Collision: Contemplating the singularity and discussing suicide with a robot - BloomReach

Silicon Valley veteran Jerry Kaplan came to the Collision tech conference in New Orleans to talk about artificial intelligence, human intelligence, the likelihood of singularity and the future of technology and our lives. But his message was a little more tangible than all that: Don't let the hype around artificial intelligence distract you from the tremendous opportunities and potential pitfalls that lie before us as human beings. We are a long way away from humans merging with machines or machines taking over human existence. "We need to get rid of, in this field, this gee-whiz, apocalyptic gloss," Kaplan, an artificial intelligence pioneer who co-founded Go and Onsale, said speaking from the conference's main stage. "I'm not worried about super-intelligent machines or whether I'm going to live long enough to be uploaded into cyberspace. Such concerns only distract us from the real threats and opportunities that mankind is likely to face."