WatchIBM has revealed the biggest artificial brain of all time, a simulation run by a 147,456-processor supercomputer that requires millions of watts of electricity and over 150,000 gigabytes of memory. The brain simulation is a feat for neuroscience and computer processing—but it's still one-eighty-third the speed of a human brain and is only as large as a cat's.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/extreme-machines/4337190
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On one hand, we have 8% unemployment rate.
On another hand, the big companies spend billions of dollars to make a brain which is worse than a human brain.
Why don't the big companies to use that billions of dollars to hire some real people with real brain.
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The future has not been written. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. I wish I could believe that. My name is John Connor, they tried to murder me before I was born, when I was 13 they tried again. Machines from the future. Terminators. All my life my mother told me the storm was coming, Judgment Day, the beginning of the war between man and machines. Three billion lives would vanish in an instant, and I would lead what was left of the human race to ultimate victory. It hasn't happened, no bombs fell, computers didn't take control, we stopped Judgment Day. I should feel safe, but I don't, so I live off the grid - no phone, no address, no one and nothing can find me. I've erased all connections to the past, but as hard as I try I can't erase my dreams, my nightmares.
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The current technology is no way close to sci fi in the movie.
With all the outsourcing, I will not see this kind technology in my life time.
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Vicente says
I envision his Mother wearing anti gravity boots !
Machines have been teaching other machines for decades. Yet we are still feeding ourselves as opposed to some voice recognition system opening a solenoid to our Intravenous feed bag.
I will start looking over my shoulder when a binary machine can interpret the meaning of "Mary had a little lamb".
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Ironically it is terrified of a mouse, and is distracted and plays chase with other pointing devices. And likes to deposit secret Cat turds in the linen closet.
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Dan8267 says
The brain spends most of its time riding invisible bicycles and can hasing cheezeburgers.
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Articles a bit dated (2009) - wonder how much progress they've made.
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I understand now why there are a lot of people who were unemployed. To think that machines are just made by men, I feel bad to hear that machines now replace the work of men.
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penelopeB says
No, actually that's not the reason so many people are unemployed.
When Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, he had hoped that it would end slavery since one man could now do the work of many. Instead, it dramatically increased slavery because one slave was so much more profitable.
Similarly, machines, including computers and software, have only greatly increased the productivity of the American worker. Since our economy strives to maximize wealth creation, you would expect, like in the case of the cotton gin, that demand for labor would go up since it's so much more profitable now.
There are three reasons unemployment is so high right now. The first is that jobs have been outsourced to places where workers are basically slaves earning barely enough to eat. Many workers in China, where our jobs were sent, live in caves, literally. They are literally cave men. And it is precisely because corporations can abuse workers in China and other third world nations that our corporations have massively fired American and European workers and hired, or rather rent, slave workers in third world nations.
The second reason unemployment is so high is that those American workers who are employed are working massive amounts of unpaid overtime, quite typically 50-75% in IT and as high as 80 hours a week. If it weren't for this unpaid overtime forced on the employed under threat of being fired, there would be almost twice as many jobs out there.
The third reason unemployment is so high is that worker wages have been squeezed to the point where the working, middle class simply does not have disposable income. Most households are living paycheck to paycheck and even a brief period of unemployment would cause them to become homeless. Without basic financial security or disposable income, households can't buy and thus production decreases and there are fewer jobs here.
In conclusion, don't blame computers for the unemployment. Blame executives. They are the ones squeezing their employees and replacing workers with economic slaves overseas.
Computers and software, in contrast, has opened up vast economic opportunities. There is more money to be made due to the Internet today than during the go-go days of the 1990s. We should be in an economic boom time. The fact that we are in a depression instead is a testament to how much financial parasites and the ruling 0.1% can destroy our economy with zero-sum games and short-term greed.