Live is a massive, self replicating, and crazily efficient system designed to exist on the most common and diverse set of chemical reactions in the universe. Machine life/machine intelligence can never stand up to regular life/regular intelligence. The interactions and chains within the human brain will likely be always more efficient and better than those of machines which are not specialized. These specialized machines, however, cannot survive to live in multiple environments, fight in many places, or be nearly as resilient as humans are. We have our flaws, us humans do, but the sheer amazing complexity and efficiency of life will never be outnumbered by machines of silicone and metal. Carbon and hydrogen do a billion times better in any situation. If they weren't better than what we make computer from, we wouldn't be made of them.
I don't see the difference. Why do you think a general-purpose computer can't be built which is equivalent to a human brain? Not strictly true. Evolution is about adaptability, not efficiency. Evolution doesn't create the best, perfect, smartest thing. It creates the thing which continues to exist. [Citation needed]. You also seem to presume artificial computers will always be silicon-based. There's no reason we won't use carbon and hydrogen in the future, if we find out it's better. In fact, Intel just stated their 7nm generation will require something besides silicon. I think the bigger question is parallelism. The brain more closely resembles a neural network (which computes differently than an ordinary processor), and a massively parallel system. But we've been moving in that direction for several decades. We hit the heat/power wall in the mid 90's, and everything has been about parallelism since. Not just the "dual core" and "quad core" that consumers see. Internally, individual instructions are being made far more parallel (the technical term is ILP – instruction level parallelism). To be clear, I'm not one of those futurists who think we'll have Sentient AI by 2020 and the Singularity is Here! But I don't think technology is going to stop progressing, and I'm always skeptical of claims "it can't be done."The interactions and chains within the human brain will likely be always more efficient and better than those of machines which are not specialized.
If they weren't better than what we make computer from, we wouldn't be made of them.
Carbon and hydrogen do a billion times better
In order for machine inteligence to threaten human beings you are going to need a lot more than just a smart machine. You need many, many systems and more factors than just speed. The human brain can take advantage of a lot of interactions that computers do not take advantage of, and as a result gets a lot more efficiency while doing what it does. More processes with less power. Consider that it is true for nearly all things people do, where a human being can survive longer than a machine in an environment, and I figure that machines will never threaten regular, carbon based, life. It's about survival. When resources are limited, being able to do more with less is a huge trait that shouldn't be considered lightly. What computers are made of doesn't really change how they act or behave. If we were to create a computer system that acted like life, used similar materials, and looked like life, we wouldn't be calling it machine intelligence, we would be calling it artificial life. At their core, circuits are still wired up to use the switching of gates to process information, and have tons of inefficiencies in them for the sake of allowing us to design them easily to do one specific task.Why do you think a general-purpose computer can't be built which is equivalent to a human brain?
Not strictly true. Evolution is about adaptability, not efficiency.
I would think any natural phenomena capable of supporting corporality ('body') and a metabolic network (energy and information) can support 'life'. (The talk of "most complex network in the universe" and "carbohydrate organisms" is latter day anthropomorphism. p.s. In fact, I'll go on a limb and assert that Plasma based life forms exist and are far more prevalent and likely more 'ancient' in evolutionary and developmental terms. ... chemical reactions ...
Carbon (organic compounds) can make more molecues than every other known combination of all other elements. Plasma, silicone, etc, are not nearly as capable of forming the complex chains needed to form coherent and self-replicating life. It is feasible to make life from other things, but not practice, as you cannot create the massive and complex chains that react in such specific ways without the very unique traits of carbon atoms.
I did read a bit, and it is apparently possible to have dust particles inside of plasma arrange in a way to be a self replicating structure. However, life is far more than simple self replication. Organic compounds are a massive number of insanely complex and hard to nail down reactions. Also, the earth isn't a ball of plasma, and computers aren't going to become those.
"Dust", "Mud", "Organic compounds", Adam .. :) I'm talking about creatures made from "Fire" :) Right, my spring and wheels based watch is "insanely complex". We've ditched the blind watch maker. I suggest you ditch sentimental attachment to the watch :) It is also not the center of the Universe. ... insanely complex ...
... the earth isn't a ball of plasma ...
spring and wheels is nothing in comparison to the things that go on inside of life. Computer components are nothing in comparison to the things that go on in life. They are good thinking machines, but not good at being life. We have nothing to fear from that which cannot exist on earth.