a) No. b) No. c) No. d) No.

All of your points are the kind of uninformed assumptions I'm pointing out, in addition to some of them being just wrong.

Getting more resources does not necessarily make an algorithm smarter. It doesn't even always make it faster. Assuming you have some magical algorithm that "merely require[s] more resources" is just wishful thinking. Show me the algorithm. There isn't currently such an algorithm.

You can, if you will, define AI as you do in c). However, then there is no AI now, and may never be. You're speculating. And the self-aware requirement is very unlikely to be satisfied in our lifetimes. We literally don't even know how self-awareness/consciousness is implemented in ourselves, let alone how it would be implemented in something we create.

When you say, "I don't see why", and "it would likely", you're just speculating.

There's nothing much to be gained by positing unrealistic CyberMen with hypothetical powers and then trying to draw conclusions about what life with AI will be like. All the powers people like to hypothesize do not exist, and we don't currently know how to make them exist. So whatever conclusions you draw are just speculative fiction. Fun, and perhaps a useful philosophical/ethical pursuit, but it's ultimately fiction.

Much commentary on robotics and AI is based on unknowable assumptions about capabilities that may or may not exist. These assumptions leave the commentator the freedom to arrive at whatever conclusion they want, be it utopian, optimistic, pessimistic or dystopian. Hawkings falls into that trap. From TFA: "It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate," he said. "Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded." This assumes a lot about what a "super-human" AI would and could do. All the AI so far sits in a box that we control. That won't supersede us.

So commentary like this usually assumes the AI has become some form of Superman/Cyberman in a robot body, basically like us, only arbitrarily smarter to whatever degree you want to imagine. That's just speculative fiction, and not based on any reality.

You have to imagine these Cybermen have a self-preservation motivation, a goal to improve, a goal to compete, independence, soul. AI's have none of that, nor any hints of it. Come back to reality, please.

He did not confirm a device, though I didn't ask. He confirmed his involvement in biz.dev, and said it was only part time. He expressed personal confidence in the project, but that's all.

There was one odd thing. I sent email to him @ucla. He replied from wetaginc.com explaining that it is because iFind isn't related to UCLA. Then he offered to send an empty message from the UCLA account. I glanced at the headers of his email and found references to eigbox.net, which seems to be implicated in SPAM related stuff. It could be innocent. He may just be being careful to separate his professional activities, and his email provider/ISP may use eigbox. Or there could be a MITM thing going on. A group looking to KS scam $1/2M could certainly be savvy enough to impersonate the people who's names were stolen.

My level of curiosity isn't high enough to pursue any further. ;)

After my post mentioning my skepticism about his involvement, I had an email exchange with him where he confirmed what the KS page says.

Similarly: Wotao Yin, according to google, is a mathematician working on the mathematics of optimization. Yet, he is listed as a biz.dev. guy who, "leads the business and marketing strategy development". That's a leap right there. I'd guess his name has also been used without his knowledge.

What's the universe's seed?

A govt created crypto coin would have the advantage of being "official". That's all, but that's big. Perhaps it's not enough, but being "official" sets it apart from other coin.

I second this idea. If at some point the gov't becomes convinced bit coin is viable, they could just start their own new block chain . If they bless it with some sort of official "approval" (e.g. Their coin is legal tender for taxes), then that one can supplant any other. And as the parent comment mentioned, any sufficiently large market force can do the same. Eventually, bitcoin won't be the only crypto coin. And if the gov't can create its own competing coin, it can create two, or N, new block chains. thus, it can mint crypto currency just as with fiat money.

This is a combo DVD/Blu-Ray wifi internet connected device. I got it solely for the blu-ray player, but discovered how convenient the internet connection is. A netflix interface is built in. The remote control even has a "netflix" button. There's a tiny bit of setup that you can do, and after that, my over-70 mother can operate it just fine. It also has interfaces for hulu, vudu, and music services like pandora and slacker built in. I used to hook my laptop up to the tv to watch netflix, but no more. There's a selection of other lesser-known services available in the interface, too.

Yep, that's what I posted, umm, before I read your post. (Premature posticulation.) Let's start our own hardware company. There are no barriers to entry, right? ;)

What I want is a computing nugget that I can carry in my pocket (on a necklace, whatever), and then carry any number of different task-specific interfaces to it. You don't even have to carry them. Just walk up to your desk, and your keyboard and monitor connect and you have a desktop. Pick up your "smart-phone" interface, and go. Pick up your candybar interface and go. But all the computing and storage stays the same. It's your cloud in your pocket. Sell me that HTC.