Artificial brain designer and theoretical physicist Prof. Hugo de Garis raised the issue of whether humanity should build godlike intelligent machines. Because of technological advances, he foresees a time in this century when artificial intelligence can be developed at the atomic level, and an object the size of an apple could surpass human brain capacity to the trillionth power.

At this point, he believes humanity will break into two groups. The Cosmists, who want to build these massively intelligent machines, and the Terrans who are against it. A third, smaller faction, he labeled as the Cyborgists, who want to merge with the artificial intelligence. Prof. de Garis believes the conflict between the Cosmists and the Terrans will be so extreme that wars could be fought over the issue.

The machines he called "artilects," may become so massively intelligent, said de Garis, that they would regard humanity, in the same way we look at insects, and they could be so powerful as to create their own universes. He boiled it down to the question: Do we build gods or do we build our potential exterminators? In an on-the-spot Fast Blast poll that was conducted, 56% sided with the Terrans, and 44% with the Cosmists.

Hugo & the Brain Machine

Seen in the photo (click for larger) is Prof. Hugo de Garis and the CBM (CAM Brain Machine), which was used tobuild artificial brains (1997-2001). "It evolved neuralnet circuits at electronic speeds. These were storedin the memory of the CBM one by one, and thenconnected together according to the designs of humanBAs (brain architects) to build artificial brains. TheCBM was then used to run the neural signaling of theartificial brain in real time to control the behaviorsof robots, etc," de Garis explained.

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