Tech Shout!

In the next two decades, artificial intelligence portrayed in movies like ‘The Terminator’ or even ‘I, Robot’, could become a reality. A leading US inventor has predicted that machines will achieve human-level AI by the year 2030.

Dr. Ray Kurzweil, a known computer guru and scientific futurologist has said that there could be 32 times more technical progress during the next half century than there was in the entire 20th century. He feels that one of the outcomes could be that artificial intelligence would be on par with human intellect in the next 20 years to come.

He expressed his views while addressing the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston, saying that machines would rapidly overtake humans in their intellectual abilities and would soon be able to solve some of the most difficult problems of the 21st century.

In fact, Kerzweil happens to be one of the 18 new age thinkers who had been chosen to identify the greatest technological challenges facing humanity.

His prediction was based on the calculations that computer chips had been doubling in power every two years for the past 50 years. He also said that machines would far surpass human intelligence as they learnt how to communicate, teach and replicate among themselves.

“The paradigm shift rate is now doubling every decade, so the next half century will see 32 times more technical progress than the last half century. Computation, communication, biological technologies - for example, DNA sequencing - brain scanning, knowledge of the human brain, and human knowledge in general are all accelerating at an ever-faster pace, generally doubling price-performance, capacity and bandwidth every year,” Kurzweil was quoted as saying.

He also said that all this while, computers had been based on 2D chips made form silicon. However, in recent times, scientists have developed techniques to create 3D chips with enhanced performance. He also said that 3D chips could perhaps be constructed from biological molecules, which would enable them to be shrunk even more, when compared to metal-based computer chips.

Kurzweil further said that computers were on their way to creating a “post-human” world where a second, intelligent entity would exist alongside people.

Kurweil’s predictions surely sound like a scene straight out of a sci-fi futuristic flick. But, then again, with the rate that technology is advancing these days, you never know what to expect. Well, at least now we do know, all thanks to Dr. Ray Kurzweil.