AI - What Is Superintelligence AI? Is Artificial Superintelligence Possible?

 

 

In its most common use, the phrase "superintelligence" refers to any degree of intelligence that at least equals, if not always exceeds, human intellect, in a broad sense.

Though computer intelligence has long outperformed natural human cognitive capacity in specific tasks—for example, a calculator's ability to swiftly interpret algorithms—these are not often considered examples of superintelligence in the strict sense due to their limited functional range.

In this sense, superintelligence would necessitate, in addition to artificial mastery of specific theoretical tasks, some kind of additional mastery of what has traditionally been referred to as practical intelligence: a generalized sense of how to subsume particulars into universal categories that are in some way worthwhile.

To this day, no such generalized superintelligence has manifested, and hence all discussions of superintelligence remain speculative to some degree.

Whereas traditional theories of superintelligence have been limited to theoretical metaphysics and theology, recent advancements in computer science and biotechnology have opened up the prospect of superintelligence being materialized.

Although the timing of such evolution is hotly discussed, a rising body of evidence implies that material superintelligence is both possible and likely.

If this hypothesis is proved right, it will very certainly be the result of advances in one of two major areas of AI research: 

1. Bioengineering 
2. Computer science

The former involves efforts to not only map out and manipulate the human DNA, but also to exactly copy the human brain electronically through full brain emulation, also known as mind uploading.

The first of these bioengineering efforts is not new, with eugenics programs reaching back to the seventeenth century at the very least.

Despite the major ethical and legal issues that always emerge as a result of such efforts, the discovery of DNA in the twentieth century, together with advances in genome mapping, has rekindled interest in eugenics.

Much of this study is aimed at gaining a better understanding of the human brain's genetic composition in order to manipulate DNA code in the direction of superhuman intelligence.

Uploading is a somewhat different, but still biologically based, approach to superintelligence that aims to map out neural networks in order to successfully transfer human intelligence onto computer interfaces.

• The brains of insects and tiny animals are micro-dissected and then scanned for thorough computer analysis in this relatively new area of study.

• The underlying premise of whole brain emulation is that if the brain's structure is better known and mapped, it may be able to copy it with or without organic brain tissue.

Despite the fast growth of both genetic mapping and whole brain emulation, both techniques have significant limits, making it less likely that any of these biological approaches will be the first to attain superintelligence.

The genetic alteration of the human genome, for example, is constrained by generational constraints.

Even if it were now feasible to artificially boost cognitive functioning by modifying the DNA of a human embryo (which is still a long way off), it would take an entire generation for the changed embryo to evolve into a fully fledged, superintelligent human person.

This would also imply that there are no legal or moral barriers to manipulating the human DNA, which is far from the fact.

Even the comparatively minor genetic manipulation of human embryos carried done by a Chinese physician as recently as November 2018 sparked international outrage (Ramzy and Wee 2019).

Whole brain emulation, on the other hand, is still a long way off, owing to biotechnology's limits.

Given the current medical technology, the extreme levels of accuracy necessary at every step of the uploading process are impossible to achieve.

Science and technology currently lack the capacity to dissect and scan human brain tissue with sufficient precision to produce full brain simulation results.

Furthermore, even if such first steps are feasible, researchers would face significant challenges in analyzing and digitally replicating the human brain using cutting-edge computer technology.

Many analysts believe that such constraints will be overcome, although the timeline for such realizations is unknown.

Apart from biotechnology, the area of AI, which is strictly defined as any type of nonorganic (particularly computer-based) intelligence, is the second major path to superintelligence.

Of course, the work of creating a superintelligent AI from the ground up is complicated by a number of elements, not all of which are purely logistical in nature, such as processing speed, hardware/software design, finance, and so on.

In addition to such practical challenges, there is a significant philosophical issue: human programmers are unable to know, and so cannot program, that which is superior to their own intelligence.

Much contemporary research on computer learning and interest in the notion of a seed AI is motivated in part by this worry.

Any machine capable of changing reactions to stimuli based on an examination of how well it performs in relation to a predetermined objective is defined as the latter.

Importantly, the concept of a seed AI entails not only the capacity to change its replies by extending its base of content knowledge (stored information), but also the ability to change the structure of its programming to better fit a specific job (Bostrom 2017, 29).

Indeed, it is this latter capability that would give a seed AI what Nick Bostrom refers to as "recursive self-improvement," or the ability to evolve iteratively (Bostrom 2017, 29).

