Leading Futurist Predicts Technology that Many Candians Say they Want to
Avoid

TORONTO , Dec. 3 /CNW/ - Almost half of Canadians (48%) said they believe that artificial intelligence will become a reality in less than 20 years, according to an informal survey conducted by Warner Home Entertainment Canada .

The finding was just one among many collective thoughts on the future, unearthed in an informal survey developed by WHE to promote the launch of its blockbuster movie Terminator Salvation, on Blu-ray and DVD. Interestingly, almost as many Canadians who believed artificial intelligence would become a reality also said artificial intelligence was what they wanted to see the least.

"Within 10 years, we'll have computers that are as powerful as the human brain," says author and futurist Robert J. Sawyer, who is among the world's leading Sci-fi thinkers and one of only seven writers in history (and the only Canadian) to win all three of the world's top Science Fiction awards for best novel of the year. "And within 30 years, we'll have computers that will behave indistinguishably from human beings in terms of creativity and intelligence. They will, for all intents and purposes, be conscious."

    
    Other survey highlights include:
    -   A majority of Canadians said the technology they cannot live without
        were their computers and cell phones, respectively.
    -   Television and iPod technologies were considered the most disposable.
    -   The majority of respondents identified the television (37.1%) with
        iPod being the second most popular choice (32.3%) as technology that
        will be obsolete in the next 20 years.
    -   Flying cars, artificial intelligence and chips embedded in human
        bodies were the most common responses when asked what the next
        biggest technology would be.
    -   Although the majority (38.5%) of respondents said that they would
        want to be trapped at Skynet's headquarters with their
        spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend, Bill Gates (20.5%) received more than
        twice the votes as US President Barack Obama (6.8%) and Angelina
        Jolie/Brad Pitt (0.9%) (Skynet is the computer software-based defense
        system in Terminator Salvation that gains self-awareness, perceives
        humans as a threat and retaliates against humanity.)
    -   Among the responses to the question of which technology Canadians
        would never want to see created, the most common were robots with
        artificial intelligence and microchip implants for humans
    -   63.2% of respondents said that they do not believe that man will ever
        go to war with machines
    

Sawyer disagrees with the majority of Canadians, saying, "The big question is whether humanity can survive the advent of machines that are more intelligent than we are. That will be the defining question of the 21st century because, if we can't, we won't be here for the 22nd."

TERMINATOR SALVATION blasts its way onto Blu-ray and DVD on December 1st from Warner Home Video. The newest instalment in the adrenaline-fuelled hit Terminator franchise stars Christian Bale (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) as John Connor , leader of the human resistance in a post-Judgment Day world ravaged by deadly Terminators.

For further information: Carley Tietolman, LexPR Canada, [phone] x 3370, [email protected]