The Future: Archive

(back to The Future)

"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." - Yogi Berra "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." - Alan Kay We receive so many inquiries asking about the future of AI that we decided to offer a sample of relevant articles from our AI in the news collection and elsewhere.       Recent articles can be found on The Future home page.

December 29, 2005: Living forever. Commentary by Arnaud De Borchgrav, UPI editor at large. United Press International. "Praised as the Thomas Edison of the 21st century, Ray Kurzweil was selected as one of '16 revolutionaries who made America,' along with the great inventors of the past two centuries. ... Kurzweil, now 57, published what is arguably the most blogged-about book of 2005, a 640-page blockbuster: 'The Singularity Is Near,' a road map to 'a unique event with singular implications,' or some form of immortality for those younger than 50 today. Kurzweil's latest futuristic tome is the sequel to his last bestseller, 'The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence,' which posited that the ever-accelerating rate of technological change would lead to computers that would rival the full range of human intelligence. He now takes his readers to the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: the fusion of human brain and machine. Thus, 'the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains will merge with the vastly greater capacity, speed and knowledge-sharing ability of our own creations.' ... Bill Gates praises futurist Kurzweil and his 'Singularity' as "the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence." He has a 20-year track record of accurate predictions. Bill Joy, co-founder and former chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, is filled with foreboding about the perils of humanity's technological future. But Joy still concedes 'The Singularity Is Near' is "a clear call for a continuing dialogue to address the greater concerns arising from these accelerating possibilities. ... The computational capacity needed to emulate human intelligence, [Kurzweil] says, 'will be available in less than two decades.' Once a computer achieves a human level of intelligence, 'it will necessarily soar past it.' A key advantage of 'nonbiological intelligence is that machines can easily share their knowledge.'"

December 18, 2005: No driver? No problem for unique 'smart' car. By Kevin Coughlin Newhouse News Service / available from The Times-Picayune. "By 2030 or so, [Sebastian Thrun, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory] said, everyone will be chauffeured around by autonomous cars. Or at least, everyone should be. Thrun contends self-guided vehicles will be safer than today's cars. No more dozing off behind the wheel. No more drunken driving. Commuting time will be more productive. The elderly will prolong their social lives. Real estate will be used more efficiently -- fewer parking lots -- when cars drop off and fetch their owners. ... Thrun said Stanford hopes to road-test a driverless model on the second anniversary of the Grand Challenge victory with a 400-mile drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles. A German professor named Ernst Dickmanns experimented nearly 20 years ago with autonomous vehicles on highways. But Thrun said Stanley had to be smarter to navigate the rough-and-tumble desert."

December 1, 2005: The future that never was. Seven products that could have changed the industry but didn't . By Geoffrey James. Electronic Business. "There have been many key points in the development of electronics at which a different product, had it proven successful, would have accelerated the development of follow-on technologies and changed the direction of the industry. On the heels of our 30th-anniversary issue (November 2005), we thought it would be interesting to look at seven products that flopped in the market but had a massive potential to influence almost every sector of the electronics industry. ... The Beckman analog computer ... The AT&T PicturePhone ... Bushnell's Computer Space game ... The Heathkit Hero robot ... The Xerox Alto Workstation ... The Connection Machine ... The Alpha chip."

December 2005: Headlines for the next 50 years - Ever wonder what it would be like to get tomorrow's newspaper today? Plastics Technology. "After reviewing the most important technical developments of the past 50 years in our October issue, we asked industry experts to help us imagine the biggest headlines in plastics from now to 2055. What we got was a mixture of predictions of what will happen and a wish list of what should happen. ... 'A.I.' Comes to Automation - Artificial intelligence (A.I.) may be the next major advance in plastics molding automation, says Michael Wittmann, general manager at the world headquarters of Wittmann, Vienna, Austria. An A.I. robot would have continuous self-diagnostics to monitor all of its mechanical components and lubrication in order to schedule its own maintenance. One day, A.I. might even allow a robot to download machine, mold, and part data and then program its movements and speeds for the job."

November 15, 2005: Unto us the Machine is born. By Kevin Kelly. The Sydney Morning Herald [originally published in Wired]. "The web continues to evolve from an entity ruled by mass media and mass audiences to one ruled by messy media and messy participation. How far can this frenzy of creativity go? ... What matters is the network of social creation, the community of collaborative interaction that futurist Alvin Toffler called prosumption. ... The real transformation under way is more akin to what Sun Microsystem's John Gage had in mind in 1988 when he famously said: 'The network is the computer.' His phrase sums up the destiny of the web: as the operating system for a megacomputer that encompasses the internet, all its services, all peripheral chips and affiliated devices from scanners to satellites, and the billions of human minds entangled in this global network. This gargantuan Machine already exists in a primitive form. In the coming decade, it will evolve into an integral extension not only of our senses and bodies, but our minds. ... This planet-sized computer is comparable in complexity to a human brain. Both the brain and the web have hundreds of billions of neurons, or webpages. ... Danny Hillis, a computer scientist who once claimed he wanted to make an AI 'that would be proud of me', has invented massively parallel supercomputers, in part to advance us in that direction. He now believes the first real AI will emerge not in a stand-alone supercomputer such as IBM's proposed 23-teraflop Blue Brain, but in the vast tangle of the global Machine. ... Computing pioneer Vannevar Bush outlined the web's core idea - hyperlinked pages - in 1945, but the first person to try to build on the concept was a freethinker named Ted Nelson, who in 1965 envisioned his own scheme, which he called 'Xanadu'."

November 14, 2005: The Charlie Rose Show - A Discussion With Gordon Moore, Cofounder of Intel Corporation (television broadcast). "Rose: You read as I did all the concern about robotic and what, you know, Bill Joy wrote a famous piece in Wired magazine that got lots of attention, a nanotechnology and -- and robotics and - and all of that. Do you worry that technology has a place where it could - could threaten the existence of who we are? Moore: Yeah, I don't see that myself. To me, the technology is under our control and I don't think that's ever going to change. It's going to take something dramatically different than what we're doing for that to change in any case. You know, I think there are a lot of improvements we can look for. One thing that intrigued me, for example, if we ever get really good speech recognition in computers. Which I think is a matter of time, I don`t know if it's five years or 50 years, where you can talk to a computer and it will understand in context what you're saying. And if you mean t-o or t-double o for example. ... in a sentence. You get to the point where when it understands language that well, you should be able to have an intelligent conversation with your computer, should be able to ask it something in normal language and it should be able to find the answer. ... Moore: So I think, you know, that kind of level, which I would consider artificial intelligence is something that is likely to come down in the future. Not too far, maybe. Rose: Within 10 years? Moore: I have a tough time putting a time scale on it. I think 30 years ago people would have said 10 years. It's one of these ... things that keeps receding as you look at it. But I think the - you know, the - the basic capability is there, the processing power, hopefully the software will get developed to do it. It will come to pass eventually. But I still don`t see any direction in which the technology takes over, and ... Rose: We lose control. Moore: Yeah...."
→ The Future, AI Overview, Ethical & Social Implications, Natural Language Processing, Autonomous Vehicles, Robots, Interviews

November 8, 2005: Some Technologies Will Annoy. By Joanna Glasner. Wired News. "If you're waiting for the 'home of the future,' filled with talking appliances and complex networks that let all our devices communicate with each other, prepare to keep holding your breath. It's not that those things aren't technically possible. It's just that if we had them, they'd irritate us. In this week's column, professional futurists weigh in on which talked-about technologies are likely either to flop, under-deliver or take longer to reach critical mass than we might expect. Top on their list are things that sound better suited for a Jetsons set than a real-life home or workspace. Additionally, there are a lot of technologies that sound neat, but probably won't inspire us to open our wallets."

