The development of technology~
 

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/turing_test.png
(borrowed from http://www.xkcd.com)


Man, they have a comic for everything. (In case you don't know, by the way, the Turing Test is a proposed scenario in which one person talks to two others in something like an irc channel - only one of them is a computer. If the human judge is unable to tell the human participant from the computer, then the computer is said to have passed the test.)

Anyway, I was recently thinking about the development of technology, because I stumbled across a cute little chatbot named DAISY. What DAISY does is "learn" as you speak to her... she doesn't require preprogrammed responses in order to communicate. Instead, she takes what you say to her and dissects it in order to figure out language.

I thought it was pretty cool, and figured I'd share it. It's a good timekiller, and she can say some pretty insightful stuff ("people don't want to die, do they?")... and some pretty weird stuff too ("everyone lives in italy").

So~ just wondering how far you guys think artificial intelligence can go. I mean, a lot of our predictions in the past have been WAY off (The Jetsons, anyone?), but a lot of crazy sci-fi stuff is actually being realised (I heard they've got "smart tattoos" in the works). So... how much faith do you have in developing technology? What do you think the world's gonna be like in fifty years? What's gonna be obsolete by then, and what do you think is gonna have the biggest impact?

Better yet, what do you hope gets invented? xD I'm looking forward to Gundams. :o

Man, they totally do have one for everything. I just saw today's, which is about "Your Mom" jokes. The Internet Communities map is totally awesome, too. I have a print of it that I really want to have framed.

What I wanna know is, where the heck is my flying car? I want my flying car! I want to take off, set the car to auto, and snooze or luxuriously enjoy breakfast whilst my vehicle quietly zooms me through the air on some sort of mid-sky airway.

Heck, at this point I'd settle for autopilot on the roads.

wow that is very intersting =O

it takes some serious AI to be able to do that, programing can be uber crazy at times @[email protected]

My big project that I'm in college to work on is prosthetic human bodies, like in Ghost in the Shell. The concept is VERY simple...and I've been trying to work out how to make it actually possible. It's really just a fancy self-contained life support system for the brain...the hard part is figuring out how to make said life support system small enough to fit in a semi-normal looking human body, when the artificial body must also be able to move and function as a natural body.

Yes, I HAVE thought a lot on this. ^^;

It really amazes me what science can do. I read once that very recently, a group of scientists actually managed to turn lead into gold. It was VERY unstable, and kinda fell apart in a matter of seconds...but I couldn't help but laugh a little, just because...it was too awesome. I have always had a bit of a fascination with alchemy; seeing that one of the major goals of alchemists had finally become a reality? I literally SQUEALED like a schoolgirl.

That one was another that was VERY simple in theory...took a LONG time to happen, though, because people went about it the wrong way.

I really wonder if there's an AI out there that can figure out the liar paradox yet?

See, whoa~ there's some crazy stuff going on in the world, huh? That cell manipulation things sounds really cool.

And, actually... there's a video I saw of a computer you control with your mind. It was pretty bitchin'.

They have that technology in prosthetic limbs now, too. A guy who lost his arm can use grasping motions (opening and closing a fist) with his prosthetic arm just by thinking about it. He's like a cyborg.