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[Andreas]

She's a droid. Droids have been shown to be the equal people in a large part of the solar system (in fact, I think that was mentioned a number of times), they are considered people, and can have sexual roles (like that droid in the transporter they took), and can otherwise do and be anything a human can do and be.

Our dynamic duo even had severe concerns that their EMP attack on the attacking ship might have killed droids on board.

It's clear that in this world, droids are people too.

Figures, if they can have feelings and thought, what sets them apart from us? We are all biological machines, after all. Just look at mitochondria...

[Frank Bieser]

Figures, if they can have feelings and thought, what sets them apart from us? We are all biological machines, after all. Just look at mitochondria...

It's all about the moral agency.

[Scott]

In Book 2 of this saga, (which should start around the middle of this summer) we'll find out a lot more about Artifolk ("Droids" is a Star Wars term and I prefer not to use it), and the history of their relationships with their fleshy creators. And why they are not allowed to be free on Huoxing.

[Spudd86]

Indeed, I think we're going to be seeing a lot of task-specific AIs before a truly generalized AI shows up.

You may be interested in OpenCog, from the project website:

No challenge today is more important than creating beneficial artificial general intelligence (AGI), with broad capabilities at the human level and ultimately beyond. OpenCog is an open-source software initiative aimed at directly confronting that challenge.

The intend to have a system that can do artificial learning and conduct biology experiments in a few years (2017-2018)

Creation of an OpenCog-based artificial scientist, operating a small molecular biology laboratory on its own, designing its own experiments and operating the equipment and analyzing the results and describing them in English.

Full on human level AI in 2019-2021.

Then after that a version that can self-improve (as in work on it's own code) (2021-2023)

Also note that this project is not vapourware they have actual software already and it can do stuff, it also has real AI experts working on it, so it actually has some chance of achieving it's goals (On schedule or not is another thing entirely)

Edited to fix a typo

[myrkul999]

Indeed, I think we're going to be seeing a lot of task-specific AIs before a truly generalized AI shows up.

You may be interested in OpenCog, from the project website:

No challenge today is more important than creating beneficial artificial general intelligence (AGI), with broad capabilities at the human level and ultimately beyond. OpenCog is an open-source software initiative aimed at directly confronting that challenge.

The intend to have a system that can do artificial learning and conduct biology experiments in a few years (2017-2018)

Creation of an OpenCog-based artificial scientist, operating a small molecular biology laboratory on its own, designing its own experiments and operating the equipment and analyzing the results and describing them in English.

Full on human level AI in 2019-2021.

Then after that a version that can self-improve (as it work on it's own code) (2021-2023)

Also note that this project is not vapourware they have actual software already and it can do stuff, it also has real AI experts working on it, so it actually has some chance of achieving it's goals (On schedule or not is another thing entirely)

Mildly frightening... but exciting at the same time.

[Andreas]

"Hey, come down to the lab monitoring station, the AI says it has something to show us."
"Hi Al, what did you want us to see?" (Al is short for Albert, of course).
"IT.IS.ALREADY.WITH.YOU"