November 5, 2005: Researchers Look to Create a Synthesis of Art and Science for the 21st Century. By John Markoff. The New York Times (registration req'd.). "As an actor and a founder of the politically active Electronic Disturbance Theater, Ricardo R. Dominguez is an unlikely faculty member at the nanoscience, wireless and supercomputing laboratory that opened its doors here on the campus of the University of California, San Diego, on Oct. 28. However, Mr. Dominguez and an eclectic group of computer musicians, computer game designers and nanotechnology artists are very much a part of the futuristic research 'collaboratory' being assembled by the astrophysicist Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, or Calit2, a $400 million research consortium assembled over the last five years. ... For Mr. Smarr - who as director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in the 1990's oversaw the development of Mosaic, the first World Wide Web browser - this synthesis of art and science is vital in light of the role he expects artists to play in designing the future. 'Part of the artist's insight is to be able to interpret the future earlier than anybody,' he said during an interview in the small hideaway conference room adjacent to his office. 'We regard the artist as fully equal with any scientist at Calit2.'"

November 1, 2005: The Charlie Rose Show - Ray Kurzweil talks about his new book called "The Singularity is Near" (television broadcast). "Rose: Let me come back to this book, to 'The Singularity Is Near.' What does singularity mean? Kurzweil: It's a metaphor of a future event, which I say will be the mid-2040s, 2045. At that point, the non-biological intelligence we`re creating, which we just talked about, will be a billion times more powerful than all of the biological intelligence we have in the human species. .... Kurzweil: 2045, the non-biological, the machine intelligence, the machine portion of human civilization's intelligence will be a billion times more powerful than the biological intelligence. That's a very profound change to human civilization. So singularity is a metaphor borrowed from physics, meaning an event horizon that's hard to see beyond, because it's so transformative. We can't really easily see inside a singularity in physics, a black hole. ... "

October 27, 2005: CMU researchers develop speech translator. By Jennifer Bails. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review & PittsburghLive.com. "Imagine saying something in English and being understood by someone who speaks only Spanish. Carnegie Mellon University researchers and German scientists today plan to demonstrate breakthrough technology in human speech translation by computers. ... [Alex] Waibel also will demonstrate new ways of delivering computerized speech translation services beyond traditional headsets and audio equipment. ... Foreign language translation also can be performed using a system that tracks and measures electrical currents on the surface of a person's cheek and throat as they mouth words instead of speaking aloud -- lip reading for the 21st century. ... 'In the future, such transducers could be implanted, enabling a speaker to produce any language at will,' Waibel said in a statement."

October 25, 2005: Tech talk - The Furute is Nanobots. By San Grewal. Toronto Star (registration req'd.). "Some of Ray Kurzweil's ideas about the future may seem way too futuristic. But the Massachusetts-based computer scientist, inventor and author is convinced that artificial intelligence will completely change human life. 'Nonbiological intelligence will match the capabilities of human intelligence by 2029. And in the 2030s we will merge with this technology by sending intelligent nanobots (micro robots) into our brains through the capillaries,' Kurzweil wrote in an email interview. ... In the future, we will be media-savvy cyborgs. But we won't have to watch any more commercials -- unless we want to. 'For the next generation the quote won't be 'the medium is the message.' 'It will be 'I am the media,' says Watts Wacker, the former resident futurist at Stanford University's Stanford Research Institute. ... Futurist and University of Toronto professor Steve Mann agrees with [Ann] Clurman that a backlash could happen. Even though the electrical and computer engineer has invented a number of advanced computer devices and is considered one of the world's leading cyborg experts, Mann says if technology is only used to make people's lives more complicated the natural reaction will be to pull back."

October 25, 2005: Futurists Pick Top Tech Trends. By Joanna Glasner. Wired News. "[L]et's take a look at the positive trends futurists see on the horizon. ... Speech-recognition technology will be instrumental in enabling new mobile services, said Ronald Gruia, author of the blog Technology Futurist and emerging communications program leader at consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. In recent years, speech software developers, in particular Nuance Communications, which until recently went by the name ScanSoft (SSFT), have gotten much better at what they do. Gruia believes it's only a matter of time before speech-enabled mobile apps for tasks like composing e-mail while driving can be commonplace."

October 6, 2005: Artificial intelligence - threats and opportunities. Legal IT. "The future may be electronic, says Ian Pearson, futurologist for BT, but even in a world of conscious computers and artificial intelligence, lawyers will still be in huge demand. ... Pearson has been working with firms from other industries, notably the legal profession. 'The first time I analysed the legal industry the first question was whether technology would be putting lawyers out of a job, but the reality is quite the opposite,' he says. 'Computers and the internet will be able to automate basic legal functions -- such as conveyancing, which will leave more time for lawyers to concentrate on the intellectual and social parts of the job.' ... Further into the future is the issue of artificial intelligence. 'In 10 years time computers will be approaching human levels of intelligence and achieving consciousness. Electronics are already starting to mimic the physiology and nervous system of humans and by 2050 they could be making back-ups of your mind.' ... 'But if you grant computers a consciousness what else will they be granted? What human rights will they be granted? If computers become capable of committing crime, what level of responsibility will they have? It is something that we see coming over the horizon and there will be a time when we have to debate it.'"

October 4, 2005: Arthur C Clarke still looking forward. By Martin Redfern. BBC News. "Eighty-seven years and the after-effects of polio have left Sir Arthur in a wheelchair and somewhat forgetful of past events; but as a science visionary, he is as sharp as ever, looking forward to the time when other predictions he has made come true. He is convinced that we will become a space-faring species. ... He is sure that we will journey to Mars and eventually on to other solar systems; first sending robot probes, then humans, perhaps in suspended animation or even with their thoughts and consciousness transferred into a machine."

September 26, 2005: Children imagine a flying future. By Rebecca Smithers. The Guardian. "Today's 10-year-olds imagine a future transformed by technology in which their lessons will be taught by robots and they will learn about celebrities and alien languages. ... Participants in the study by internet provider AOL to mark its 10th anniversary are the first generation born in the internet era, and their views show how central technology is to their lives. Most believe there will still be schools to go to, but that technology will play an increasingly important role in learning. The 600 children surveyed think there will still be teachers, but 37% imagine them to be robots. ... When it comes to the curriculum, they predict future generations will be learning robot building (63%)...."

September 25, 2005: The age of Ray Kurzweil - What will happen when technology outstrips human intelligence? Renowned -- and controversial -- techno-visionary Ray Kurzweil says we won't have to wait long to find out. And he, for one, is looking forward to it. By Drake Bennett. The Boston Globe. "By any measure, [Ray] Kurzweil has had an exceptional career. Now, however, he has a new project: to be a god. And not just because he thinks he can live forever. Within decades, he predicts, he will be billions of times more intelligent than he is today, able to read minds, assume different forms, and reshape his physical environment at will. So will everyone. Today's human beings, mere quintessences of dust, will be as outmoded as Homo Erectus. All this, Kurzweil believes, will come about through something called The Singularity. Popularized more than a decade ago by the mathematician, computer scientist, and science fiction novelist Vernor Vinge, who borrowed the term from mathematics and astrophysics, it refers to the future point at which technological change, propelled by the explosive growth of artificial intelligence, will accelerate past the point of current human comprehension. In Vinge's prevision, once artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence there will be no turning back, as ever more intelligent computers create ever more superintelligent offspring. ... This week Kurzweil has a new book out, with the self-consciously millennial title 'The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology' (Viking). It is the most detailed brief he has yet written for the nearness of the unimaginably strange future, and it arrives with approving blurbs from Minsky and Bill Gates ('Ray Kurzweil is the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence,' writes the Microsoft founder.) At a time when political debates over the ethics of stem cell research, genetic modification, cloning and even nanotechnology are growing at once more fervent and more complicated, Kurzweil offers a vision of technology as destiny, of transformative change that has slipped the bonds of politics, culture, and--for many--credulity. ... Arrayed around Kurzweil's office and in the hallways outside are a few of his inventions. ... Kurzweil Reading Machine ... Kurzweil synthesizer ... a pocket reading machine for the blind ... FatKat, his artificial-intelligence investment program...."

