This post is a discussion of Nick Bostrom's book "Superintelligence". The book has had an effect on the thinking of many of the world's thought leaders. In that light, and given this series of blog posts is about the "Future of AI", it seemed important to read the book and discuss his ideas. In an ideal world, this post would certainly have contained more summaries of the books arguments and perhaps a later update will improve on that aspect. For the moment the review focuses on counter-arguments and perceived omissions (the post already got too long with just covering those). Bostrom considers various routes we have to forming intelligent machines and what the possible outcomes might be from developing such technologies. He is a professor of philosophy but has an impressive array of background degrees in areas such as mathematics, logic, philosophy and computational neuroscience. So let's start at the beginning and put the book in context by trying to understand what is meant by the term "superintelligence" In common with many contributions to the debate on artificial intelligence, Bostrom never defines what he means by intelligence. Obviously, this can be problematic. On the other hand, superintelligence is defined as outperforming humans in every intelligent capability that they express. Personally, I've developed the following definition of intelligence: "Use of information to take decisions which save energy". Here by information I might mean data or facts or rules, and by saving energy I mean saving'free' energy.1 However, accepting Bostrom's lack of definition of intelligence (and perhaps taking note of my own), we can still consider the routes to superintelligence Bostrom proposes.

Technicians from the SWIFT global financial network connecting it to Bangladesh's central bank made it easier for hackers to attack the bank, Bangladeshi police and a bank official have told Reuters. The technicians worked on Bangladesh's Real-time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system, used to transfer money among Bangladeshi banks, three months before hackers attempted to steal US 951 million from the central bank. The work opened up "a lot of loopholes" in bank computer systems, said the head of the criminal investigation department leading the investigation. Bangladeshi police want to interview the SWIFT technicians to find out whether their actions were intentional or negligent, Mohammad Shah Alam told Reuters. Police and bank officials told the news agency that a number of actions last October left the bank more vulnerable after the RTGS system was set up and connected to the SWIFT network, which provides messaging services to around 11,000 financial institutions worldwide. SWIFT staff declined to speak to Reuters about the allegations, and did not immediately respond to requests from IDG News Service for comment.

Nintendo says the new material is inspired by Super Mario World, Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine. As the player, you can choose to dress up as iconic characters including Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach, or mischievous foes like Bowser and Wario. My personal favourite is Toad in his delightful Treasure Tracker gear. With a flashlight on his bonnet, he seems perfect for some subterranean mining. The house of Mario will also be launching a retail version of Minecraft: Wii U Edition on June 17th, which will cost 29.99 and come with the Super Mario pack on the disc.

As a masters student exploring artificial intelligence at Stanford University almost 30 years ago, Reed Hastings no doubt had an eye on where the future might take him. But of all the scenarios he imagined for his career, it's highly unlikely that any of them included the one that unfolded this past week: strolling the red carpet in the south of France, rubbing shoulders with some of the country's most glamorous actors and actresses, and fielding questions about his role as a global media kingpin. It's a future the CEO of Netflix says he couldn't even have predicted five years ago, when the company was still primarily shipping DVDs to customers in the U.S. while grappling with its emerging video streaming service. Even now, the Internet continues to scramble the game so fast that Hastings said his company is racing to keep up with all the changes. When asked, he didn't even want to hazard a guess as to where Netflix might be five years from now. "We don't really know," Hastings said.

Come for the Jolly Green Giant-sized Mario, stay for the official Super Mario-themed world. Nintendo and Mojang just announced they're joining hands to bring the Kyoto publisher's famed plumbers, koopas, exploding POW Blocks and more to Minecraft: Wii U Edition on May 17. And the best part: the new content is completely free. It's called the "Super Mario Mash-Up Pack," and includes a pre-made world and music inspired by Super Mario series games like Super Mario World, Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine. Nintendo has also included 40 Super Mario-themed skins (plays as Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Bowser, Wario, the Koopalings and so forth), and completely retextured the game to resemble the iconic series.

It's been rumoured for months, but on Friday, Electronic Arts confirmed that the next title in its Battlefield series of military shooters will be set during the first world war. While the rival Call of Duty titles have been marching ever further into the future, Battlefield 1 is an attempt to re-engage with fans of the genre, who fell for titles like Battlefield 1942, Medal of Honor and the original Call of Duty games with their depiction of historically authentic scenarios. "This was the dawn of all-out war, the switch from the old world to the new world," says creative director Lars Gustavsson. "Battlefield has always been about the land, sea and air war experience. This was something we had to do." According to Gustavsson, this project has been bubbling under for several years, though when Battlefield 4 came to a close, it gave the team the opportunity to start on something new.

'Colonel Sanders is raising a robot army to serve fried chicken at a restaurant near you. KFC's first automated restaurant, called Original, went live in Shanghai on April 25th, complete with an artificially intelligent robot manager named "Du Mi" who works at the front counter. According to Chinese news outlet Sohu, "'Du Mi' marks the first commercial use of artificial intelligence in the fast food industry. The artificial intelligence robot was launched by China's leading web services company Baidu during its World Conference in 2015."'

SK C&C has continued Korea's efforts to increase the usage and adoption of cloud computing within the region, announcing a new strategic alliance with IBM focused on the Watson cognitive computing platform. As part of the agreement, IBM will train Watson to understand and comprehend Korean, and South Korea-based developers will create a number of localized API's and services to increase adoption rates of such advanced cloud computing technologies in the region. Korean will be Watson's eighth language, lining up with English, French, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, and Arabic. "Watson remains at the forefront of cognitive computing: advanced systems that learn at scale, understand with meaning, reason with purpose and interact with humans in natural ways," said David Kenny, GM for IBM Watson. "The South Korean marketplace is moving quickly to embrace the disruptive opportunities from next generation technology.

I met Mr. Lee in Taiping, China, circa 1993. He managed "Warehouse B," a massive structure that stored over 3,000 reusable tools and dies. A humble man, he sat quietly at his high-top desk in a simple button-down shirt and black slacks. His workers treated him with the respect you might reserve for a beloved grandfather, each literally running to do his bidding before he would even finish a gently delivered request. His ledgers were meticulously neat.

I never learned anything in the Saturday-morning Chinese school I was forced to attend as a child, but that's not what motivates my choice here. There were plenty of reasons for my poor performance in those classes--my resentment at having to miss the "Super Friends" cartoon being just one of them--so I don't blame Chinese characters for my failure. No, my objection is a practical one: I'm a fan of literacy, and Chinese characters have been an obstacle to literacy for millennia. With a phonetic writing system like an alphabet or a syllabary, you need only learn a few dozen symbols and you can read most everything printed in a newspaper. With Chinese characters, you have to learn three thousand.