Friday, April 20, 2007   The great thing about the Terminator
movies, when it comes to actually understanding robotics and
artificial intelligence, is that they deliver two extremes on a
spectrum of misunderstanding. At the one end is Skynet, a
computer which takes over the world, and at the other end is the
Terminator, a machine which looks human.  The same thing happens
in the Matrix movies, where you've got armies of giant robots
hunting down humanity at the same time as you've got whole
legions of human beings spending their entire lives trapped
inside virtual reality.  The idea is that either computers will
dominate humanity, or humanity will dominate computers. It's a
classic dichotomy and it's as false as you could wish any
dichotomy to be. The reality will be very different - both much
more optimistic and much more creepy.  The reality is that
machines will become like mitochondria. The mitochondria is a
part of human cells. Originally, in the days before cells
commonly existed, the mitochondria was a