Entrepreneurial IT in the Age of Smart Machines

Selmer Bringsjord
Director, Minds & Machines Lab
Department of Philosophy, Psychology & Cognitive Science
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy NY 12180 USA
selmer@rpi.edu www.rpi.edu/$\sim$brings

9.23.99

Don't Bury Your Head in the Sand!

• Some say: ``AI is dead." (Or: ``AI is dying.")
• This is due to either self-deception or what Turing -- the grandfather of computer science and AI -- called the ``head in the sand" reaction to the prospect of smart machines

The Decade Past Says It All, No?

• Deep Blue
• Robbins Problem solved by a machine
• Gödel's theorems proved by a machine
• $\vdots$
• and AI has ``mainstreamed"
  • artificial agents on the Web (e.g., JANGO)
  • handwriting recognition (from Richmond Square to PDAs)
  • computer gaming and AI
  • $\vdots$

Indeed, Predictions:

• Hans Moravec claims in Robot that by 2040 humans, all humans, will be unemployed
• cognoscenti who resist such ``optimism" resist only because they think the date should be later $\ldots$ see Discover magazine
• IT entrepreneurs take note:
  • Negroponte is doubtless correct that 100,000 people would pay $100,000 for a household robot, but
  • robotics has a very high barrier to entry

NASA Agrees; Hollywood Agrees

• see NASA's DS1 and plans for future HAL-like immobots
• Have you seen The Matrix? It's right out of Moravec's book

• Are we machines? -- we are drawn irresistably to tackle this question

And Yet$\ldots$

• What about creativity? Can computing machines be genuinely creative?
• Well, artificial agents at Amazon.com will sell you Bringsjord's just-published AI and Literary Creativity -- and make smart recommendations about what else you should buy

What About Us, Here? What About AI & Education?

• Distance Education may well mark the dawn of automated education
• Do we really need 2,500 teachers of Logic 101?
  • CSLI's ``Grade Grinder"
• If education is as large a market as (e.g.) Milken says it is, entrepreneurs will be jumping in with smart machines
• And the opportunities in high-stakes testing are enormous
  • do you know about the GMAT essay grader?