This would eliminate the requirement for programmers to have an a priori vision of super intelligence since the seed AI would constantly enhance its own programming, with each more intelligent iteration writing a superior version of itself (beyond the human level).

Such a machine would undoubtedly cast doubt on the conventional philosophical assumption that robots are incapable of self-awareness.

This perspective's proponents may be traced all the way back to Descartes, but they also include more current thinkers like John Haugeland and John Searle.

Machine intelligence, in this perspective, is defined as the successful correlation of inputs with outputs according to a predefined program.

As a result, robots differ from humans in type, the latter being characterized only by conscious self-awareness.

Humans are supposed to comprehend the activities they execute, but robots are thought to carry out functions mindlessly—that is, without knowing how they work.

Should it be able to construct a successful seed AI, this core idea would be forced to be challenged.

The seed AI would demonstrate a level of self-awareness and autonomy not readily explained by the Cartesian philosophical paradigm by upgrading its own programming in ways that surprise and defy the forecasts of its human programmers.

Indeed, although it is still speculative (for the time being), the increasingly possible result of superintelligent AI poses a slew of moral and legal dilemmas that have sparked a lot of philosophical discussion in this subject.

The main worries are about the human species' security in the case of what Bostrom refers to as a "intelligence explosion"—that is, the creation of a seed AI followed by a possibly exponential growth in intellect (Bostrom 2017).

One of the key problems is the inherently unexpected character of such a result.

Humans will not be able to totally foresee how superintelligent AI would act due to the autonomy entailed by superintelligence in a definitional sense.

Even in the few cases of specialized superintelligence that humans have been able to construct and study so far—for example, robots that have surpassed humans in strategic games like chess and Go—human forecasts for AI have shown to be very unreliable.

For many critics, such unpredictability is a significant indicator that, should more generic types of superintelligent AI emerge, humans would swiftly lose their capacity to manage them (Kissinger 2018).

Of all, such a loss of control does not automatically imply an adversarial relationship between humans and superintelligence.

Indeed, although most of the literature on superintelligence portrays this relationship as adversarial, some new work claims that this perspective reveals a prejudice against machines that is particularly prevalent in Western cultures (Knight 2014).

Nonetheless, there are compelling grounds to believe that superintelligent AI would at the very least consider human goals as incompatible with their own, and may even regard humans as existential dangers.

For example, computer scientist Steve Omohundro has claimed that even a relatively basic kind of superintelligent AI like a chess bot would have motive to want the extinction of humanity as a whole—and may be able to build the tools to do it (Omohundro 2014).

Similarly, Bostrom has claimed that a superintelligence explosion would most certainly result in, if not the extinction of the human race, then at the very least a gloomy future (Bostrom 2017).

Whatever the benefits of such theories, the great uncertainty entailed by superintelligence is obvious.

If there is one point of agreement in this large and diverse literature, it is that if AI research is to continue, the global community must take great care to protect its interests.

Hardened determinists who claim that technological advancement is so tightly connected to inflexible market forces that it is simply impossible to change its pace or direction in any major manner may find this statement contentious.

According to this determinist viewpoint, if AI can deliver cost-cutting solutions for industry and commerce (as it has already started to do), its growth will proceed into the realm of superintelligence, regardless of any unexpected negative repercussions.

Many skeptics argue that growing societal awareness of the potential risks of AI, as well as thorough political monitoring of its development, are necessary counterpoints to such viewpoints.

Bostrom highlights various examples of effective worldwide cooperation in science and technology as crucial precedents that challenge the determinist approach, including CERN, the Human Genome Project, and the International Space Station (Bostrom 2017, 253).

To this, one may add examples from the worldwide environmental movement, which began in the 1960s and 1970s and has imposed significant restrictions on pollution committed in the name of uncontrolled capitalism (Feenberg 2006).

Given the speculative nature of superintelligence research, it is hard to predict what the future holds.

However, if superintelligence poses an existential danger to human existence, caution would dictate that a worldwide collaborative strategy rather than a free market approach to AI be used.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

Find Jai on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram

You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.

See also: 

Berserkers; Bostrom, Nick; de Garis, Hugo; General and Narrow AI; Goertzel, Ben; Kurzweil, Ray; Moravec, Hans; Musk, Elon; Technological Singularity; Yudkowsky, Eliezer.

