Hugo de Garis - Interview 2011

http://profhugodegaris.wordpress.com/
Species Dominance (Should Human Beings or Massively Intelligent Machines Be Dominant Species?)

It is becoming clear that the years 2011-2014 are when the issue of "Species Dominance" (i.e. whether humanity should build artilects (artificial intellects) this century or not) is going mainstream. In January of 2011, Ray Kurzweil was on the cover of Time magazine. Ray's movie "Transcendent Man" on the singularity (when technical change is so fast, it seems almost instantaneous, e.g. when artilects reach human intelligence level) is now in the movie theaters, History Channel's "Prophets of Doom" had me talking about the rise of the artilect in February of 2011, and Discovery Channel made a program (with me, Ben Goertzel, Michio Kaku, etc) on the species dominance theme in June of 2011 called "When Robots Rule" which is to be aired in 2012.

The big news is that Stephen Spielberg is currently (2012) directing a movie called "Robopocalypse" to be released 2013. I have been made the technical advisor of a major movie studio on a similar project. Since I signed an NDA (non disclosure agreement) Im not allowed to say more than that.

Thus with major movies coming out soon on themes related to species dominance, it is expected by 2014, this issue will be on billions of people's minds. It will have become truly "main stream." The next step will be when the species dominance debate starts to heat up, as the issue becomes more and more real to people when they see that the level of artificial intelligence keeps rising and rising. By 2014, it is probable that average educated people will be as aware of the species dominance issue as they are today of the climate change issue.