Artificial Intelligence Machines Operating at 4-Year-Old Level

It appears that the threat of a worldwide takeover by artificial intelligence machines is not yet a reality, unless you consider 4 year olds an impending threat.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) recently IQ tested one of the "best available" AI systems. As it turns out, it's about as smart as a 4-year-old kid.
ConceptNet 4, an MIT-developed AI system, was put through Pre-K boot camp, running the verbal portions of the Weschsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence Test — a standard IQ assessment for young children. According to the UIC, the super-smart computer scored uneven marks across different portions of the test — a red flag for most kids.
"If a child had scores that varied this much, it might be a symptom that something is wrong," Robert Sloan, lead author of the study and the head of computer science at UIC, said in a statement.
While ConceptNet 4 tested well in vocabulary and the ability to recognize similarities, it did dramatically worse than average on comprehension — the "why" questions, Sloan said.



So how will "HAL, Jr." here break through? Maybe by utilizing molecular or quantum power, as opposed to silicon?


Tweaking Moore's Law: Computers of the Post-Silicon Era

Years ago, we physicists predicted the end of Moore’s Law that says a computer power doubles every 18 months. But we also, on the other hand, proposed a positive program. Perhaps molecular computers, quantum computers can takeover when silicon power is exhausted. But then the question is, what’s the timeframe? What is a realistic scenario for the next coming years? Well, first of all, in about ten years or so, we will see the collapse of Moore’s Law. In fact, already, already we see a slowing down of Moore’s Law. Computer power simply cannot maintain its rapid exponential rise using standard silicon technology. Intel Corporation has admitted this. In fact, Intel Corporation is now going to three-dimensional chips, chips that compute not just flatly in two dimensions but in the third dimension. But there are problems with that. The two basic problems are heat and leakage. That’s the reason why the age of silicon will eventually come to a close. No one knows when, but as I mentioned we already now can see the slowing down of Moore’s Law, and in ten years it could flatten out completely. So what is the problem? The problem is that a Pentium chip today has a layer almost down to 20 atoms across, 20 atoms across. When that layer gets down to about 5 atoms across, it’s all over. You have two effects. Heat--the heat generated will be so intense that the chip will melt. You can literally fry an egg on top of the chip, and the chip itself begins to disintegrate And second of all, leakage--you don’t know where the electron is anymore. The quantum theory takes over.