According to one of the world’s foremost AI scientists, computers could develop “common sense” and be considered as our friends within the next decade. Professor Geoff Hinton was hired by Google a few years ago to assist with the development of intelligent operating systems. He has stated that the multi-national corporation is on the brink of creating algorithms that are capable of natural conversation and logic. These algorithms have been described as ‘thought vectors’ and are designed to encode thoughts as number sequences.
It’s an exciting thought that technology and software could become more sophisticated and obtain the capacity for logic and reasoning. However, many scientists are extremely sceptical, arguing that it is impossible to capture a thought through numerical sequencing. Hinton, on the other hand, believes that it’s very possible.
This news is very similar to the plot-line of the movie “Her”, with its focus on the personal relationship between a man and his computer. Hilton has stated that this idea isn’t as far-fetched as it may seem. According to him, scientists in the field have already made a lot of progress regarding this challenge over the past two years. Most recently, a researcher at Stanford University, California, developed a program that could recognise human sentiment.
It will be interesting to see how human intelligence in artificial components develops further. Google are remaining tight-lipped about their progress, but industry experts have said that in a few years we could see this technology implemented into things we use every day, such as Facebook and Microsoft programs. One thing seems clear: a lot of development and research is still required before we see this technology become commercially available.