References & Further Reading:

• Bostrom, Nick. 2017. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

• Feenberg, Andrew. 2006. “Environmentalism and the Politics of Technology.” In Questioning Technology, 45–73. New York: Routledge.

• Kissinger, Henry. 2018. “How the Enlightenment Ends.” The Atlantic, June 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/henry-kissinger-ai-could-mean-the-end-of-human-history/559124/.

• Knight, Heather. 2014. How Humans Respond to Robots: Building Public Policy Through Good Design. Washington, DC: The Project on Civilian Robotics. Brookings Institution.

• Omohundro, Steve. 2014. “Autonomous Technology and the Greater Human Good.” Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 26, no. 3: 303–15.

• Ramzy, Austin, and Sui-Lee Wee. 2019. “Scientist Who Edited Babies’ Genes Is Likely to Face Charges in China.” The New York Times, January 21, 2019

AI - Spiritual Robots.

 

In April 2000, Indiana University cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter arranged a symposium called "Will Spiritual Robots Replace Humanity by 2100?" at Stanford University.

Frank Drake, astronomer and SETI director, John Holland, creator of genetic algorithms, Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems, computer scientist John Koza, futurist Ray Kurzweil, public key cryptography architect Ralph Merkle, and roboticist Hans Moravec were among the panelists.

Several of the panelists gave their thoughts on the conference's theme based on their own writings.

• Kurzweil's optimistic futurist account of artificial intelligence, The Age of Spiritual Machines, had just been published (1999).
• In Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, Moravec presented a positive picture of machine superintelligence (1999).
• Bill Joy had just written a story for Wired magazine called "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" on the triple technological danger posed by robots, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology (2000).
• Only Hofstadter believed that Moore's Law doublings of transistors on integrated circuits may lead to spiritual robots as a consequence of the tremendous increase in artificial intelligence technologies.

Is it possible for robots to have souls? 

Can they exercise free will and separate themselves from humanity? 

What does it mean to have a soul for an artificial intelligence? 

Questions like these have been asked since the days of golems, Pinocchio, and the Tin Man, but they are becoming more prevalent in modern writing on religion, artificial intelligence, and the Technological Singularity.

Japan's robotics leadership started with puppetry.

Takemoto Giday and playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon founded the Takemoto-za in Osaka's Dotonbori district in 1684 to perform bunraku, a theatrical extravaganza involving one-half life-size wooden puppets dressed in elaborate costumes, each controlled by three black-clad onstage performers: a principal puppeteer and two assistants.

Bunraku exemplifies Japan's long-standing fascination in bringing inanimate items to life.

Japan is a world leader in robotics and artificial intelligence today, thanks to a grueling postwar rebuilding effort known as gijutsu rikkoku (nation building via technology).

Television was one of the first technologies to be widely used under technonationalism.

The Japanese government hoped that print and electronic media would encourage people to dream of an electronic lifestyle and reconnect with the global economy by encouraging them to employ innovative technology to do so.

As a result, Japan has become a major culture rival to the United States.

Manga and anime, which feature intelligent and humanlike robots, mecha, and cyborgs, are two of Japan's most recognizable entertainment exports.

The notion of spiritual machinery is widely accepted in Japan's Buddhist and Shinto worldviews.

Masahiro Mori, a roboticist at Tokyo Institute of Technology, has proposed that a sufficiently powerful artificial intelligence may one day become a Buddha.

Mindar, a robot based on the Goddess of Mercy Kannon Bodhisattva, is a new priest at Kyoto's Kodaiji temple.

Mindar is capable of presenting a sermon on the popular Heart Sutra ("form is empty, emptiness is form") while moving arms, head, and torso, and costs a million dollars.

Robot partners are accepted because they are among the things thought to be endowed with kami, the spirit or divinity shared by the gods, nature, objects, and people in the Shinto faith.

In Japan, Shinto priests are still periodically summoned to consecrate or bless new and abandoned electronic equipment.

The Kanda-Myokin Shrine, which overlooks Tokyo's Akihabara electronics retail area, provides prayer, rituals, and talismans aimed at purifying or conferring heavenly protection on items like smart phones, computer operating systems, and hard drives.

Americans, on the other hand, are just now starting to grapple with issues of robot identity and spirituality.

This is partly due to the fact that America's leading faiths have their roots in Christian rites and practices, which have traditionally been adverse to science and technology.

