ANALYZING… FILE TYPE: Audio Book Transcript PERIOD: Pre-Expedition SPEAKER[S]: Strauss, B. [ID: BSTR] TOPIC: On AI, by Dr. Bernard H. Strauss SUMMARY: A partial transcript from On AI, first published in 2472. Audio book read by the author. =================================================================== [BSTR]: What they considered artificial intelligence in the twentieth century, and even deep into the twenty-first, was mimicry. Not true intelligence, but rather a cleverly placed mirror. Essentially, a string of shortcut machines built using shortcuts, then, casually branded with the market-friendly label, "A-I". [BSTR]: The science I would eventually build my life around could have easily been assimilated into a lesser application of its potential. Lost forever to a simple but ever-insidious mandate, "sell the product, establish the habit, build the brand." [BSTR]: To my predecessors' credit… and despite their "smoke-and-mirror" approach to the science of Artificial Intelligence… The habit was built and a level of comfort, even eagerness, for innovations in "thinking" technologies exploded across public consciousness. [BSTR]: These "pioneers" of the prior centuries released a genie from its bottle. Never mind it was the wrong genie, utilizing the wrong applications, and wearing an identity that promised a future far beyond anything its masters cared to explore. [BSTR]: Never mind the moral and ethical malfeasance of their operations or intentions. [BSTR]: Never mind the scientific high ground… Because as public interest morphed into a public passion and that passion grew to become public need… The floodgates of funding opened into a deluge of monies, unlocking global research, and leading to advancements which, in turn, provided opportunities. And from opportunity, we saw breakthrough after breakthrough. [BSTR]: Looking back, we can trace the cause and effect… From grifters and corporate profiteers to scientists in their labs. From servers in desert farms and orbital platforms to the wonder and tragedy of Traxus-IV. From mimicry to the potential—the inspiring promise—of the family suite. [BSTR]: Today? We are closer than ever to practical applications of real-world Artificial Intelligence, but it will take a cognitive leap to solve the problem of converting accessible knowledge to free, rational agency. [BSTR]: This so-called eureka moment still eludes even our most powerful Machine Intelligences, though some have come close… To not only demonstrate the capacity to provide an answer, or recognize a problem, but to ask the question—to comprehend that there are "unknown unknowns." [BSTR]: This is our goal. [BSTR]: With enough time and patience we will someday solve for the ontological impossibilities of our ambitions and provide an evolutionary leap from computational thought to sentient consideration and the application of knowledge understood as experience gained from a life lived. [END TRANSCRIPT] =================================================================== TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [ ]