re-read some old books
Science fiction stuff ~ Vernor Vinge's work comes to mind these days. A Fire upon the Deep, True Names, etc. He frequently deals with a problem called the technological singularity. The premise of the problem is humans will continue developing better and better computers and processors - the military and economic benefits ensure that this occurs - and at some point, it is inevitable that an ultra-intelligence is created.
An ultra-intelligence is the last invention that mankind need make : since it surpasses humanity intellectually, it will continue to develop smarter and smarter machines on its own. Humanity is left far behind in the scheme of things : perhaps to an ultra-intelligence, the human limited intelligence is perhaps how we perceive the limited intelligence of a cockroach.
Computing power is actually all the power you need. Almost everything will be networked and computer aided : given vast computation capability, it would be possible to hack into and infiltrate and control almost every aspect of the world if you wanted. A person, or computer program, with infinite computing resources would have infinite power, practically a God.
A few authors believe this state of affairs is inevitable. Of course there are critics - computer intelligence is not the same as human intelligence - if you gave a dog mind 10 minutes to solve a problem, would that be equal to a human spending 1 minute on it? But scale that infinitely - say would 100 years of dog mind thinking equal any quantity of human thought - and the answer becomes less clear.
Hard science authors grapple with this problem. Asimov's robots are constrained to the 4 laws of robotics - so in his version of the future, humanity has created ultra-intelligences and then crippled them to be forever humans slaves. But these safeguards are designed by normal intelligences - and it is plausible that after a sufficiently long time, an ultra-intelligence might be able to manipulate its human captors to free it! In Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep, ultra-intelligences are only able to operate in certain zones of the galaxy due to the nature of how physics works in his universe.
This has consciously or perhaps unconsciously affected a lot of other Science Fiction universes. Thinking and self aware machines are expressly forbidden in the Dune universe, for example. Also in the Warhammer 40k universe. Star Wars does not seem to have a problem with self aware devices as far as I know, but then again Star Wars hardly counts as hard sci to begin with. I remember finding the comic relief provided by C3PO and R2D2 very amusing, which is a fair contrast to the sinister scenario painted by the technological singularity.
An ultra-intelligence is the last invention that mankind need make : since it surpasses humanity intellectually, it will continue to develop smarter and smarter machines on its own. Humanity is left far behind in the scheme of things : perhaps to an ultra-intelligence, the human limited intelligence is perhaps how we perceive the limited intelligence of a cockroach.
Computing power is actually all the power you need. Almost everything will be networked and computer aided : given vast computation capability, it would be possible to hack into and infiltrate and control almost every aspect of the world if you wanted. A person, or computer program, with infinite computing resources would have infinite power, practically a God.
A few authors believe this state of affairs is inevitable. Of course there are critics - computer intelligence is not the same as human intelligence - if you gave a dog mind 10 minutes to solve a problem, would that be equal to a human spending 1 minute on it? But scale that infinitely - say would 100 years of dog mind thinking equal any quantity of human thought - and the answer becomes less clear.
Hard science authors grapple with this problem. Asimov's robots are constrained to the 4 laws of robotics - so in his version of the future, humanity has created ultra-intelligences and then crippled them to be forever humans slaves. But these safeguards are designed by normal intelligences - and it is plausible that after a sufficiently long time, an ultra-intelligence might be able to manipulate its human captors to free it! In Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep, ultra-intelligences are only able to operate in certain zones of the galaxy due to the nature of how physics works in his universe.
This has consciously or perhaps unconsciously affected a lot of other Science Fiction universes. Thinking and self aware machines are expressly forbidden in the Dune universe, for example. Also in the Warhammer 40k universe. Star Wars does not seem to have a problem with self aware devices as far as I know, but then again Star Wars hardly counts as hard sci to begin with. I remember finding the comic relief provided by C3PO and R2D2 very amusing, which is a fair contrast to the sinister scenario painted by the technological singularity.