Osmar Zaiane Kim Solez

 To introduce you to the basic elements of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data mining.  To introduce you to basic concepts of the influence of artificial intelligence on the exponential future, including the concept of unfriendly AI, and the technological Singularity.  To provide you with concrete examples of AI in everyday life and in medicine.

AI may seem like just another subject, but is likely the most important area addressed in this course  The technologic Singularity is crucially dependent on AI developments, unfriendly AI may represent the greatest existential risk out there.

AI is very important to the Singularity, but that does not mean that all AI researchers believe in the Singularity  It does not naturally follow that all AI researchers are believers in the Singularity.

You can read about AI in books, and you can experience it first hand which is more vivid  It is amazing how much of a "relationship“ you can strike up with the Sony Aibo robotic dog despite the fact production ended in Imagine what their capabilities would be today if Sony had continued developing them over the past 8 years!

There was much less interest in the Aibo in Canada than in the US  The only way I could get one in 2003 and 2004 was to fly to the US stay in a hotel just long enough for the product to be delivered and then fly back home, they were impossible to get in Canada after 2002 through regular Sony channels here as there was not a market among Canadian consumers.

They are “adult” toys. The ears and tail come off very easily  A child quickly deconstructs them to a point where they look quite ugly and incomplete. The main market in the US and Japan was affluent young women.

Asia will lead the way in development of robots for consumers  Most government investment in robotics in North America is in military robots, whereas the investment in Asia is in robots to care for the elderly and do household tasks. Most consumer developments in this area will probably come from Asia.

Blade Runner, classic 1982 movie, is part of everyone’s consciousness in this area  The replicants in the movie were products of genetic engineering, biology based flesh and blood beings, not silicon and circuit boards.

Very different from robots in the movie AI which are silicon based like the Aibo