Nah, analogy doesn't quite work - though could be useful. An engine is used to move things... many different things - wheels, levers, etc. So if you've got an engine that is twenty times more powerful, sure you don't need to tell me what particular things it is going to move. It's generally accepted that it can move millions of things..
The difficulty here is that the problems to be solved by an AI or AGI machine are NOT accepted, well-defined. We cannot just take Pei's NARS, say, or NOvaemnte, and say well obviously it will apply to all these different kinds of problems. No doubt it will apply to many. But you have to explain. You have to classify the problems. Indeed, you will at some point be able to (or can already) describe different AI architectures almost as engines - but it's bringing all those problems together - which is a mixture of a psychological and philosophical problem. Background here: the fact that psychologists are still arguing about whether g exists - general intelligence - is a reflection of the difficulties here - the unsolved problems of defining problems. However those difficulties are not that great or insuperable. Not much point in arguing further here - all I can say now is TRY it - try focussing your work the other way round - I'm confident you'll find it makes life vastly easier and more productive. Defining what it does is just as essential for the designer as for the consumer. ----- Original Message ----- From: Benjamin Goertzel To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 5:57 PM Subject: Re: [agi] The role of incertainty P.S. This is a truly weird conversation. It's like you're saying.."Hell it's a box, why should I have to tell you what my box does?" Only insiders care what's inside the box. The rest of the world wants to know what it does - and that's the only way they'll buy it and pay attention to it - and the only reason they should. Life's short. Well, I am not trying to sell the Novamente Cognition Engine to the average Joe as ANYTHING, because it is not finished. When it is finished, I will still not try to sell it to the average Joe (or Mike ;-) as a purpose-specific product, because it is not one. What I will try to sell to people are purpose-specific products, such as virtual pets that they can train, or software systems they can use (if they're biologists) to find patterns in their data, etc. I understand that what people want to pay for, are purpose-specific products. However, what will enable the construction of a wide variety of purpose-specific products, is a general-purpose AGI engine... To use a rough analogy, suppose it was a long time ago and I was developing the world's first internal combustion engine. Then we could argue... Mike: What are you working on, Ben? Ben: I'm building an internal combustion engine Mike: What does it do? Ben: Well, it's a device in which rapid oxidation, of gas and air occurs in a confined space called a combustion chamber. This exothermic reaction of a fuel with an oxidizer creates gases of high temperature and pressure, which are permitted to expand. The defining feature of an internal combustion engine is that useful work is performed by the expanding hot gases acting directly to cause pressure, further causing movement of the piston inside the cylinder. Mike: What? Ben: Well, you burn stuff in a closed chamber and it makes pistons move up and down Mike: Oh. Well who the hell would want to buy something that does that? No one wants to watch pistons move up and down, at least not in my neck of the woods. Ben: Well you can use it for all sorts of different things Mike: Like what? Ben: Well, to power a car, or a locomotive, or an electrical generator ... or even a backpack helicopter. Maybe a robot. A lawnmower. Mike: Ok, so if you want to get your engine built, you need to set a specific goal. For instance, your goal could be to build a lawnmower. Ben: Well, that could be a good incremental goal -- to make a small version of my engine to power a lawnmower. But no particular goal is going to encapsulate all the applications of the engine. The main point is that I'm building an engine that lets you burn fuel and thus create mechanical work -- and this can be used for all sorts of different things. Mike: But, if you want people to buy it, you have to tell them what it will do for them. No one wants to buy a machine that sits in their livingroom and makes pistons bob up and down. Ben: Ok, look. This conversation is getting frustrating. I'm going to close the email window and get back to work. Mike: Darn, this conversation is getting frustrating. I don't want to buy a bunch of exothermic reactions, I want to buy something that does something specific for me. *** -- Ben You could ask them for the specific purpose of the generator, and they would say: "Well, it can be used to power light bulbs, or computers, or cars, or refrigerators, or etc. etc. etc. .... But yet, none of these particular applications summarizes what it does. What it does is to generate electricity, which then can be used in a lot of applications. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. 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