Friday, April 3, 2020

Human Level Artificial General Intelligence

Human-Level Artificial General Intelligence

Defining Artificial Intelligence (AI) is extremely tricky.  In fact, there is something called the "AI Effect" which defines AI as "anything that has not been done yet by computers".  The problem with this is that as soon as computers achieve this goal, it is no longer AI because the computer can do it.  The "AI Effect" is a paradox.

The Wikipedia page on AI is immense.  Take a moment to go through the first few paragraphs to get a general definition of what AI might be.  It could take months if not years to go through the whole page and understand everything that has been written about it there.


Below are three different chapters from three different books written by authors with three very different predictions about the future of Human-Level Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), commonly known as Artificial Intelligence.

Choose one or all three chapters if you like and after reading them, attempt any or all of the following investigations.


  1. Research how technological advances lead to cultural adaptations.
  2.  Identify some recent technological changes and describe how they affect individuals.
  3. Research, how various new technologies can affect social structures and interactions.
  4. Explain changes in the nature of work in Canada that come from technological change.


Here are the three chapters with short summaries of the chapters so you may choose what interests you most. 

This chapter from Max Tegmark's Life 3.0 (23 pages) is about a fictitious scenario where a Human-Level Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is created by a research team at a company and is slowly released to the world.  The chapter talks about many of the precautions that the team takes while slowly giving the AGI more access and power to control things in the real world.







This Chapter from the Singularity is Near (55 pages) by Ray Kurzweil talks about the many potential benefits to AGI.  The author hypothesized how we might come to harness and use AGI and the many things it may be able to do for us.




This chapter from Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence  (20 pages) discusses the many fears that individuals have around the development of AGI.   It poses many hypothetical situations and scenarios that could go wrong and how difficult it might be to prevent or stop them.



Wednesday, April 1, 2020

What is Zoonosis?

What is Zoonosis?

Take a look at the following resources.

Investigate the differences between Zoonosis diseases. Compare the information about infection rates, fatality rates, history of the speed the disease spread at and at what time era.

Research some of your own sources for information about Zoonosis diseases.  

Create some infographics to show different ways to compare Zoonosis type diseases that humanity has encountered in the past.  

Use this time and information to educate yourself about the current Health Pandemic and engage in conversation and try to educate some of the individuals you are "quarantined" with about the information you have learned.