Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures

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Tia Ghose | LiveScience

It's been the fodder for countless dystopian movies: a singularity in which artificial intelligence rivals human smarts.

But though it sounds like science fiction, many computer scientists say the singularity will arrive some time in the 21st century. Still, few people agree on what that future will look like. Some envision epic battles between robots and humans, while others believe the rise of super-intelligent machines will usher in human immortality.

From mass extinction to life extension, here are seven potential implications of super-smart robots.

Reason 5: Economy On Fire: Once machines can match human intelligence, it will be a simple matter of copying intelligent agent software, which is capable of programming an artificial mind, from one computer to the next to create more workers for the economy. Whereas the economy doubled every thousand years after the agricultural revolution, and every 15 years after the industrial revolution, a post-singularity economy could double every month, then week, Hanson said. That blistering pace of economic growth could be so fast that humans couldn't

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