Mike, On 12/10/08, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > *Even words for individuals are generalisations. > *"Ben Goertzel" is a continuously changing reality. At 10.05 pm he will be > different from 10.00pm, and so on. He is in fact many individuals. > *Any statement about an individual, like "Ben Goertzel", is also vague and > open-ended. > > *The only way to refer to and capture individuals with high (though not > perfect) precision is with images. > *A movie of Ben chatting from 10.00pm to 10.05pm will be subject to > extremely few possible interpretations, compared with a verbal statement > about him. >
Even better than a movie, I had some opportunity to observe and interact with Ben during CONVERGENCE08, I dispute the above statement! I had sought to extract just a few specific bits of information from/about Ben. Using VERY specific examples: Bit#1: Did Ben understand that AI/AGI code and NN representation were interchangeable, at the prospective cost of some performance one way or the other. Bit#1=TRUE. Bit#2: Did Ben realize that there were prospectively ~3 orders of magnitude in speed available by running NN instead of AI/AGI representation on an array processor instead of a scalar (x86) processor. Bit#2 affected by question, now True, but utility disputed by the apparent unavailability of array processors. Bit#3: Did Ben realize that the prospective emergence of array processors (e.g. as I have been promoting) would obsolete much of his present work, because its structure isn't vectorizable, so he is in effect betting on continued stagnation in processor architecture, and may in fact be a small component in a large industry failure by denying market? Bit#3= probably FALSE. As always, I attempted to "get the measure of the man", but as so often happens with leaders, there just isn't a "bin" to toss them in. Without an appropriate bin, I got lots of raw data (e.g., he has a LOT of hair), but not all that much usable data. Alternatively, the Director of R&D for Google had a bin waiting for him, as like SO many people who rise to the top of narrowly-focused organizations, he had completely "bought into" the myths at Google without allowing for usurping technologies. I saw the same thing at Microsoft when I examined their R&D operations in 1995. It takes a particular sort of narrow mind to rise to the top of a narrowly-focused organization. Here, there aren't many bits of description about the individuals, but I could easily write a book about the"bin" that the purest of them rise to fill. Steve Richfield ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