September 12, 2005: Georgia Tech's Ronald Arkin. "Technology Research News Editor Eric Smalley carried out an email conversation with Georgia Institute of Technology professor Ronald C. Arkin in August of 2005 that covered the economics of labor, making robots as reliable as cars, getting robots to trust people, biorobotics, finding the boundaries of intimate relationships with robots, how much to let robots manipulate people, giving robots a conscience, robots as humane soldiers and The Butlerian Jihad. ... TRN: In terms of technology and anything affected by technology, what will be different about our world in five years? In 10? In 50? What will have surprised us in 10 years, in 50? Arkin: I've never been a prognosticator or futurist and am not about to start now. As a scientist I prefer to have a firm basis for my projections, and going 10-50 years out in this day and age is beyond my capabilities. In that sense I'm not as bold, or foolish, as some of my colleagues. What I can say is that robots will continue to become more commonplace, and they will be accepted more readily, starting to vanish into the background noise of technology that many devices already occupy, such as aircraft, televisions, air conditioners, etc. Truly intelligent robots will stand out, but when that will happen is not clear. But not in 5 years."

August 16, 2005: BT reveals insight into the future - BT's Technology Timeline predicts what the next 50 years hold. BT news release. "BT's futurology department has launched its latest Technology Timeline, which predicts the technological advances that will impact our future. The timeline encompasses all areas of life influenced by technology developments, including Artificial Intelligence; Health and Medical; Business and Education; Demographics; Energy; Robotics; Space; Telecommunications; Transport & Travel. ... A graphical illustration of the BT Technology Timeline is available at www.bt.com/technologytimeline."

August 15, 2005: Long Live AI. "On My Mind" by Ray Kurzweil. Forbes.com. "Many people think the so-called AI winter in the 1980s, when many AI companies folded, was the end of the story. But boom-bust cycles are sometimes harbingers of true revolutions (recall the railroad frenzy of the 19th century), and we see the same phenomenon in AI. Artificial intelligence permeates our economy. It's what I define as 'narrow' AI: machine intelligence that equals or exceeds human intelligence for specific tasks. ... AI programs diagnose heart disease, fly and land airplanes, guide autonomous weapons, make automated investment decisions for a trillion dollars' worth of funds and guide industrial processes. ... So what are the prospects for 'strong' AI, which I describe as machine intelligence with the full range of human intelligence? ... To understand the principles of human intelligence we need to reverse-engineer the human brain. ... The killer app of strong AI, combined with nanotechnology, will be blood-cell-size robots called nanobots. We'll have billions of them traveling in our bloodstream...."

July 26, 2005: Futures market - Welcome to tomorrow's world.. where robots have rights and the moon is just another holiday destination By Nick Webster. Mirror.co.uk. "Cars that drive themselves, artificial brains and human rights for robots... it's just a matter of time. A Technology Timeline compiled by researchers at BT's futurology department has come up with a list of advances it says will change tomorrow's world. ... Here is their technology timeline ... 2006 - 2010: Emotionally Responsive Toys ... 2013 - 2017: Robots Guide Blind People ... 2016 - 2020: Electronic Life Form Gets Basic Rights ... 2021 - 2025: E-Translation ... 2031 - 2035: Computer Geniuses ... 2051+: Brain Downloads."

July 3, 2005: Hurtling toward a brave new world. Book review by Lynn Yarris. The Mercury News. "Distinguishing fact from fantasy when it comes to the augmentation of human abilities is becoming increasingly difficult. What was science fiction at the end of the last century is making headlines in this one. A preview of what's in store is now available in one of the most provocative, entertaining and, yes, frightening science books in years. 'We are at an inflection point in history,' writes Joel Garreau. 'Four interrelated, intertwining technologies are cranking up to modify human nature. Call them the GRIN technologies -- the genetic, robotic, information and nano processes. These four advances are intermingling and feeding on one another, and they are collectively creating a curve of change unlike anything we humans have ever seen.' Garreau, a reporter and editor at the Washington Post, is a solid researcher with a fine sense of storytelling. In 'Radical Evolution,' he relies heavily on interviews with an engaging array of experts in the various GRIN technologies. ... Garreau lays out three scenarios for what might unfold over the next 25 years."

July 2, 2005: Entering a dark age of innovation. By Robert Adler. NewScientist.com news. "[F]ar from being in technological nirvana, we are fast approaching a new dark age. That, at least, is the conclusion of Jonathan Huebner, a physicist working at the Pentagon's Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California. He says the rate of technological innovation reached a peak a century ago and has been declining ever since. ... It's an unfashionable view. Most futurologists say technology is developing at exponential rates. ... Huebner draws some stark lessons from his analysis. The global rate of innovation today, which is running at seven 'important technological developments' per billion people per year, matches the rate in 1600. Despite far higher standards of education and massive R&D funding 'it is more difficult now for people to develop new technology', Huebner says. ... At the Acceleration Studies Foundation, a non-profit think tank in San Pedro, California, John Smart examines why technological change is progressing so fast. Looking at the growth of nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, Smart agrees with [Ray] Kurzweil that we are rocketing toward a technological 'singularity' - a point sometime between 2040 and 2080 where change is so blindingly fast that we just can't predict where it will go. Smart also accepts Huebner's findings, but with a reservation. Innovation may seem to be slowing even as its real pace accelerates, he says, because it's slipping from human hands and so fading from human view. More and more, he says, progress takes place "under the hood" in the form of abstract computing processes. Huebner's analysis misses this entirely. ... A middle path between Huebner's warning of an imminent end to tech progress, and Kurzweil and Smart's equally. ... "

July 1, 2005: 125 Big Questions. Science (Vol 309, Issue 5731, 79). "In a special collection of articles published beginning 1 July 2005, Science Magazine and its online companion sites celebrate the journal's 125th anniversary with a look forward -- at the most compelling puzzles and questions facing scientists today. A special, free news feature in Science explores 125 big questions that face scientific inquiry over the next quarter-century; accompanying the feature are several online extras including a reader's forum on the big questions." Start with the editorial, 125, by Donald Kennedy, Editor-in-Chief, and then explore questions such as:

• What Is the Biological Basis of Consciousness? By Greg Miller. "For centuries, debating the nature of consciousness was the exclusive purview of philosophers. But if the recent torrent of books on the topic is any indication, a shift has taken place: Scientists are getting into the game. Has the nature of consciousness finally shifted from a philosophical question to a scientific one that can be solved by doing experiments? ... The discourse on consciousness has been hugely influenced by René Descartes, the French philosopher who in the mid-17th century declared that body and mind are made of different stuff entirely. It must be so, Descartes concluded, because the body exists in both time and space, whereas the mind has no spatial dimension. Recent scientifically oriented accounts of consciousness generally reject Descartes's solution; most prefer to treat body and mind as different aspects of the same thing. In this view, consciousness emerges from the properties and organization of neurons in the brain."
• What Are the Limits of Conventional Computing? By Charles Seife. "In the 1940s, Bell Labs scientist Claude Shannon showed that bits are not just for computers; they are the fundamental units of describing the information that flows from one object to another. There are physical laws that govern how fast a bit can move from place to place, how much information can be transferred back and forth over a given communications channel, and how much energy it takes to erase a bit from memory. All classical information-processing machines are subject to these laws--and because information seems to be rattling back and forth in our brains, do the laws of information mean that our thoughts are reducible to bits and bytes? Are we merely computers? It's an unsettling thought. But there is a realm beyond the classical computer: the quantum. The probabilistic nature of quantum theory allows atoms and other quantum objects to store information that's not restricted to only the binary 0 or 1 of information theory, but can also be 0 and 1 at the same time."
• What are the limits of learning by machines? Computers can already beat the world's best chess players, and they have a wealth of information on the Web to draw on. But abstract reasoning is still beyond any machine."

