EX MACHINA

Too cool...I suspect we will, or a smarter AI, will figure it out...how to build a superior humanoid bot....it's only a matter of time...I suppose at some time in the future it will be hard for an alien species to conclude which came first, the chicken(human), or the egg(humanoid bot)...An inferior species that created a superior species, maybe we are going backwards in time after all, and time's forward movement is just an illusion...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYGzRB4Pnq8

A probable misquote, but here goes " in the future the AIs will look upon us the same way we look at fossilize bones 50000 years old in Africa.

I can see why "they" always try to put a pretty face on machines that eventually go bonkers or make humanity question itself...

"What do you see when you close your eyes?"

Nothing...robots will not dream...no conscious or subconscious mind. Background processing is not a consciousness.

I watched Eva (2011 movie) a while back...which Ex Machina apparently ripped off or paid the original writer/producer for (main character Ava is no coincidence).

Deus ex machina...not likely

So, disclaimer, this is not my area of expertise, but I think we limit ourselves into thinking that the actuator array attached to the skeletal frame needs to be hyd/pnu-mechanical.

Why not electro-chemical... have we not advanced far enough in nano that we couldn't create some type of polymer nano-tube mass filled with some type of conductive gel that reacts to electrical current by either expansion or contraction?... E.g... a man-made muscle?

What's stopping this presently... the hysteresis limitations of present materials? Or am I totally missing the boat on the limitations of nano tech and polymers - or their application?

Like I said, this is not my area of... well, anything... but every example I've ever seen of a robotic is mechanical-actuator-based... is there anything out there electro-chemical?

Awesome! Thanks!

I haven't seen the film yet. I don't doubt that mechanically the human body couldn't be artificially created. I believe the Japanese have done some amazing things along this line.

https://www.youtube.comDhY/watch?v=fXaaprU9

As far as artificial intelligence is concerned, I think that given enough computing power, (and maybe a complicated enough state machine to simulate free will, emotions, etc) a simulation could fool everybody.

Having said that, I can easily believe that someday a machine could completely simulate another person's actions and reactions, and pass the "Turing Test". But I can't conceive of actually being a machine. A machine could simulate the 6 billion + people in the world minus 1 (me).

Could a machine be conscious? What is consciousness?

The following is purely my speculation:

Primitive organisms can sense their environment (food sources, etc). More complicated organisms develop nervous systems which can store "memories" and learn. At some point, the neural architecture becomes advanced enough that it can run scenarios (imagination), comparing these scenarios with what is sensed from the outside. (An example would be comparing the memory of the tiger eating your friend with the splotch of orange in the bushes.)

Maybe this is what consciousness is, and maybe a machine could do it.

You already are a machine, a biological machine...

OK, agreed, so can the same thing be done with semiconductors?

Who knows, maybe the next generation is destined to be a cyborg...or maybe a hive mind...or a combination...

...maybe we are the borg....

Could a machine be conscious? What is consciousness?Well in the movie she is programmed off of "bluebook" which is basically Google. All transfer of information on all accounts is given to her or it or whatever to program what is a consciousness.

If you see a bot staring at it's reflection in the mirror, and saying, "Hey,that's me"...it has most likely become self aware....

And there are two offstage mirrors, too!