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“Hello Dave, You Look Nice Today” – One step closer to HAL 9000

Today, the machines became a little smarter, as a computer named Elbot managed to achieve a 25% success rate when convincing a human being that they were talking to another human. via Gizmodo & The Telegraph 

Should the law of exponential growth hold, it isn’t going to long until we can create programs that can ace the turing test. Its taken 58 years [1] from its inception to this point, I don’t think it will take us many more years before the test is passed.

Ray Kurzweil has previously stated in his books (Age of Spiritual Machines & The Singularity is Near) that we would be able to create a system that accurately simulates human interaction to pass the turing test [2] I think I am going to go out on a limb and say it will be much sooner.

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Lets Spread the FUD – Web 2.0 Style.

A deluge of European startups descended on London’s ExCel Centre for the Future of Web Apps 2008 conference this week, and while the economic crisis has already reached Europe, the fear clearly hasn’t reached its startup community.Via GigaOm

OK so its hard to deny that everything in the world is in melt down, but it seems like we aren’t happy talking ourselves into economic crisis, i.e. Panic and Fear. Lets stifle startups and companies who want to make it big.

There is lots of talk of recession the fact remains we are still technically not in a recession:

Recession: 2 consecutive quarters of negative growth.

While it makes sense to make your business ‘recession proof’ there is no reason to stifle creativity and laugh in the face of the entrepreneurs who want to succeed even in these difficult times. Sequoia Capitial is telling everybody to bunker down and take not that the good times are well and truly over, but how does this become recession [1]. There are still great people out there with great products and with or without recession great products sell. Its just the latter makes harder but no the less rewarding. Continue reading “Lets Spread the FUD – Web 2.0 Style.”