July 1, 2005: Gates Says Technology Will One Day Allow Computer Implants -- But Hardwiring's Not For Him. By Rohan Sullivan. Associated Press / available from Technology Review.com. "Technological advances will one day allow computers to be implanted in the human body -- and could help the blind see and the deaf hear -- Bill Gates said Friday. But the Microsoft chairman says he's not ready to be hardwired. 'One of the guys that works at Microsoft ... always says to me 'I'm ready, plug me in,' ' Gates said at a Microsoft seminar in Singapore. 'I don't feel quite the same way. I'm happy to have the computer over there and I'm over here.' ... He cited author Ray Kurzweil, whom he called the best at predicting the future of artificial intelligence, as believing that such computer-human links would become mainstream -- though probably not for several generations."

June 30, 2005: Earlier predictions from Vision users. CNN.com. "Here is what some of you predicted would happen in the next 10 or 20 years. Got a vision? E-mail it to us at Vision. ... [What follows are excerpts from some of the letters that appear in this report.] ** Top 10 predictions: In the 21st century, I bet the following 10 things happening: ... 7) Wireless robotics and artificial intelligence will be fine tuned (especially in military purposes, ie. Unmanned Mobile Turrets/Warplanes). Households will begin purchasing smaller robots that automatically do things such as mowing lawn, clearing snow, vacuum floor, clean windows, and even garden! ... ** Who will be in control? There is only one unanswerable question regarding the future of mankind. Will conscious computers attain spiritual enlightenment before it's too late for mankind? The expectation of future A.I. (artificial intelligence) machines which know they exist as we and other animals do is all but inevitable. ... ** Energy and automation: Advances in computer technology will bring developments in the following areas: ... Automation: Intelligent and mechanical automation will replace most everyone in existing jobs. This has serious ramifications. ... ** Virtual reality: The next 20 years will bring technologies that are difficult to imagine now. We will be able to download people's personalities and memories to a computer, which will enable them to live in virtual reality. ... ** Little will change: I believe that many of the visionaries on the Vision Web site are very far-fetched. Wasn't it imagined that around the year 2000 we would be driving flying vehicles like in the 'Jetsons.' I can't see any around in 2005. How about the 'robots taking over our lives' theory? I don't see that happening either. ... ** Super brains: By the time supercomputers can download the 'brains' of the rich and of geniuses, the common folk will be able to get implants that will hook up to computers."

June 20, 2005: Making progress. By Fernando Diaz. Daily Herald. "NextFest, now in its second year, showcases technological innovations in seven categories: communication, design, entertainment, exploration, health, security and transportation. The 'World’s Fair of the Future' grew from the tantalizing task of covering emerging technologies at San Francisco’s Wired Magazine, considered the 'journal of record for the future,' and a desire to expose those developments beyond its pages. 'We get to write about a lot of really interesting and cool stuff, but unless we are the writers, we don’t get to see them,' said Adam Rogers, a senior editor at the magazine. Rogers is dying to see the Philip K. Dick robot, an android that bears an eerie resemblance to the famed science fiction writer and responds to commands through artificial intelligence software. It draws, too, Rogers said. ... [M]any of the exhibits are more than fun and games. The prosthetic C-Leg is already allowing amputees to reclaim some mobility, iRobot’s Rumba vacuums are moving into homes via infomercials and the company’s PackBot Scout, an 8-inch tall, 40-pound battle-bot is currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan assisting soldiers."

June 10, 2005: A Matter of Artificial Intelligence. Anshuman Joshi interviews Dr. Michael Rovatsos, lecturer at the Centre of Intelligent Systems and their Applications, School of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh. Khaleej Times Online. "[Q] What is the future of AI? [A] There are many directions the field could take. At the moment, one of the most interesting technologies that might affect the field is the Internet which offers a huge repository of human knowledge - if we could develop systems that can extract this knowledge automatically, we would escape the problem of telling a system all it needs to know to operate in an intelligent way (which is a very hard thing to do in practice). Another interesting prospect is that of building intelligent autonomous robots for everyday tasks. In recent years, the sensory and motor qualities of these robots have improved significantly, and they have reached a stage of maturity where it is likely that they will be suitable for performing simple everyday tasks in the near future. Generally speaking, the field will probably mature more in the sense that it will be regarded as a normal science/engineering discipline that steadily produces new reliable results -- the starting phase is soon going to be over, but there will be lots more of exciting things to come!"

June 1, 2005: Imagining homes of the future. BBC News. "A unique project is under way in Sheffield to monitor the movements of a family living in a futuristic home packed with the latest technological innovations. The aim is to help house builders predict how we will want to use our homes 10 or 20 years from now. But what will the homes of the future be like? Experts Christopher Sanderson, of The Future Laboratory and Richard Brindley, of the Royal Institute of British Architects, outline their visions of what might be to come. ... Your fridge could also suggest recipes using the item, possibly paired with other items on its shelves, or suggest complementary items for a shopping list. ... Mr Sanderson says robots look likely to start appearing in our homes quiet soon, with models ranging from Sony's childlike Qrio and robot pet dog to robotic vacuum cleaners already in development. But Mr Brindley expects most robots to be more functional than lifelike."
>>> also see this related article

May 26, 2005: BT working now to carve out its niche in a brave new world. Business Day. "As the chief futurologist at British Telecom (BT), [Ian] Pearson already believes in computers with more intelligence than humans, and the ability to shake hands or even make love with someone who is not physically present. ... The most exciting developments in the next 15 years will come from the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, IT and cognitive sciences. ... Right now the average human is thousands of times smarter than a computer, but as processing power increases we will be outsmarted by 2015, Pearson believes. 'We are talking about making a machine with the intelligence of Europe or Africa by 2020, and synthetic personality technologies will be mature by 2025.' The concept of work will change once human brains are less efficient and more prone to errors and tea breaks than computers. When tasks such as strategising and writing can be done by artificial intelligence, those skills will no longer be valued, and the value of humans’ care skills will increase, Pearson believes."

May 24, 2005: The 2020 vision of robotic assistants unveiled. By Will Knight. NewScientist.com news. "A futuristic world, complete with autonomous household companions, android medics and even robot entertainers, will greet visitors to the Prototype Robot Exhibition in Japan from 9 June, 2005. The exhibition forms part of the World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan, which runs from 25 May to 25 September. Several utility robots, including autonomous garbage collectors, vacuum cleaners and security guards, are already patrolling the wider Expo. But the Prototype Robot Exhibition gives academics and commercial researchers a chance to showcase a more distant vision of robot utopia. The exhibition features a mock-ups of homes, streets and workplaces from the year 2020 and more than sixty different types of robot will be exhibited."

May 22, 2005: 2050 - and immortality is within our grasp. Britain's leading thinker on the future offers an extraordinary vision of life in the next 45 years. By David Smith. The Observer. "Aeroplanes will be too afraid to crash, yoghurts will wish you good morning before being eaten and human consciousness will be stored on supercomputers, promising immortality for all - though it will help to be rich. These fantastic claims are not made by a science fiction writer or a crystal ball-gazing lunatic. They are the deadly earnest predictions of Ian Pearson, head of the futurology unit at BT. 'If you draw the timelines, realistically by 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it's not a major career problem,' Pearson told The Observer. ... Pearson, from Whitehaven in Cumbria, collaborates on technology with some developers and keeps a watching brief on advances around the world. He concedes the need to debate the implications of progress. 'You need a completely global debate. Whether we should be building machines as smart as people is a really big one. Whether we should be allowed to modify bacteria to assemble electronic circuitry and make themselves smart is already being researched.'"

May 16, 2005: Enter the 'care' economy - Robots will not beat the human touch By Ian Pearson. CNN. "We will be seeing a transition from an information economy to something called a 'care' economy -- and that is quite different. Between 2015 and 2020 we will have machines that will be comparable to humans in terms of intelligence -- or maybe even significantly more intelligent. ... The care economy is about taking away the physical jobs because they will probably be done by robots, and taking away the mental jobs because they will be done by smart computers. What we will be left with are those jobs that rely on human contact."

