6000 years ago, History begins in Sumer. However, humanoid Homo Habilis appeared on Earth 2.4 million years ago, and Homo Sapiens has been seen on Earth for 200,000 years. In these thousands of centuries, there is probably one thing that has not changed. Just like in all living beings, the need to live and pass on their genetic heritage to continue their lineage.
The Epic of Gilgamesh tells the story of King Gilgamesh's quest to find the elixir of life in order to resurrect his friend Enkidu. The need for protection to sustain human life first led to the creation of robots in the realm of imagination. Like Talos in Crete or the Golem of the Prague Rabbi.
The rapidly advancing information technology, which is gaining momentum day by day, may not have found the elixir of life yet. However, the role of information and communication technologies in increasing life expectancy, from below 30 years at birth in 18th century England to over 80 years today, cannot be denied.
For centuries, the contributions of thousands of scientists have been indispensable elements of life and death. Will 3rd generation artificial intelligence research find a solution to this quest?
In this presentation, through an epic narrative, the contributions of information and communication technologies from the past to the future to the line between life and death will be discussed.
Haldun Akpinar is a Professor of Business Informatics at Marmara University and has been Department Head of the German Department of Business Informatics since 2003. He also lectured on Quantitative Decision Making Systems, Data Mining & Knowledge Discovery and Artificial Intelligence.