However, the histories of Christianity and robotics are intertwined.

In the 1560s, Philip II of Spain, for example, commissioned the first mechanical monk.

Mechanical automata, according to Stanford University historian Jessica Riskin (2010), are uniquely Catholic in origin.

They allowed for computerized reenactments of biblical tales in churches and cathedrals, as well as artificial equivalents of real humans and celestial entities like as angels for study and contemplation.

They also aided Renaissance and early modern Christian thinkers and theologians in contemplating conceptions of motion, life, and the incorporeal soul.

By the middle of the eighteenth century, "There was no dichotomy between machinery and divinity or vitality in the culture of living machinery that surrounded these machines," Riskin writes.

"On the contrary, the automata symbolized spirit in all of its bodily manifestations, as well as life at its most vibrant" (Riskin 2010, 43).

That spirit is still alive and well today.

SanTO, described as a robot with "divine qualities" and "the first Catholic robot," was unveiled at a conference of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in New Delhi in 2019. (Trovato et al. 2019).

In reformist churches, robots are also present.

To commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the Protestant churches of Hesse and Nassau unveiled the interactive, multilingual BlessU-2 robot in 2017.

The robot, as its name indicates, selects specific blessings for particular attendees.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's God and Computers Project intended to establish a conversation between academics developing artificial intelligence and religious experts.

She characterized herself as a "theological counselor" to MIT's Humanoid Robotics Group's emotional AI experimental robots Cog and Kismet.

Foerst concluded that embodied AI becomes engaged in the divine image of God, develops human capabilities and emotional sociability, and shares equal dignity as a creature in the universe via exercises in machine-man connection, intersubjectivity, and ambiguity.

"Victor Frankenstein and his creation may now be pals." 

Frankenstein will be able to accept that his creation, which he saw as a machine and an objective entity, had evolved into a human person" (Foerst 1996, 692).

Deep existential concerns about Christian thinking and conduct are being raised by robots and artificial intelligence.

Since the 1980s, according to theologian Michael DeLashmutt of the Episcopal Church's General Theological Seminary, "proliferating digital technologies have given birth to a cultural mythology that presents a rival theological paradigm to the one presented by kerygmatic Christian theology" (DeLashmutt 2006, i).

DeLashmutt opposes techno-theology for two reasons.

First, technology is not inherently immutable, and as such, it should not be reified or given autonomy, but rather examined.

Second, information technology isn't the most reliable tool for comprehending the world and ourselves.

In the United States, smart robots are often considered as harbingers of economic disruption, AI domination, and even doomsday.

Several times, Pope Francis has brought up the subject of artificial intelligence ethics.

He discussed the matter with Microsoft President Brad Smith in 2019.

The Vatican and Microsoft have teamed together to award a prize for the finest PhD dissertation on AI for social benefit.

In 2014, creationist academics at Matthews, North Carolina's Southern Evangelical Seminary & Bible College bought an Aldebaran Nao humanoid robot to much fanfare.

The seminarians wanted to learn about self-driving cars and think about the ethics of new intelligent technology in the perspective of Christian theology.

The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention produced the study "Artificial Intelligence: An Evangelical Statement of Principles" in 2019, rejecting any AI's intrinsic "identity, value, dignity, or moral agency" (Southern Baptist Convention 2019).

Jim Daly of Focus on the Family, Mark Galli of Christianity Today, and theologians Wayne Grudem and Richard Mouw were among the signatories.

Some evangelicals argue that transhumanist ideas regarding humanity's perfectibility via technology are incompatible with faith in Jesus Christ's perfection.

The Christian Transhumanist Association and the Mormon Transhumanist Association both oppose this viewpoint.

Both organizations acknowledge that science, technology, and Christian fellowship all contribute to affirming and exalting humanity as beings created in the image of God.

Robert Geraci, a religious studies professor at Manhattan College, wonders if people "could really think that robots are aware if none of them exercise any religion" (Geraci 2007).

He observes that in the United States, Christian sentiment favors virtual, immaterial artificial intelligence software over materialist robot bodies.

He compares Christian faith in the immortality of the soul to transhumanists' desire for entire brain emulation or mind uploading into a computer.

Mind, according to neuroscientists, is an emergent characteristic of the human brain's 86 billion neurons' networking.

Christian longing for transcendence have similarities to this intellectual construct.