May 14, 2005: The human strain. By Alan Boyle. The Australian. "So where are humans headed? Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins says it's the question he's most often asked, and 'a question that any prudent evolutionist will evade'. Nevertheless, it is being raised even more frequently as researchers study our past and contemplate our future. ... But trend watchers point out that we're already wrestling with real-world aspects of future human development, if not a wholly new species, ranging from stem cell research to the implantation of biocompatible computer chips. The debates are likely to become increasingly divisive once all the scientific implications sink in. 'These issues touch upon religion, upon politics, upon values,' says Gregory Stock, director of the program on medicine, technology and society at the University of California at Los Angeles. ... Where are humans headed? Here's an imprudent assessment of possible paths, ranging from homogenised humans to alien-looking hybrids bred for interstellar travel. ... *Cyborgs (Homo roboticus): In some fields, artificial intelligence has already bested humans, with Deep Blue's 1997 victory over world chess champion Garry Kasparov providing a vivid example. Three years later, computer scientist Bill Joy speculated in an influential Wired magazine essay that a truly intelligent robot may arise by 2030. 'And once an intelligent robot exists, it is only a small step to a robot species, to an intelligent robot that can make evolved copies of itself,' he wrote. ... To others, it seems more likely that we could become part-robot ourselves: We're already making machines that can be assimilated - prosthetic limbs, mechanical hearts, cochlear implants and artificial retinas - so why couldn't brain augmentation be added to the list?"

May 5, 2005: Ministry predicts robot nurses in '25. By Takashi Kamiguri. The Asahi Shimbun. "Japan in 2025 will have household robot nurses that can help lift elderly people into wheelchairs from their beds. ... Those are some of the predictions set forth in the Strategic Technology Roadmap released recently by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The ministry's view of the future is based on predictions made by 300 scientists and engineers working in cutting-edge technology fields. ... The report says one of the biggest changes in the home will be widespread use of robots to do chores. ... Still, these won't be androids. They will be unable to walk, think or talk like humans because neither artificial intelligence nor smooth bipedal movement for robots is likely to be achieved by that time."

April 26, 2005: Forget the Jetsons - iRobot brings it home. By David Adams. The Age. "Ms [Helen] Greiner, who is in Australia to launch the [Roomba] product here, believes it will be a while before we see humanoid robots similar to those depicted in movies such as last year's I, Robot, but the common use of robots to help with household chores is just around the corner. 'I think the question won't be 'will you have a robot in your house', it will be 'how many robots do you have in your house'?' she says. "I know people who have five robots in their house." These household tools include Roomba, along with others that clean the swimming pool and mow the lawn, plus pets such as Sony's AIBO dog. "

April 13, 2005: Brooks Forecasts Future of Robotic Technology. By Maya Rao. The Cornell Daily Sun. "Artificial intelligence and robotics expert Rod Brooks forecasts major changes in the next 50 years. Much in the way that computers have revolutionized society, robots may take on an increasingly significant role in people's lives. As part of the Gerard Salton Lecture Series, Brooks delivered a talk yesterday entitled 'Flesh and Machines: Robots and People' to discuss potential applications of intelligent robots. ... Brooks acknowledges that the development of intelligent robots is still in beginning stages, although significant progress has been made in areas like navigation. However, he said, 'I think beyond navigation, robots have new possibilities which will be important.' As the world's demographics shift in the next half century, robots can be useful in fields such as manufacturing, agriculture and elderly assistance. ... The future, however, holds many challenges to realizing certain robotic applications. 'Will we accept robots?' Brooks asked the audience."

April 7, 2005: A tiny robot swarm - fiction no longer. By Robert C. Cowen. The Christian Science Monitor. "The cartoon superheroes were frustrated. They confronted a menacing robot that quickly repaired any damage they inflicted. It was made up of a swarm of microscopic robots - so-called nanobots - that could change its function and shape at will. Suddenly the swarm became fluid and flowed away. That cartoon scenario may seem entertaining. But the reality is startling. Engineers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration want to pull off a similar trick. They are testing a robot that they hope to shrink to nanobot size and eventually form what NASA calls 'autonomous nanotechnology swarms' (ANTS). The researchers aim to give ANTS enough artificial intelligence to make smart decisions as well as know intuitively when and how to walk and swarm. ... [E]ven though its major payoffs are decades away, nanotechnology already is a big deal. Worldwide government funding of nanotech research reached $3.6 billion last year with some 40 nations joining in, according to National Science Foundation (NSF) figures."

April 2005: Self-Assembling Robots- The future belongs to shape-shifting machines that don't look like humans. By Steven Johnson. Discover (Vol. 26, No. 04). "A jogging robot captures our imagination because we're easily impressed by skills that mimic our own. But a robot that runs isn't necessarily better than one that doesn’t. The future of robotics lies beyond mimicking humans and in machines that transform themselves into configurations based on changing circumstances. Some of these machines may resemble creatures from the natural world, but others may be original, concocted to repair a sudden failing or find a way around an unexpected obstruction"

March 30, 2005: Only the ethical need apply - In the heavily automated workplace of the future, a keen sense of right and wrong will become a highly valued job skill. By Susan Llewelyn Leach. The Christian Science Monitor. "The 'great global brain drain' is how futurist Richard Samson describes it. As the century progresses, he predicts, more and more jobs will be sucked up by technology and sophisticated computers, forcing humans to hone skills machines can't duplicate - at least not yet. Qualities such as ethical judgment, compassion, intuition, responsibility, and creativity will be what stand out in an automated world. ... [W]hile artificial intelligence can perform numerous job functions, it brings no ethical considerations to bear on the tasks performed - a skill that Samson predicts will actually become more crucial as the world increases its reliance on technology. It's still a big leap from where we are today to a world in which white-collar, know-how jobs are largely being performed by computers. But Samson proposes that this will happen by century's end and points out that history offers interesting precedent."

March 9, 2005: Machines Not Lost in Translation. By Ann Harrison. Wired News. "In 2003, DARPA estimated that open-domain, multi-task and unconstrained dialog translation was still five to 10 years away. But the research group developing IBM's MASTOR, or multilingual automatic speech-to-speech translator system, says its DARPA-funded bidirectional voice translator is a year or two from deployment."

March 7, 2005: Intelligent software aims to give users peace of mind. Microsoft Notebook feature by Todd Bishop. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "Most people wouldn't want a message from work disrupting their day at the beach. But Eric Horvitz was so happy when it happened to him that he took out a camera and captured the moment in a photo. The e-mail message had been singled out and sent to the Microsoft senior researcher's mobile phone by a special program that he and others in his group developed. The program examined the message's contents, determined its importance and decided it warranted interrupting him during a family outing on Whidbey Island. The moment perfectly illustrated Horvitz's long-term vision for technology in the information age -- as something to augment and assist people, not overwhelm them. ... The prototype is one of the ongoing projects in Microsoft Research's Adaptive Systems and Interaction group, which Horvitz manages. The 14-person group is working on software that senses the world around it and learns from experience to adjust to situations and to reason in real time. The projects are examples of artificial intelligence -- using technology to perform tasks that would otherwise require human perception and reasoning. 'I see something very big happening to humanity in terms of a new relationship with technology over the next 100 years,' Horvitz said, predicting a future when 'companion software' works in conjunction with human life in a way that could be considered 'intelligent or humanlike.'"

March 4, 2005: The Bleeding Edge of Computing. By Pam Baker NewsFactor Network. "Just when you think computing is an established industry where at least some things will remain the same, the earth starts moving. Here’s a peek at tomorrow’s computing landscape: ... A mini-helicopter that thinks for itself is ready for action in Iraq. GT Max, the first rotary wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), is able to learn as it flies, maneuver aggressively, and automatically plan a route through obstacles using an Open Control Platform (OCP) system. ... For artificial intelligence, or AI, to be of maximum assistance to everyday people, computers must learn from human environments. 'Suddenly, for the first time, our computers have the ability to see and hear the world from our perspective through microphones and cameras on wearable eyepieces and headsets. Soon, our computers might be able to observe what we do all day, understand what is important to us, and act as a virtual assistant who helps us on a second-by-second basis,' says Starner."

