Jim, On 6/21/08, Jim Bromer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The major problem I have is that writing a really really complicated > computer program is really really difficult. > The ONLY rational approach to this (that I know of) is to construct an "engine" that develops and applies machine knowledge, wisdom, or whatever, and NOT write code yourself that actually deals with articles of knowledge/wisdom. That engine itself will still be a bit complex, so you must write it in Visual Basic or .NET that provides a protected execution environment, and NOT write it in C/C++ that makes it ever so easy to inadvertently hide really nasty bugs.
REALLY complex systems may require multi-level interpreters, where a low-level interpreter provides a pseudo-machine on which to program a really smart high-level interpreter, on which you program your AGI. In ~1970 I wrote an ALGOL/FORTRAN/BASIC compiler that ran in just 16K bytes this way. At the bottom was a pseudo-computer whose primitives were fundamental to compiling. That pseudo-machine was then fed a program to read BNF and make compilers, which was then fed a BNF description of my compiler, with the output being my compiler in pseudo-machine code. One feature of this approach is that for anything to work, everything had to work, so once past initial debugging, it worked perfectly! Contrast this with "modern" methods that consume megabytes and never work quite right. I wrote Dr, Eliza over the course of a year. I developed a daily workflow, that started with answering my email while I woke up. Then came the most creative work - module design. Then came programming, and finally came debugging and testing. Obviously, you need a solid plan to start with to complete such an effort. I spent another year developing my plan, an effort that also involved going to computer conferences and bending the ear of anyone who might have some applicable expertise. On a scale of complexity, Dr. Eliza is MUCH simpler than many of the proposals being made here. However, it does have one salient feature - it actually works in a real-world useful way. The more complex the software, the better the design must be, and the more protected the execution must be. You can NEVER anticipate everything that might go into a program, so they must fail ever so softly. Much of what I have been challenging others on this form for came out of the analysis and design of Dr. Eliza. The real world definitely has some interesting structure, e.g. the figure 6 shape of cause-and-effect chains, and that problems are a phenomenon that exists behind people's eyeballs and NOT otherwise in the real world. Ignoring such things and "diving in" and hoping that machine intelligence will resolve all (as many/most here seem to believe) IMHO is a rookie error that leads nowhere useful. Steve Richfield ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=106510220-47b225 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
