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The Matrix... is now being built


seeder

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The London startup hoping to 'build the Matrix': Improbable reveals record breaking funding to 'simulate the real world'

    London firm Improbable  is developing software to build vast virtual worlds
    Hopes they will be used for everything from games to shared workspaces
    Is working with cities to simulate their entire infrastructure


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4497976/The-London-startup-hoping-make-Matrix.html#ixzz4gpJfBHQS


 

 

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Excellent post.  In the US, CDC has a couple of large simulations running to model spread of infectious diseases.  I think Cleveland is a city that has been modeled in detail. Neighborhoods, schools, social mixing, belief in vaccination, all population statistics are loaded for several hundred thousand people.  It includes where they live, work, shop, etc.  With supercomputers and virtual reality, we are getting closer all the time to viable and large simulated worlds.

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Well if it comes to understanding the spread of deadly diseases, I am all for it.  If it comes to modeling human behavior, there are scary implications, but it might help make the world better, too.

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6 minutes ago, Frank Merton said:

Well if it comes to understanding the spread of deadly diseases, I am all for it.  If it comes to modeling human behavior, there are scary implications, but it might help make the world better, too.

 

well combine that with this

 

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2 minutes ago, seeder said:

 

well combine that with this

 

My view of AI, at least for now, is that it is mostly hype and won't make hardly any difference at all.  

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1 minute ago, Frank Merton said:

My view of AI, at least for now, is that it is mostly hype and won't make hardly any difference at all.  

 

I imagine similar was thought of the internet in its early days. I watched all my friends get computers back in the mid to late 90's.....I resisted the temptation..... I just couldn't see any value in it at all. Serious. 

Now.....who can live without it?

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Just now, seeder said:

 

I imagine similar was thought of the internet in its early days. I watched all my friends get computers back in the mid to late 90's.....I resisted the temptation..... I just couldn't see any value in it at all. Serious. 

Now.....who can live without it?

I think AI is coming -- things like cars that drive themselves and translation software that actually translates -- but it will sneak up on us.  When someone issues a press release announcing something is AI, I smell hype.

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By the way, I was quite the opposite -- I'm 72 now and I remember back in high school when Texas Instruments came out with a programmable calculator -- one that could actually loop and branch and so on -- I was so eager to have one and learn to program it.

Unfortunately I had to go back to Vietnam and they wouldn't let me take it with me.

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Where Artificial Intelligence Is Now and What’s Just Around the Corner

Unexpected convergent consequences…this is what happens when eight different exponential technologies all explode onto the scene at once.

This post (the second of seven) is a look at artificial intelligence. Future posts will look at other tech areas.

An expert might be reasonably good at predicting the growth of a single exponential technology (e.g., the Internet of Things), but try to predict the future when A.I., robotics, VR, synthetic biology and computation are all doubling, morphing and recombining. You have a very exciting (read: unpredictable) future. This year at my Abundance 360 Summit I decided to explore this concept in sessions I called "Convergence Catalyzers."

For each technology, I brought in an industry expert to identify their Top 5 Recent Breakthroughs (2012-2015) and their Top 5 Anticipated Breakthroughs (2016-2018). Then, we explored the patterns that emerged.

https://singularityhub.com/2016/02/15/where-artificial-intelligence-is-now-and-whats-just-around-the-corner/


 

 

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I really don't see where AI will be able to do anything ordinary sequential code can't do (which is pretty amazing stuff) unless they learn more about how the human brain works -- a lot more.  What goes by AI now remains sequential code -- it is just that they code the machines to code themselves (partially) with a programmer stepping in every now and then when the thing gets into trouble, like an infinite loop.

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I'd use Virtual Reality to toss criminals into. And then monitor their activities. If they return to being a criminal in the Virtual World, then their jail time gets extended. If they reform, they get let out earlier. Use it to figure out who the repeat offenders and dangerous people are before returning them to society.

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I have to say, these sensationalist headlines get on my nerves sometimes.

Is a story about virtual worlds and complex simulations interesting? Sure.

Does the reality of current technology, or the scope of this project bear anything but a vague connection to the plot of The Matrix, or mean that we're in the process of building one? That would be a no.

On the point of AI too, one thing that always leaps out is that people are immediately looking to compare artificial intelligence with human intelligence. Obviously, intelligence that matches or surpasses our own is the endgame, but all AI essentially means is the ability to mimic intelligence with learning and decision making. This definition shifts with time. The Wikipedia page actually puts it quite succinctly:

"As machines become increasingly capable, mental facilities once thought to require intelligence are removed from the definition. For instance, optical character recognition is no longer perceived as an example of "artificial intelligence", having become a routine technology. Capabilities currently classified as AI include successfully understanding human speech, competing at a high level in strategic game systems (such as chess and Go), self-driving cars, intelligent routing in content delivery networks, military simulations, and interpreting complex data."

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30 minutes ago, LV-426 said:

I have to say, these sensationalist headlines get on my nerves sometimes.

Is a story about virtual worlds and complex simulations interesting? Sure.

Does the reality of current technology, or the scope of this project bear anything but a vague connection to the plot of The Matrix, or mean that we're in the process of building one? That would be a no.

 

Often, as in this case..... a story will use metaphors to get the idea across. 'The Matrix' might make people think of having yourself plugged into something via your neck and brain stem in order to learn Kung Fu in a short time.....but....in this case its just a metaphor, not to be taken literally, perhaps obviously.

But who knows where it will all lead?

 

 

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13 hours ago, seeder said:

 

I imagine similar was thought of the internet in its early days. I watched all my friends get computers back in the mid to late 90's.....I resisted the temptation..... I just couldn't see any value in it at all. Serious. 

Now.....who can live without it?

You weren't alone, even Bill Gates couldn't get his head around it until the mid-90's and then had to scramble to catch up. In the early 90's I remember him referring to it as a "fad". 

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7 hours ago, seeder said:

Often, as in this case..... a story will use metaphors to get the idea across. 'The Matrix' might make people think of having yourself plugged into something via your neck and brain stem in order to learn Kung Fu in a short time.....but....in this case its just a metaphor, not to be taken literally, perhaps obviously.

But who knows where it will all lead?

I know how the tabloid press work :P

Maybe I'm just extra grumpy today... :blush:

This line in particular though is just nonsense:

"A London firm is hoping to turn the world into a simulation, and make 'The Matrix' a reality."

Even if you ignore the dystopian plot of The Matrix, i.e. future machines go to war with humanity, win, then turn humans into a power source, plugged into a convincing virtual reality as a means of control - which hopefully nobody is actually planning to design - the state of VR right now is light years away from creating a fully-immersive, convincing experience on a small scale, let alone an entire world.

Don't get me wrong, VR finally becoming a reality in gaming, etc. is exciting. It's something that's been on the horizon for years, and processing power is now allowing it to become possible. We're still pushing the envelope on creating visually believable 3D environments though, let alone everything that would be required to simulate touch, movement, etc. - these guys aren't "making 'The Matrix' a reality", they're simply taking existing concepts and limited technology and looking to use it on a larger scale.

The Mail's article is like discussing "fire" and littering it with diagrams showing nuclear fusion...

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