Artificial intelligence's eschatology also contains a concept of freedom from death or agony; in this instance, the afterlife is cyberspatial.

New faiths, at least in part inspired by artificial intelligence, are gaining popularity.

The Church of Perpetual Life, based in Hollywood, Florida, is a transhumanist worship institution dedicated to the advancement of life-extension technology.

Cryonics pioneers Saul Kent and Bill Faloon launched the church in 2013.

Artificial intelligence serial entrepreneur Peter Voss and Transhumanist Party presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan are among the professionals in artificial intelligence and transhumanism who have visited the center.

Martine and Gabriel Rothblatt formed the Terasem Movement, a religion related with cryonics and transhumanism.

"Life is intentional, death is voluntary, god is technical, and love is fundamental," the faith's basic doctrines state (Truths of Terasem 2012).

The realistic Bina48 robot, created by Hanson Robotics and modeled after Martine's husband, is in part a demonstration of Terasem's mindfile-based algorithm, which Terasem believes could one day allow legitimate mind uploading into an artificial substrate (and maybe even bring about everlasting life).

Heaven, according to Gabriel Rothblatt, is similar to a virtual reality simulation.

Anthony Levandowski, an engineer who oversaw the teams that produced Google and Uber's self-driving vehicles, launched The Way of the Future, an AI-based religion.

Levandowski is driven by a desire to build a superintelligent, artificial god with Christian morals.

"If anything becomes much, much smarter in the future," he continues, "there will be a changeover as to who is truly in command." 

"What we want is for the planet's control to pass peacefully and peacefully from people to whoever." 

And to make sure that 'whatever' understands who assisted it in getting along" (Harris 2017).

He is driven to ensure that artificial intelligences have legal rights and are fully integrated into human society.

Spiritual robots have become a popular science fiction motif.

Cutie (QT-1) convinces other robots that human people are too mediocre to be their creators in Isaac Asimov's short tale "Reason" (1941).

Instead, Cutie (QT-1) encourages them to worship the power plant on their space station, calling it the Master of both machines and mankind.

The Mission for Saint Aquin (1951), by Anthony Boucher, is a postapocalyptic novelette that pays tribute to Asimov's "Reason."

It follows a priest called Thomas on a postapocalyptic quest to find the famous evangelist Saint Aquin's last resting place (Boucher patterns Saint Aquin after St. Thomas Aquinas, who used Aristotelian logic to prove the existence of God).

Saint Aquin's corpse is said to have never decayed.

The priest rides a robass (robot donkey) with artificial intelligence; the robass is an atheist and tempter who can engage in theological debate with the priest.

When Saint Aquin is finally discovered after many trials, he is revealed to be an incorruptible android theologian.

Thomas is certain of the accomplishment of his quest—he has discovered a robot with a logical brain that, although manufactured by a human, believes in God.

In Stanislaw Lem’s novella “Trurl and the Construction of Happy Worlds” (1965), a box-dwelling robot race created by a robot engineer is persuaded that their habitat is a paradise to which all other creatures should aspire.

The robots form a religion and begin making preparations to drill a hole in the box in order to bring everyone outside the box into their paradise, willingly or unwillingly.

The constructor of the robots is enraged by this idea, and he destroys them.

Clifford D. Simak, a science fiction grandmaster, is also known for his spiritual robots.

Hezekiel is a robot abbot who leads a Christian congregation of other robots in a monastery in A Choice of Gods (1972).

The group has received a communication from The Principle, a god-like creature, although Hezekiel believes that "God must always be a pleasant old (human) gentleman with a long, white, flowing beard" (Simak 1972, 158).

The robot monks in Project Pope (1981) are on the lookout for paradise and the meaning of the cosmos.

John, a mechanical gardener, tells the Pope that he believes he has a soul.

The Pope, on the other hand, is not so sure.

Because humans refuse to let robots to their churches, the robots establish their own Vatican-17 on a faraway planet.

A massive computer serves as the Pope of the Robots.

Androids idolize their creator Simeon Krug in Robert Silverberg's Hugo-nominated novel Tower of Glass (1970), hoping that he would one day free them from harsh slavery.

They leave faith and rebel when they learn Krug is uninterested in their freedom.

Silverberg's Nebula award-winning short story "Good News from the Vatican" (1971) is about an artificially intelligent robot who is elected Pope Sixtus the Seventh as a compromise candidate.

