I am not praising China because I want to emulate their system. I am praising it because I am worried about my system. In deliberately spotlighting China’s impressive growth engine, I am hoping to light a spark under America.
Thomas Friedman, Too Many Hamburgers? in the NYTimes
In the early 20th century, Europe decided that a high school education would be wasted on the masses. The United States instead made high school universal, and its newly skilled work force helped build everything from the hugely productive factories of the Midwest to modern Hollywood to the world’s most innovative retail and technology sectors.
Over the long term, the best response to the current downturn, by far, would be for the country to regain the global lead in education.
Of course, that will take years, maybe decades.
David Leonhardt, “For Those With Jobs, a Recession With Benefits“, NYTimes
The researchers…generally discounted the possibility of highly centralized superintelligences and the idea that intelligence might spring spontaneously from the Internet. But they agreed that robots that can kill autonomously are either already here or will be soon. [NYTimes.com]
The article isn’t all that scary, though the fact that this type of conversation is now necessary is telling about the types of technology already available worldwide. The conversation (which actually happened about 6 months ago in Feb ’09) was focused on setting research limits (no doubt to stop researchers from truly making a man-eating self powered robot that Fox News is so scared of. I’ll be scared of it too when it’s coming after me for it’s next pit stop.
It continues though and ends ironically that Artificial Intelligence could actually make up for human short comings,
Dr. Horvitz said he was hopeful that artificial intelligence research would benefit humans, and perhaps even compensate for human failings. He recently demonstrated a voice-based system that he designed to ask patients about their symptoms and to respond with empathy. When a mother said her child was having diarrhea, the face on the screen said, “Oh no, sorry to hear that.”
A physician told him afterward that it was wonderful that the system responded to human emotion. “That’s a great idea,” Dr. Horvitz said he was told. “I have no time for that.” [same article]
And by “failings” he apparently meant ability to interact and emphasize with other people. Er…maybe that Dr. was a robot already.