Supercomputers take over the world
Supercomputers take over the world
By Zeid Nasser
ON THE eve of the turn of the century, it seems that the prophecies of science
fiction books and films may come true, due to IBM's plans to build the biggest,
fastest and 'most intelligent' supercomputer ever.
"A powerful computer, incorporating high levels of artificial intelligence,
is built by man, but it gets out of control and takes over computer systems
all over the world and ends human life as we know it on this planet by causing
wars and catastrophes. The few humans that remain, become slaves to the
new society of computers and machines.
If only man knew it would end like this, someone would have stopped the
'supercomputer project'".
Such is the scenario, and it may well become true one day. For now, here's
what the new computer, called 'Blue Gene' will be capable of.
It will be 1000 times more powerful than its predecessor 'Deep Blue', IBM's
last supercomputer which beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.
It will also be 500 times faster than today's supercomputers and about 2
million times more powerful than today's top desktop PCs.
The press release from IBM stated that Blue Gene would be used "to
model the folding of human proteins. Learning more about how proteins fold
is expected to give medical researchers better understanding of diseases,
as well as potential cures. If this computer unlocks the mystery of how
proteins fold, it will be an important milestone in the future of medicine
and healthcare."
Although it all sounds honorable, one has to wonder about the dangers of
increased dependency on computers and the massive increases in computer
powers and artificial intelligence.
Just look at the Y2K bug, it is a classic example of how much computers
have permeated our lives, and the dangers associated with that. Pessimistic
people think that airplanes will fall out of the sky, nuclear weapons will
be accidentally launched and hospital systems will go wild endangering patients
all over the world! Of course, we all know that this won't happen, but that's
because we realized there was a problem and sought to correct it. However,
the Y2K two-digit problem was man-made, which provides evidence that humans
have the potential to destroy their future with their own creations.
IBM Research believes a radical new approach to computer design and architecture
will allow Blue Gene to achieve petaflop-scale performance in about five
years- that's three trillion operations a second!
All this computing power is bound to be used for something harmful, eventually.
That is the fear. If computers run the complex weapon systems of countries,
there's a chance a glitch in one of the so-called supercomputers could start
World War III, or even worse, the computer may intentionally carry out a
function that harms humanity based on its 'three-trillion operations a second'
brain which is telling it to annihilate humanity!
For now, its seems like supercomputers like Blue Gene will help human causes.
A scientist commented on Blue Gene's capabilities saying that, "One
day, you're going to be able to walk into a doctor's office and have a computer
analyze a tissue sample, identify the pathogen that ails you, and then instantly
prescribe a treatment best suited to your specific illness and individual
genetic makeup."
Well, that sounds honorable.
Although the fears that supercomputers may take over the world seem somewhat
far-fetched, it's not completely impossible. It is important to make sure
that super computing power of this magnitude doesn't fall into the wrong
hands! n
-- scott (lynx5_5@hotmail.com), March 15, 2000