"If he's elected," Rabbi Mueller continues, "he wants an instant time-sharing arrangement with the Dalai Lama, as well as a reciprocal plug-in with the chief programmer of the Greek Orthodox church, just to start" (Silverberg 1976, 269).

Television shows often include spiritual robots.

In the British science fiction comedy Red Dwarf (1988–1999), sentient computers are equipped with belief chips, which convince them of the existence of silicon paradise.

At the animated television series Futurama (1999–2003, 2008–2013), robots worship in the Temple of Robotology, where Reverend Lionel Preacherbot delivers sermons.

The artificial Cylons are monotheists in the popular reboot and reinterpretation of the Battlestar Galactica television series (2003–2009), whereas the humans of the Twelve Colonies are polytheists.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

Find Jai on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram

You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.

See also: 

Foerst, Anne; Nonhuman Rights and Personhood; Robot Ethics; Technological Singularity.

References & Further Reading:

DeLashmutt, Michael W. 2006. “Sketches Towards a Theology of Technology: Theological Confession in a Technological Age.” Ph.D. diss., University of Glasgow.

Foerst, Anne. 1996. “Artificial Intelligence: Walking the Boundary.” Zygon 31, no. 4: 681–93.

Geraci, Robert M. 2007. “Religion for the Robots.” Sightings, June 14, 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20100610170048/http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2007/0614.shtml.

Harris, Mark. 2017. “Inside the First Church of Artificial Intelligence.” Wired, November 15, 2017. https://www.wired.com/story/anthony-levandowski-artificial-intelligence-religion/.

Riskin, Jessica. 2010. “Machines in the Garden.” Arcade: A Digital Salon 1, no. 2 (April 30): 16–43.

Silverberg, Robert. 1970. Tower of Glass. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Simak, Clifford D. 1972. A Choice of Gods. New York: Ballantine.

Southern Baptist Convention. Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. 2019. “Artificial Intelligence: An Evangelical Statement of Principles.” https://erlc.com/resource-library/statements/artificial-intelligence-an-evangelical-statement-of-principles/

Trovato, Gabriele, Franco Pariasca, Renzo Ramirez, Javier Cerna, Vadim Reutskiy, Laureano Rodriguez, and Francisco Cuellar. 2019. “Communicating with SanTO: The First Catholic Robot.” In 28th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 1–6. New Delhi, India, October 14–18.

Truths of Terasem. 2012. https://terasemfaith.net/beliefs/.

 

AI - Why Software Is Eating The World.

 

Marc Andreessen, developer of the Mosaic web browser, wealthy entrepreneur, and famous Silicon Valley venture investor, wrote an essay titled "Why Software is Eating the World" (Andreessen 2011).

The Wall Street Journal published the piece on August 20, 2011.

Andreessen outlines the transition from a hardware-based to a software-based economy in it, and the article has been hailed as foresighted throughout the years, with the title becoming an aphorism.

However, the charismatic author of the highly respected piece is responsible for the majority of its effect.

Andreessen has been dubbed one of the most important intellectuals in Silicon Valley.

The Silicon Valley is a 150-square-mile shelf south of San Francisco that is often regarded as the world's technology innovation center.

Andreessen is the personification of Silicon Valley's techno-optimism and belief in disruptive innovation, which is defined as armies of start-ups developing technology that create new markets, disrupt current industries, and eventually remove incumbents.

The background of Andreessen's piece is the economic process that economist Joseph Schumpeter dubbed "creative destruction." 

After graduating from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign with a bachelor's degree in computer science in 1994, Andreessen co-created the Mosaic web browser with Eric Bina, a user-friendly browser that could run on a wide variety of computers.

Andreessen and Jim Clarke launched Mosaic Communications Corporation, an internet start-up business in Mountain View, California, in 1994 to capitalize on Mosaic's economic potential.

The firm was renamed Netscape Communications, and the web browser was renamed Netscape Navigator; it went public in 1995, and Netscape's IPO is widely seen as the unofficial start of the dot-com era (1995–2000).

AOL bought the firm for $4.2 billion later.

Andreessen cofounded Loudcloud (later renamed Opsware), a pioneering cloud computing startup that provided software as a service, as well as computing and hosting services to internet and e-commerce businesses, in 1998.

Hewlett-Packard bought Opsware for $1.6 billion in 2007.

Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, his longtime business partner at both Netscape and Loudcloud, founded a venture capital company in 2009.

Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z (the "a" in Andreessen and the "z" in Horowitz are separated by sixteen letters), has since invested in firms including Airbnb, Box, Facebook, Groupon, Instagram, Lift, Skype, and Zynga.

A16z was created to invest in forward-thinking entrepreneurs with bold ideas, disruptive technology, and the ability to change the course of history.

Andreessen has been on the boards of Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, and eBay over his career.

He is an ardent supporter of artificial intelligence, and A16z has invested in a slew of AI-driven start-ups as a result.

"Software Eating the World" has been interpreted in popular and scholarly literature in terms of digitalization: 

A postmodern economy will be chewed up by the rise of the internet and the spread of smartphones, tablet computers, and other disruptive electronic devices in industry after industry, from media to financial services to health care.

In an essay headlined "Software is Not Eating the World," VentureBeat contributor Dylan Tweney gave an alternate viewpoint in October 2011, emphasizing the continued relevance of the hardware that underpins computer systems.

He said, "You'll pay Apple, RIM, or Nokia for your phone." 

"You'll continue to pay Intel for the chips, and Intel will continue to pay Applied Materials for the multimillion-dollar machines that produce those chips" (Tweney 2011).

To be clear, the persistence of conventional activities, such as tangible items and storefronts, and the rise of software-driven decision-making are not mutually exclusive.

In fact, technology may be the lifeblood of conventional business.

Andreessen noted out in his post that, in the not-too-distant future, a company's stock worth would be determined by the quality of its software rather than how many things it sells.

"Software is also consuming a large portion of the value chain of sectors that are commonly thought to reside largely in the physical world." 

"Software operates today's automobiles, regulates safety features, entertains passengers, leads drivers to their destinations, and links each car to mobile, satellite, and GPS networks," he said.

"The move toward hybrid and electric automobiles will further speed the software shift—electric cars are entirely controlled by computers." 

And Google and the main auto makers are already working on software-powered driverless vehicles" (Tweney 2011).

In other words, the visual appeal of great goods, the magnetic attraction of great brands, and the benefits of expanded portfolio assets will not be replaced by a software-based economy because companies will continue to produce great products, brands, and businesses as they did in the past.

Software, on the other hand, will eventually supplant goods, brands, and financial strategies as the primary source of value generation for businesses.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

Find Jai on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram

You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.

See also: 

Workplace Automation.

References & Further Reading:

Andreessen, Marc. 2011. “Why Software Is Eating the World.” The Wall Street Journal, August 20, 2011. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460.

Christensen, Clayton M. 2016. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Third edition. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Tweney, Dylan. 2011. “Dylan’s Desk: Software Is Not Eating the World.” VentureBeat, October 5, 2011. https://venturebeat.com/2011/10/05/dylans-desk-hardware/

AI - Smart Hotels And Smart Hotel Rooms.

In a competitive tourist sector, high-tech and artificial intelligence are being used by luxury hotels to deliver the greatest experience for their visitors and grow their market share.

The experience economy, as it is known in the hospitality management business, is shaping artificial intelligence in hotels.

An experience is created by three major players: a product, a service, and a consumer.

The artifacts presented in the marketplaces are known as products.

Services are the concrete and intangible benefits of a single product, or a collection of goods, as marketed by frontline staff via a procedure.

The end user of these items or services is the client.

Customers are looking for items and services that will meet their requirements.

Hoteliers, on the other hand, must develop extraordinary events that transform manufactured goods and services into real experiences for their consumers in order to emotionally connect with them.

In this approach, experiences become a fungible activity in the market with the goal of retaining clients.

Robotics, data analysis, voice activation, face recognition, virtual and augmented reality, chatbots, and the internet of things are all examples of artificial intelligence in the luxury hotel business (IoT).

Smart rooms are created for hotel guests by providing automated technology that naturally solves their typical demands.

Guests may utilize IoT to control the lights, curtains, speakers, and television in their rooms through a connected tablet.

• When a person is awake and moving about, a nightlight system may detect this.
• Wellness gadgets that deliver sensory experiences are available in certain rooms for disabled visitors.
• Smart rooms may capture personal information from customers and keep it in customer profiles in order to give better service during subsequent visits.

In terms of smart room technology, the Hilton and Marriott worldwide luxury hotel companies are industry leaders.

