PPAML.

This is coolbert:

Devoted readers to the blog will understand my instantaneous reaction to this headline"

"Darpa Sets Out to Make Computers That Can Teach Themselves"

Skynet. Daleks. "Machines", computers and drones able to "think" for themselves and formulate solutions to unforeseen problems and difficulties. DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration] as usual at the forefront of the envelope.

One more aspect of the self-replicating [3D printing] war machine, autonomous and thoughtful, replacing man on the battlefield, a killing device with awesome potentiality. What has always been the purview strictly of science-fiction is slowly but surely coming to pass as reality.

"'Called “Probabilistic Programming for Advanced Machine Learning,' or PPAML, scientists will be asked to figure out how to 'enable new applications that are impossible to conceive of using today’s technology,' while making experts in the field 'radically more effective,' according to a recent agency announcement. At the same time, Darpa wants to make the machines simpler and easier for non-experts to build machine-learning applications too."

* New applications.
* Radically more effective.
* Simpler and easier.

Drones in the sky. Drones on the ground. Drones under the sea. At some point becoming sentient, self-aware and autonomous perhaps in a way not even understood by the creator [mankind]? At least for the present again science-fiction now but that reality closer than we have ever thought.

NOT an easy endeavor as the article suggests YES, but also consider that:

“Improvements on the order of two to four magnitude over the state of the art are likely necessary.”

State-of-the-art with regard to computer hardware and software combined. AND machines the final product as well NOT thinking as a human would but rather processing information and using algorithms unique to the machine world foreign and unique, alien even!

coolbert.