“The Teenies”, 2009-12-28 (; backlinks; similar):
…Machine learning will grow in importance due to ever increasing quantities of data, computer power, and better algorithms. It mostly won’t be publicly seen, however, much like how it’s heavily used in Google and a few financial and pharmaceutical companies at the moment.
Significant progress will be made in understanding the brain. We will have a rough high level sketch of how the brain works, and some of its processes we will understand quite well. We probably still won’t understand cortical function very well, that will take longer.
More groups will start AGI projects, particularly from 2015 onwards. These groups will become increasingly mainstream, serious and well funded. This will be driven by faster computers, better machine learning algorithms and a better understanding of the brain’s architecture. Some of these groups will produce small AGIs that will learn to do some interesting things, but they will be nowhere near human level intelligence. They will, however, be preparing the way for this. Concern at the dangers of artificial intelligence will become less fringe but it won’t go mainstream.
In short, I’m predicting a bigger brighter expanded version of the last few years—nothing particularly radical. I think the real importance of the teenies will be to lay the foundations for more important things to come.
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