om Today I'm going to break my long Kerbal Space Program induced silence and mumble incoherently about the push toward a concept called "cognitive computing" and struggle, in vain, to get a handle on the philosophical implications of the same. I will do this by contrasting this with my own approach to AI. My focus will be on trying to understand and explain this contrast. I will not be attempting to evaluate, directly at least, the merits of each approach.
om I came across Cognitive Computing a few years ago but it didn't really strike me until just a few days ago that it really was a new, and distinct concept that should be studied as going well beyond the parameters of what I am accustomed to thinking about when I think about AGI. When I think of AGI I think of something that could be flashed onto something similar in kind but much greater in scale to an 8052 or an arduino or something. Not being constrained by the limitations of the human neural architecture, one could create thinking systems well beyond anything that an uploader would be able to conceive. For one thing, you wouldn't have a static neural pattern but a system that would have a much greater range of adaptation. You would then be able to network them and not just make copies of a template individual, but create a network of nodes, each tailored to it's purpose but all part of a greater whole. Basically, I see my work in AI as a means to design my next mind. It will be much greater than what I have now, but, at the same time, be something that still operates within the parameters of what one thinks of as a mind. While it would be different in some respects, on the larger scale it wouldn't be conceptually different than adding more cores to a traditional single processor machine. I'm obliged to point out that the uploaders have never said anything to indicate that their thinking is anything above "First u skan da nuronz and den u emulate it on a kom pu tur and den everything will be MAJIKAL!!!" pfft. On the other hand, I have learned that I can talk about even my most advanced ideas in public without any risk that any of the uploaders will even acknowledge them much less understand them and use them against me. [I would be out of character if I didn't take a stab at the uploaders....] Before I continue, there are many controversial issues surrounding AGI and how it may or may not work. For the sake of the present discussion, lets assume that all types of mentalities on the table are potentially viable and can result in a functioning mind. The problem being how to understand the nature of such a mind. A few weeks ago, I attended a meetup/presentation filled with happy talk about this new concept of cognitive computing. The website is just a presentation with no clear indication of how to navigate, the site may still be at http://cognitivecomputingexperts.com/ . It took my mind a good long while to drill through all the verbage presentation to really go WTF??? They aren't talking about boosting your IQ to 6,000,000. They are talking about what amounts to a god-mind. A mind that doesn't just master vast libraries of knowledge, but has real-time access to staggering amounts of information and is placed in real-time control of vast real-world processes and millions of users. What worries me is that we seem to be rushing into this without any reflection about what it is we are doing or what the nature of these systems we are creating will be. The companies involved are all wearing bottom-line blinders and don't seem cognisant of the bigger picture. The other angle that has to be addressed is what this means for transhumanism. This cognitive computing is described as IBM 360 style computing instead of 8052 computing. Transhumanism demands that we ask questions about the nature of the being we each want to become. To me, this is a shockingly alien mode of existence. I don't think it is very desirable from a human point of view to want to be a mind like that, nor do I even think it is meaningful to propose that a human could become something like that. There are so many issues, sub-issues, side points, and other points of view that my mind is seriously boggled right now and I felt obliged to just get this post out so we can try to have an intelligent discussion on this.... Or we could just sit passively and let all of this happen without our input, we could do that too..... -- IQ is a measure of how stupid you feel. Powers are not rights. ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
