I have blogged about artificial reality and the potential for human-like interactions. The movie Ex Machina available free on Amazon Prime was prescient as in its plot, Eva becomes seemingly aware of her situation through her interactions with Caleb as part of a Turing test.
Well, we just saw the parallel to this in real life when Saudi Arabia granted citizenship to a synthetic woman. View the USA Today story here.
Of course, this may be a stunt, but it is a singular event in our transitions using artificial intelligence. Admittedly, it has been a long time since we heard the request “Open the pod bay doors” to HAL in 2001 Space Odyssey.
Most computerization technology has been driven by military warfare. There is obviously a lot at risk here, so the concepts of drones and other ways to avoid the loss of life are key.
But, for those of you who think this is still a distant possibility for our world, you might like to remember that the same root driver is working here that brought about the commercialization of video tape recordings and many other digital innovations that were not driven by military desires. It may be illegal … it may be immoral … but it is alive and well throughout the world and there is a lot of money in this driver.
