AI in Sci-Fi: Fictional Artificial Minds and the Real World Awaiting Them

Star Trek's Cmdr. Data... Alien's Ash and Bishop... Skynet and the Terminator... the androids of Westworld... Ex Machina's Eva, the Stepford Wives - and the granddaddy of them all, HAL 9000... These and other famous artificial minds are at the heart of this exploration of AI and the possibility of machine consciousness, suggesting the directions that the evolution of the technology might take. How great is the gap between the AI of film and television and what's emerging in the world today? Will that gap be closed at some point? Will we ever see androids who think and feel and experience the world as we do? Scott Robinson, a social scientist who implements AI and augmented intelligence systems in the corporate world, takes on these questions and others in these surveys of AI in fiction and the real world: What would it take to create a true artificial mind, if it's even possible? What are the building blocks of consciousness, and how could they be recreated in a machine? What can human society learn from the AI of fiction? And if we can actually build conscious machines - should we? With fan service to spare, AI in Sci-Fi tours the science fiction universe for its fascinating artificial life, reaching into the imagination for inspirations that will guide our path tomorrow, as human and machine enter into permanent partnership...