Wozniak hungry for AI era

21 Sep 2012, 6:49 pm   -   Source: AAP
On the day the iPhone 5 was released in Australia, with some hiccups, Mr Wozniak told business leaders in Brisbane that AI was the next logical step. (Getty Images)

On the day the iPhone 5 was released in Australia, with some hiccups, Mr Wozniak told business leaders in Brisbane that AI was the next logical step. (Getty Images)

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he's hungry to know what the world will look like when the next frontier of Artificial Intelligence is crossed.

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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says artificial intelligence is the next technological frontier.

On the day the iPhone 5 was released in Australia, with some hiccups, Mr Wozniak told business leaders in Brisbane that AI was the next logical step.

"We've made very tiny strides so far in the area of artificial intelligence and yet that really is where the future is," he told the QUT Business Leaders' Forum.

But he said AI wasn't too far off.

"In 40 years we will have computers that are conscious, that have feelings, that have a personality," Mr Wozniak said.

"A computer is going to be your best friend. You'll talk to it. It's going to look at your face and know your expression. It's going to know your heart and soul better than anything in the world.

"A few of us might be replaced by machines and we might have to restructure society.

"So is my iPhone someday. It's going to know me so good I won't want you humans.

"There's so much innovation and thinking of new better ways to do things that every company really has to watch out and move very early if they see something that might totally change people's values."

The man who designed the first personal computers in the world fell in love with computer programming language at first sight, and decided he would be an engineer for life.

He later found the perfect partnership to underpin that love, when he teamed up with Steve Jobs.

Jobs was always the businessman but Mr Wozniak's ambition was all about inventing - "to build great computers", not to build a great company.

"When the money came I didn't feel attached to it," he said.

Mr Wozniak spoke of his shock at hearing Jobs had died last year.

A reporter had called him and asked: "Did you hear the news?".

"They didn't even say it. They couldn't even say it on the phone."

"I remember crying on the phone during interviews.

"You go back to school when you were just young kids with all those memories you'll never forget."

Mr Wozniak said his current focus was helping inspire young people to dream and build great new inventions, and one way he did that was by donating technology, not money, to schools.

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