February 15, 2005: Inside the future. By Patrick Gray. The Sydney Morning Herald. "[Ian] Pearson is the futurist-in-residence at British Telecom's research labs, one of the most hallowed halls of deep research in the world.... 'We're looking at the idea of making conscious computers, and it's possible any time after 2015 that we could have computers as smart as human beings,' he says. 'That has a major impact for mankind, whatever way you sum it up.' As the inhouse crystal-ball gazer at BT, Pearson is responsible for imagining a future to give direction to BT's commercial enterprises - and to anticipate over-the-horizon threats. ... While futurists predict artificial intelligence will eventually give birth to conscious computers, British Telecom's AI guru Nader Azarmi says the technology is already useful. Since 1998, the telco has used AI techniques to allocate engineering resources to logistically complicated tasks such as telephone-line maintenance and repair, says Azarmi, who heads BT's Intelligent Systems lab. The platform has had a 'major impact' on how the organisation allocates daily work schedules to its 29,000 engineers, he says. ... Soon, BT will build an AI model of a customer to help improve subscribers' satisfaction."

February 15, 2005: Sportsview - Century of Change Ahead? By Steve Wilstein, Associated Press Sports Columnist. Available from The Los Angeles Times. "A sports-minded futurist, Robin Gunston of New Zealand, studies the larger implications of designer drugs, genetic enhancement, terrorism, artificial intelligence, high-tech equipment, corporate influence, religion and politics. He writes in the January-February edition of 'The Futurist' magazine of 'four possible long-term scenarios' that may play out in the 21st century or beyond: ...."

• Play Ball! How Sports Will Change in the 21st Century. By Robin Gunston. The Futurist (January / February 2005; Vol. 38, Issue 7). "High-technology equipment. We may see completely new forms of artificial-intelligence-based machinery taking over areas of human activity within the next 20 years. Sports are no exception to this trend."

February 8, 2005: Robot wars - Technology guru Ray Kurzweil offers a vision of future fighting machines. By Philip Ball. news @ nature.com. "BALL: How will warfare change in the next 50 years? KURZWEIL: ... Already, our abilities benefit from close collaboration with machines. Within 50 years, the non-biological portion of the intelligence of our civilization will predominate. Applying non-biological intelligence to areas such as strategy, decision-making and intelligent weapons will characterize military power. ... BALL: Where will the future battlefields be? Will they include cyberspace? KURZWEIL: One major development will be swarms of nano-engineered devices. Already, the US Department of Defense's Smart Dust project has prototypes that can reconnoitre. ..."

February 2, 2005: TMT Trends: Predictions, 2005. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) predictions for the global technology sector. Available from Mondaq. "Internet use will continue to proliferate, and the web browser will become an increasingly important part of our lives – providing a standard interface for a whole host of business and consumer applications. ... Nanotechnology – the set of technologies that enables manipulation of structures and processes at the atomic level – will become increasingly mainstream, leading to a wide range of new and dramatically improved products. ... Robots will start to become an accepted part of our daily lives, particularly for household chores and other highly specific, practical tasks."

January 24, 2005: Softbots stride forward. By Siobhan McBride. Computerworld. "Can't make next week's videoconference with head office? No problem, your computer-generated avatar will stand in for you; having been created in your image it's a shrewd strategist in complete command of the points you wish to make - including your fallback position. While it sounds like it may be a long time coming, research into intelligent agents, software programs also known as 'softbots', is progressing so quickly scientists predict this scenario could be a reality within 10 years. ... Two researchers headed down this path are Professor Ryszard Kowalczyk, of Swinburne University's faculty of Information and Communication Technology, and Professor Jun Han, also of Swinburne University, who heads a contribution to an Australian-European Union consortium developing service-orientated computing systems of the future. ... The project plan is to develop agents to automate the interchange and composition of software and services via the Internet, including software components to coordinate business activities such as supply, distribution and sales."

January 6, 2005: With Japan aging, Toyota to staff factories with robots. Agence France Presse / available from Channel NewsAsia. "Toyota Motor will introduce robots which can work as well or better than humans at all 12 of its factories in Japan to cut costs and deal with a looming labor shortage as the country ages, according to a press report. The robots would be able to carry out multiple tasks simultaneously with their two arms, achieving efficiency unseen in human workers and matching the cheap wages of Chinese laborers, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. ... Toyota has been increasingly turning to robot development and plans to welcome visitors to its pavillion at the World Expo in Japan in March with humanoid robots jamming in a brass ensemble and performing hip-hop."

January 4, 2005: Robots will give Beckham the boot, say designers. By Julian Ryall. South China Morning Post (subscription req'd.) / also available from The Scotsman (Robot makers say World Cup will be theirs by 2050; Januay 10, 2005). "The footballers of tomorrow will have the midfield guile of Zinedine Zidane, the finishing ability of Andriy Shevchenko and the staying power of Roy Keane. ... An Osaka-based consortium of robotics experts has thrown down the gauntlet to future players of the beautiful game with the confident claim that their robots will be so skilful they will play mankind off the park within 50 years. 'By 2050, our aim is to beat the winners of football's World Cup and we are very confident that we will be able to do that,' said Shu Ishiguro, who heads the Robot Laboratory group. 'When we have accomplished that, we will have a society in which humans and artificial intelligence are completely in harmony.' Mr Ishiguro and his team are placing their faith in the offspring of their current star player, VisiON. ... He also dodged the question of a robot insurrection, akin to that depicted in the recent movie I, Robot. 'All these advanced technologies have an element of risk and we can warn of the dangerous aspects of robots in human society,' he shrugs. 'But cars, for example, successfully collaborate with humans and have been safely integrated into society. Everyone who saw the RoboCup could see the advantages of technology.'"

January 2005: Ethics for the Robot Age - Should bots carry weapons? Should they win patents? Questions we must answer as automation advances. View by Jordan Pollack. Wired Magazine (Issue 13.01). "While our hopes for and fears of robots may be overblown, there is plenty to worry about as automation progresses. The future will have many more robots, and they'll most certainly be much more advanced. This raises important ethical questions that we must begin to confront. 1. Should robots be humanoid? ... 2. Should humans become robots? ... 4. Should robots eat? ... 6. Should robots carry weapons? ... "

January / February 2005: Man and the Machines - It's time to start thinking about how we might grant legal rights to computers. By Benjamin Soskis. Legal Affairs. "The story of the self-aware computer asserting its rights --- and, in the dystopian version of the tale, its overwhelming power --- is a staple of science fiction books and movies. ... At some point in the not-too-distant future, we might actually face a sentient, intelligent machine who demands, or who many come to believe deserves, some form of legal protection.

January 2005: You, Robot - He says humans will download their minds into computers one day. With a new robotics firm, Hans Moravec begins the journey from warehouse drones to robo sapiens. By Chip Walter. Scientific American. "The 56-year-old Moravec should know. Born in Kautzen, Austria, and raised in Montreal, he has been pushing the envelope on robotics theory and experimentation for the past 35 years, first as the graduate student at Stanford University who created the 'Stanford Cart,' the first mobile robot capable of seeing and autonomously navigating the world around it (albeit very slowly), and later as a central force in Carnegie Mellon's vaunted Robotics Institute. His iconoclastic theories and inventive work in machine vision have both shocked his colleagues and jump-started research; Seegrid [Corporation] is just the next logical step. ... Industrial robots already flourish in tightly constrained environments such as assembly lines. Where they fail is in locations loaded with unpredictability. So Seegrid concentrated on creating vision systems that enable simple machines to move supplies around warehouses without any human direction. Not exactly the stuff of science fiction, Moravec agrees, and a long way from superintelligent robots, but he says you have to start somewhere. ... The same themes run through his view of the future of robotics. Evolution moves in tiny steps, Moravec notes, but accomplishes amazing things. Machine evolution will do the same as it incrementally nudges robots from their clumsy beginnings to the heights of human-level intelligence and mobility."

