's not that I hate Amazon. I buy from them too. I even have a wish list. I just don't ever want them to be the only place I can go.