One of Hilton's initial goals is to provide guests the ability to operate their room's features using their smartphone.

• Guests may customize their stay according to their preferences utilizing familiar technologies in this manner.
• Lights, TVs, the temperature, and the entertainment (streaming) service are all adjustable in typical Hilton smart rooms (Ting 2017).
• A second goal is to provide services via mobile phone apps.
• During their stay, guests may put their own preferences.
• They may, for example, choose digital artwork or images from the room's display.
• Voice activation services are presently being developed for Hilton smart bedrooms (Burge 2017).

Marriott's smart rooms were created in collaboration with Legrand's Eliot technology and Samsung's Artik guest experience platform.

Marriott has deployed cloud-based hotel IoT technologies (Ting 2017).

Two prototype rooms for testing new smart systems have come from this partnership.

The first is a room with smart showers, mirrors, art frames, and speakers that is totally networked.

• Guests may use voice commands to operate the lighting, air conditioning, curtains, paintings, and television.
• A touchscreen shower is available, allowing visitors to write on the smart glass of the shower.
• Shower notes may be turned into papers and sent to a specific address (Business Traveler 2018).
• The quantity of oxygen in this Marriott room is controlled by sensors that monitor the number of people in the suite.
• These sensors also help visitors wake up in the middle of the night by displaying the time to get out of bed and lighting the path to the restroom (Ting 2017).
• A loyalty account allows guests to select their particular preferences ahead to arrival.

A second, lower-tech area is linked through tablet and just has the Amazon Dot voice-controlled smart speaker.

• The television remote may be used to change the room's characteristics.
• The benefit of this room is that it has very few implementation requirements (Ting 2017).
• Hoteliers point to a number of benefits of smart rooms in addition to convenience and customization.
• Smart rooms help to protect the environment by lowering energy consumption expenses.
• They may also save money on wages by reducing the amount of time housekeeping and management spend with visitors.

Smart rooms have their own set of constraints.

It may be tough to grasp certain smart technology.

• For starters, the learning curve for overnight visitors is rather short.
• Second, the infrastructure and technology required for these rooms continues to be prohibitively costly.
• Even if there are long-term cost and energy benefits, the initial investment expenses are significant.

Finally, there's the issue of data security.

Hotels must continue to evolve to meet the needs of new generations of paying customers.

Technology is deeply interwoven in the everyday behaviors of millennials and post-millennials.

Their smart phones, video games, and tablets are transforming the meaning of experience in a virtual world.

Luxury tourism already includes high-priced goods and services that are supported by cutting-edge technology.

The quality of future hotel smart room experiences will be influenced by visitor income levels and personal technological capabilities, creating new competitive marketplaces.

Customers expect high-tech comfort and service from hotels.

Hotel operators gain from smart rooms as well, since they serve as a source of large data.

Companies are rapidly collecting, storing, and using all accessible information on their customers in order to provide unique goods and services.

This technique aids businesses in creating twenty-first-century markets in which technology is as important as hotel guests and management.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

Find Jai on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram

You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.

See also: 

Smart Cities and Homes.

References & Further Reading:

Burge, Julia. 2017. “Hilton Announces ‘Connected Room,’ The First Mobile-Centric Hotel Room, To Begin Rollout in 2018.” Hilton Press Center, December 7, 2017. https://newsroom.hilton.com/corporate/news/hilton-announces-connected-room-the-first-mobilecentric-hotel-room-to-begin-rollout-in-2018.

Business Traveler. 2018. “Smart Rooms.” Business Traveler (Asia-Pacific Edition), 11.

Imbardelli, A. Patrick. 2019. “Smart Guestrooms Can Transform Hotel Brands.” Hotel Management 234, no. 3 (March): 40.

Pine, B. Joseph, II, and James H. Gilmore. 1998. “Welcome to the Experience Economy.” Harvard Business Review 76, no. 4 (July–August): 97–105.

Swaminathan, Sundar. 2017. Oracle Hospitality Hotel 2025 Industry Report. Palm Beach Gardens, FL: International Luxury Hotel Association.

Ting, Deanna. 2017. “Hilton and Marriott Turn to the Internet of Things to Transform the Hotel Room Experience.” Skift, November 14, 2017. https://skift.com/2017/11/14/hilton-and-marriott-turn-to-the-internet-of-things-to-transform-the-hotel-room-experience/.