December 27, 2004: Just How Old Can He Go? By Steve Lohr. The New York Times (reg. req'd.). "'Genes are sequential programs,' [Ray Kurzweil] said. 'We are learning how to manipulate the programs inside us, the software of life. And personally, I really believe that what I'm doing is reprogramming my biochemistry.' His new book shows a different side of Mr. Kurzweil's continuing fascination with the connection between humans and computers. In 'The Age of Spiritual Machines,' published in 1999, Mr. Kurzweil made the case for why computers will exceed human intelligence within a few decades. ... He has few qualms about technology, which he says is 'the continuation of evolution by other means.' Just as the boundaries of computing will soon seem limitless, Mr. Kurzweil insists that improving knowledge and technology will make death avoidable. The book describes three stages - the authors call them 'bridges' - over the next 20 to 25 years. By the late 2020's, Mr. Kurzweil predicts, the fruits of artificial intelligence and nanotechnology, a technology that permits changes to the body at the cellular level, will really kick in so that science will enable people to rebuild their bodies, any way they want to. In 15 to 20 years, he contends that advances in the understanding of gene processes will make it possible for biotechnology therapies to turn off and reverse disease and aging."

December 22, 2004: True hipsters include gizmos of 2010 on their wish lists. Kevin Maney's Technology Column. USA Today. "To be truly hip, you need to start angling for the hot tech toys of Christmas 2010. Like, maybe a translating digital camera. Say you're hiking in the Costa Rican jungle, and you get bitten by a snake. While crumpling in pain, you notice a sign that says, ' ¡Peligro! Serpientes venenosas!' But you don't know Spanish. So you take a photo of the sign, click a 'translate' button on the camera, and the screen shows that the sign says, 'Danger! Poisonous snakes!' Wouldn't that be handy? There's actually a working prototype in Hewlett-Packard's labs."

December 20, 2004: Wear a phone, send a kiss: let the future get under your skin. By Adam Luck and Alan Hamilton. Times Online. "Following in the footsteps of Nostradamus and Old Moore, a new breed of professional futurist is taking centre stage in government and big business. ... Ian Pearson, who leads BT’s futurist section, said: 'In the early 1990s we pretty much predicted the world wide web, text messaging, PDAs (personal digital assistants) and the growth in portable computers. Now we are looking forward to a world where a lot of that technology will disappear. It will be invisible and embedded. ... Mr Pearson added: 'The growth of artificial intelligence is inevitable, so you will have a DVD recorder that knows your own tastes and will record programmes to suit those tastes.' By 2010-15, he says, we will be able to build devices into our bodies using nanotechnology."

November - December 2004: Creating a More Intelligent Future - The World Future Society's 2004 meeting focused on improving our foresight, enhancing our intelligence, and developing partnerships with each other and with our rapidly advancing technologies. By Cynthia G. Wagner. The Futurist (Volume 38, No. 6). "Some futurists have asked whether the explosive development of new technologies should be curbed, since their impacts may yet be unknown and are potentially dangerous. but award-winning inventor Ray Kurzweil argued that 'to relinquish technologies because they could be used for ill means giving up their good uses --- and it also means totalitarian control.' ... Ian Pearson forecast that by 2010 or 2015, an artificial life-form will have been created, Robotus primus, that will have its own set of beliefs that have nothing to do with humans or their beliefs. 'We won't be in control,' Pearson warned. 'The supersmart robots will tell us what to do. It would be futile to try to program Asimov's three laws of robotics. The first words won't be 'Take me to your leader.' They'll be 'I am your leader, and here's what I want you to do." Ray Kurzweil expressed more optimism about the risks of robotic intelligence: 'The main solution to the perils of strong AI is supporting our values of liberty, openness, democracy, respect for diversity, and knowledge.' Partnering with machine intelligence might be an answer."

October 22, 2004: Robots set to get homely by 2007. BBC News. "Seven times more robots will helping us out with the cleaning, security and entertainment in three years' time, as their price falls and they get smarter. ... By the end of 2007, 4.1 million robots will be doing jobs in homes, says the report by the UN Economic Commission for Europe and the International Federation of Robotics. ... Aside from playing football and jigging in the home, robots are increasingly being used to carry out more hazardous or specialists jobs. Robots involved in more serious tasks, like scientific and medical research, defence and surveillance, as well as mine-clearing, will also enjoy a boom in popularity, says the report. Researchers around the world are developing robots for multiple uses, and many are making them a lot smarter and autonomous by developing AI systems (Artificial Intelligence)."

October 21, 2004: Wizard of the Wireless Future - Palm pioneer Jeff Hawkins explains why one mobile device will soon do it all, how robots will evolve, and more. Interviewed by Cliff Edwards. BusinessWeek online. "Jeff Hawkins created the first Palm Pilot (PLMO ) digital organizer and then went on to create the Handspring Visor line as well as the popular new Treo 600 combination cell phone, e-mail device, and organizer. His new book, On Intelligence, explores the structure of the human brain and how that understanding will help create a new breed of truly intelligent machines. ... Q: Are you talking about artificial intelligence and moving it to the elderly population? A: I write about this in the book. The whole last chapter is dedicated to how this will play out. When people think of robotics, they think we're going to have these robots like in the movies and they're going to be talking to you and doing things. But the business of intelligent machines is different than people think. ..."

October 11, 2004: Welcome to the internet 2014 - As the UK marks 10 years of e-commerce, technology analyst Bill Thompson looks forward to what the coming decade has in store for us. BBC News. "The mere fact that everyone is online will change the way the world works, of course. But the way we use the processing power available will shift too. ... I have my laptop, my mobile phone/PDA, my digital music player and all sorts of other technology in my briefcase at the moment, and if I was willing to make the investment I could have a 3G card and be online even as I type this on a train journey. But these devices do not talk to each other very well, and they do not really talk to other people's devices at all. I think the big change we will see in the next 10 years is that programs will get better at acting independently and communicating over the network without our intervention. Cars will book themselves in for servicing, hospitals will consult online diaries before scheduling an appointment, and fishing boats will sell their catch at market before reaching port, all thanks to these software agents. Of course this brings with it massive risks, and poses threats to privacy and social life which will worry many of us. But we have proven able to absorb the impact the net has made since 1994, and I am optimistic about our ability to do so in future."

October 9, 2004: Carnegie Mellon institute celebrates 25 years of robot research. Associated Press / available from The Herald Standard. "The researchers who developed robotics systems that play soccer, explored Antarctica and gave football fans a 360-degree view of Super Bowl XXXV are pausing to celebrate their 25th anniversary - and contemplate where robotics will take the world in the next 25 years. The four-day celebration at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute begins Monday with the second annual inductions into the school's Robot Hall of Fame. C-3PO, the droll droid of 'Star Wars' fame, and Robby the Robot from the 1956 cult flick 'Forbidden Planet' are among the honorees. ... The anniversary's theme is 'Robots and Thought' - and the founders' expectations about advances in artificial intelligence are tame compared to those of some experts who will address the grand challenges facing robotics in a series of lectures on Wednesday. ... The next great frontier for robotics, [Raj] Reddy says, is a conundrum: teaching computers to learn. 'The biggest barrier is (developing) computers that learn with experience and exhibit goal-directed behavior. If you can't build a system that can learn with experience, you might as well forget everything else,' Reddy said."

