In the future, computer uses you.

    In 1977 a company called the Tandy Corporation produced the world's first true, ready-to-use home computer. Tandy Corp called it the TRS-80 and came equipped with a monitor, keyboard and a cassette deck for reading and writing data. At the time it cost $600 for a  basic machine with the processing power of a calculator. To add some perspective, $600 in 1977 is approximately the equivalent of $2,400 dollars as of 2014.
    In these 37 years Tandy Corporation became RadioShack and technology has advanced to the point that most modern PC parts cost a mere fraction of the price of their earlier counterparts and come with hundreds of times the power. Given this exponential rise, it only makes sense that about 84% of people living in the US today, own a computer and use the internet. This growing trend actually means that computers are bound to become more powerful than the people making them.
    There's a field in computer science whose purpose is to design and improve ways to make computers "think". That is, their job is to create artificial intelligence. To clarify, most computers don't work by thinking in the same manner that a human would. When a person looks at an image their brain automatically and immediately extrapolates what's in that image, any actions being performed and, most likely, an opinion about the image. All a computer can do is take that image and understand it as a collection of tiny colored squares with no inherent meaning. Where a computer does excel is performing calculations at extreme speeds. A modern home computer can perform upwards for 3 billion operations in a single second. Imagine a computer that could process information at that speed and also be able to understand the subtext in images the way a person can. That is the goal of artificial intelligence.
    The field has been around for a long time and the idea even longer. Since it's inception, computer scientists and engineers have made humongous strides in AI and making computers behave in a similar manner to people. The science is advancing at an ever increasing speed and some people are worried that it might spiral out of control. There's actually already a computer that can identify objects in an image, perform a relationship analysis between these objects and then give the image a description in natural language (everyday conversation language). A few years ago all of these processes were considered to be beyond computers and strictly human actions. Many people consider this to be the first step in the right direction but some fear that it could become the proverbial Pandora's Box.
    Specifically the trepidation around AI seems to stem from an aspect that is inherent to it called machine learning. An AI is set up to perform an action and if it doesn't perform that action correctly, it learns from its mistake and uses that experience to perform better. Over millions of trials an AI can become exceedingly good at its given task. For example, the Deepmind AI can take on just about any Atari game and learn to how to beat it ... and then learn how to beat it better than any human could. People fear that an AI might learn to alter itself and become smarter at an exponential rate to the point that it would then be smarter than a human being in every way. Many people colloquially give this idea the term "The Singularity". You might even be familiar with this idea already. It plays a major role in the Terminator franchise as the main antagonist Skynet; the evil super-computer AI of the future that sends the Terminators back in time to kill John Connor.
    Elon Musk, perhaps one of the greatest minds of the 21st century and the man behind Tesla Motors and SpaceX believes that a Skynet-like situation is likely to occur in about five years time. This is a hell of a lot sooner than anybody  believed was possible but if you keep in mind that every year AI gets twice as smart, is it so far fetched? Firms are popping up all over to continue the push for bigger, better and stronger AI's. Google is acquiring AI companies left and right. The AI train is just going to keep accelerating into the future, to whatever end that may be.

Read my blog. You'll learn things.

My name is Alexander Krutt and I'm an undergrad at the University of New Haven, in Connecticut. I'm an English major hoping to enter the wide and bountiful world of science writing (everyone's favorite things right?) I'm starting this blog in order to get a taste and hopefully develop my skills in writing on scientific subjects. Pretty much all areas of science are incredibly fascinating to me but my skills naturally lend themselves more toward writing and journalism.

I've often been told that I have a natural ability to explain complex ideas in a way that many people can understand and I hope to put that talent to good use. Anybody interested in learning more about what the future has to offer in regards to science and technology should read this blog. Primarily I'll be posting about new advances and discoveries in science and technology that I think deserve more coverage. This most often will include things that I think will have the largest impact on human society such as advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, cosmological and astrophysical discoveries, space exploration tech, environmental discoveries and many other things along those lines.

I absolutely encourage that you leave feedback for me in any form you like. You can comment on the posts here on blogger or feel free to email me at themodprometheus@gmail.com