October 8, 2004: State-of-the-art robotics on display. By Will Knight. New Scientist News. "Many of the world's leading robotics experts gathered in the picturesque city of Sendai, Japan, this week to discuss their latest research efforts at the 2004 Intelligent Robotics and Systems (IROS) conference. As well as hundreds of scientific papers and workshops, attendees enjoyed demonstrations from some of the latest entertainment bots Japan has to offer. These include Sony's miniature humanoid, QRIO ... Fujitsu's HOAP-2 ... [Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology's] PARO. ... Max Lungarella, of the University of Tokyo, believes one of the more noticeable themes at this year's conference is the way robotics is feeding into areas of research relating to intelligence. As roboticists succeed in making ever-more intelligent machines, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists and even beh

October 2, 2004: America's richest man talks tech at UC Berkeley. By Michelle Maitre. San Mateo County Times Online. "He encouraged students to pursue their studies in computer science and biology, areas that he said hold the keys for improving the quality of human life. The areas are complementary in some ways, he said, and computer modeling can advance understandings about molecular biology and other topics. As for future technological trends, Gates said graphics technology is a hot, emerging area, along with finding new ways to enhance Internet search programs and improve software code language. ... Gates also encouraged students to strive for advances in what he called the 'holy grail' -- artificial intelligence, such as voice-recognition technology and other user-friendly initiatives."

September 27, 2004: The Grand Challenges of IT - Researchers are inventing new ways to tackle old problems. Emerging Technology by Thomas Hoffman. Computerworld. "Fundamental research on how to make computer hardware more powerful and software smarter goes back 50 years or more, but many of the traditional methods have nearly reached their limits. Now, researchers moving in bold new directions may be setting the course of IT for decades to come. There are literally dozens of grand challenges that scientists and economists are attacking, ranging from societal issues to technical advances. Here, we take a look at the challenges in three key areas of IT research: processor performance, chip miniaturization and artificial intelligence. ... AI, very broadly defined, comprises three primary disciplines: natural-language processing, machine-based learning and robotics. Recent advances in these areas have led to commercial technologies ranging from a robotic vacuum cleaner called Roomba, made by Burlington, Mass.-based iRobot Corp., to customer-service-oriented speech recognition systems from vendors such as Peabody, Mass.-based ScanSoft Inc. But despite these inroads, computer systems continue to have a tough time handling reasoning. 'The biggest challenges are figuring out how to organize computer programs to have more common sense,' says Tom Mitchell, the Fredkin professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. ... The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding research to develop a computer-based 'executive assistant' that could handle administrative tasks like prioritizing e-mail requests for a military commander or a business executive. ... Using a grading scale of A to F, 'we would be thrilled if these systems could give us C-level performance over the next three to four years,' says Ron Brachman, director of the information processing technology office at DARPA. Computers also have trouble understanding context like humans do.... Systems that can handle more complicated human-to-computer interactions, like processing a request for movie tickets at a particular theatre via speech recognition, should be in use within five to 10 years, says Victor Zue, co-director of the MIT computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory."

August 19, 2004: IT trends transform everyday activities. By Kim Sa-hyuk. The Korea Herald. "It could be said that information-technology is revolutionizing every existing structure and method of business and everyday life. With the rapid development in technology, it is becoming increasingly difficult to predict the future of Korea's information-technology industry and service market. However, analysts are pointing to a number of 'mega-trends' that could have a fundamental impact in the future. Digitalization, expansion of mobile and ubiquitous computing, expansion of broadband infrastructure, convergence of digital media, personalization of information-technology services and development of intelligent-agent technologies, are a few of the trends that garner attention."

June 23, 2004: The Futurist - The Intelligent Internet. The Promise of Smart Computers and E-Commerce. By William E. Halal. Government Computer News Daily News (GCN). "Information and communication technologies are rapidly converging to create machines that understand us, do what we tell them to, and even anticipate our needs. We tend to think of intelligent systems as a distant possibility, but two relentless supertrends are moving this scenario toward near-term reality. Scientific advances are making it possible for people to talk to smart computers, while more enterprises are exploiting the commercial potential of the Internet. ... [F]orecasts conducted under the TechCast Project at George Washington University indicate that 20 commercial aspects of Internet use should reach 30% 'take-off' adoption levels during the second half of this decade to rejuvenate the economy. Meanwhile, the project's technology scanning finds that advances in speech recognition, artificial intelligence, powerful computers, virtual environments, and flat wall monitors are producing a 'conversational' human-machine interface. These powerful trends will drive the next generation of information technology into the mainstream by about 2010. ... The following are a few of the advances in speech recognition, artificial intelligence, powerful chips, virtual environments, and flat-screen wall monitors that are likely to produce this intelligent interface. ... IBM has a Super Human Speech Recognition Program to greatly improve accuracy, and in the next decade Microsoft's program is expected to reduce the error rate of speech recognition, matching human capabilities. ... MIT is planning to demonstrate their Project Oxygen, which features a voice-machine interface. ... Amtrak, Wells Fargo, Land's End, and many other organizations are replacing keypad-menu call centers with speech-recognition systems because they improve customer service and recover investment in a year or two. ... General Motors OnStar driver assistance system relies primarily on voice commands, with live staff for backup; the number of subscribers has grown from 200,000 to 2 million and is expected to increase by 1 million per year. The Lexus DVD Navigation System responds to over 100 commands and guides the driver with voice and visual directions. ... BCC Corporation estimates total AI sales to grow from $12 billion in 2002 to $21 billion in 2007. ... This scenario is not without uncertainties. Cynicism persists over unrealized promises of AI, and the Intelligent Internet will present its own problems. If you think today's dumb computers are frustrating, wait until you find yourself shouting at a virtual robot that repeatedly fails to grasp what you badly want it to do. ... The main obstacle is a lack of vision among industry leaders, customers, and the public as scars of the dot-com bust block creative thought."

June 14, 2004 [issue date]: Innovators / Artificial Intelligence: Forging the Future - Rise of the Machines - These visionaries are making robots that can perform music, rescue disaster victims and even explore other planets on their own. By Dan Cray, Carolina A. Miranda, Wilson Rothman, Toko Sekiguchi. Time Magazine. "The Bionic Engineer - Driving School On Mars. Television critics will tell you that The Bionic Woman was just another cheesy '70s sci-fi series, but for Ayanna Howard it was a springboard to a career. When she was 12 years old, she became so captivated by the show's cyborg premise that she started reading books that reaffirmed the concept of integrating machines with humans. A thousand reruns and an electrical-engineering Ph.D. later, she's creating robots that think like humans for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. ... Three years ago, hoping to encourage others to follow in her footsteps, Howard launched a math-and-science mentoring program for at-risk junior high school girls. ... Howard hopes the program will help steer more young women into robotics, a field she says that within a decade will produce robots that mimic human thought processes. ... The Swarm Keeper - Metal Insects On Wheels. When James McLurkin was a high school junior on Long Island, N.Y., he built his first robot: a toy car that he rigged with a keypad, an LED display and a squirt gun. ... Now a graduate student in computer science at M.I.T., the young scientist is on the forefront of developing 'swarmbots'--packs of dozens of small robots that communicate with one another and work in harmony to complete an assignment. They have no centralized command system and can cover vast terrain; if one is destroyed, others fill in. ... Rescuer By Remote - Need Help? Send In The Robot. Within 24 hours of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Robin Murphy was on the scene with a team of robots to help sort through the debris. It was the first real-world test of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue in Tampa, Fla., the only unit of its kind on the planet. ... The Mimic Maker - The Android Who Learned To Dance. Mitsuo Kawato is fascinated with the brain -- so he helped build one. The biophysics engineer and computer researcher led a team at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International in Kyoto, Japan, that spent five years constructing a humanoid equipped with artificial intelligence. Completed in 2001, the 6-ft. 2-in., 175-lb. robot was named Dynamic Brain, or DB for short. Says Kawato: 'We built an artificial brain hoping that it'll help us understand the real one.' ... So far, the robot has acquired about 30 skills, including juggling, air hockey, yo-yoing, folk dancing and playing the drum."

September 2001: BBC News Online looks at the fantasy and the reality of AI. Be sure to see the Predicting AI's future article in this series.

back to The Future