On 9/7/07, Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- Quasar Strider <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Hello, > > > > I see several possible avenues for implementing a self-aware machine > which > > can pass the Turing test: i.e. human level AI. Mechanical and > Electronic. > > However, I see little purpose in doing this. Fact is, we already have > self > > aware machines which can pass the Turing test: Humans beings. > > This was not Turing's goal, nor is it the direction that AI is headed.
I keep seeing people attempting to build electronic brains, or stems, of increasing complexity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Brain If I extrapolate indefinitely using Moore's Law I get a point where it crosses over the human level threshold. We are currently near a semiconductor fabrication limit but there is no obvious scientific barrier to building such a thing. The living proof of concept is inside our heads. What is the direction that AI is headed then? As for the man Alan Turing: I believe his goal was merely happiness and companionship. He pursued it using maths and computers merely because he was good at it. It was World War II. He tried to help his people survive it. Turing's goal was to define artificial intelligence. The question of > whether I believe Alan Turing defined human level AI. As for AI, I believe it has existed since the Jacquard loom, or perhaps even before that. I consider a mechanical clock to be a primitive fixed function computer. It seems the Antikythera mechanism could even be programmed by hand. consciousness can exist in a machine has been debated since the earliest > computers. Either machines can be conscious or consciousness does not > exist. > The human brain is programmed through DNA to believe in the existence its > own > consciousness and free will, and to fear death. It is simply a property > of > good learning algorithms to behave as if they had free will, a balance > between > exploitation for immediate reward and exploration for the possibility of > gaining knowledge for greater future reward. Animals without these > characteristics did not pass on their DNA. Therefore you have them. I agree. I believe we are biomechanical machines and a result from evolution. There is no use denying the fossil proof. Turing avoided the controversial question of consciousness by equating > intelligence to the appearance of intelligence. It is not the best test > of > intelligence, but it seems to be the only one that people can agree on. > > The goal of commercial AI is not to create humans, but to solve the > remaining > problems that humans can still do better than computers, such as language > and > vision. You see Google making progress in these areas, but I don't think > you > would ever confuse Google with a human. I see these attempts as the electronic equivalent of a spotter dog or falcon. I have little qualms or reservations against such a technology. I beg you to remember: A dog has keen earing but poor eyesight. They also respect us as leaders of their pack. I doubt a self aware piece of software with greater than human grade AI, networked into all the worlds computers, omnipresent and omniscient, would see any one of us as a pack leader. Modern trends towards remotely automated aircraft, like the X-45 UCAV, carrying live weapons, do not make me ease my mind one bit. We could be automating ourselves into oblivion. It used to be that we did not trust a nuclear missile computer, and required two separate people, each with his own key, to launch a computerized weapon. How easily do we forget. I think we are creating our own pet T-Rex and hoping he will be contented by following our lead. We are so security fixated and afraid of death, we are putting all our trust into machines, when our enemies are just a bunch of insane and poor people in the desert. We need human police not Terminator packs. I believe we are living under a security paranoia. Google is a symbiotic collective of individual people and machines. A person is a symbiotic collective of individual cells. Chilled? I am against Torture and the Death Penalty, enjoy the company of children and old people. I do not own a gun. I am e-mailing this from a Google account, even knowing that they can easily filter everything. Some people suspect they comb everything for recruiting, or more sinister, purposes. Some of us, in the community, do not trust Google because it is a secretive entity which allowed China to censor the population inside its borders. A secretive entity in a country with the death penalty, which attempted to jail Dmitry Sklyarov and DVD Jon, enforcing torture against their own citizens in Guantanamo Bay under charges which skirt the Geneva convention and their own Constitution. Heck Alan Cox does not wish to even enter the USA anymore. I personally believe it would be hard to attract so many smart people without convincing them that you are doing the right thing. The best of us always worked on what we wished, not what someone else told them to do. This has been the case since the dawn of time. I also believe that it is better to have a Pax Americana than to enter the Dark Ages again. I judge people by their actions and then speak. Corporations are made from people. From my point of view Google and the USA are beacons of light in the darkness. I may not agree with everything either of these entities do but I understand their reasons. Sometimes concessions must be made in the name of progress. I hope Google and the USA will keep true to their motto and Constitution. > We do not need direct neural links to our brain to download and upload > > childhood memories. > > I agree this is a great risk. The motivation to upload is driven by fear > of > death and our incorrect but biologically programmed belief in > consciousness. > The result will be the extinction of human life and its replacement with > godlike intelligence, possibly this century. The best we can do is view > this > as a good thing, because the alternative -- a rational approach to our own > intelligence -- would result in extinction with no replacement. In this I see an actual need. Yes some of us have always desired immortality of the soul. Buddha tried to teach us that was not necessary, that we will all fade when the Universe ends, yet we persist in it. I hoped we would satisfy with having a longer, or even infinite, lifespan and dying of natural causes in a sickless body. Working cryo-suspension even. Now I see I was wrong. I hope we will not die poisoned, trying to become immortal, like the First Emperor of China: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang I will not fight against this but I believe we presently are better off as we are: independent, replicating, highly mobile cooperative units. It increases our species chance for survival. Our greatest fear is fear itself. Even in a machine body, death is possible. I believe we will not conquer death, we will merely postpone it further. It may be we will get wiser from being put more closely together though. Now that would be a plus. Remember Fermi's Paradox. I do not believe we are alone. In fact, I suspect we never were. Remember the old fairy tales: - Pandora cursed humanity with plagues from being curious and looking into the box Zeus gave her. - Prometheus got punished by Zeus for stealing Fire from the Gods to give it to man. Prometheus was forgiven by Zeus for saving his life later on. - Adam and Eve got ejected from the Garden of Eden for biting into the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve bit first. Just fairy tales? Nice coincidences considering the sources of the stories are probably hundreds of miles away. I have looked into many mythos. Some pieces start clicking into place over and over again. I suspect it is either orally transmitted information from a common root or genetic memory. Remember what the Bible said: We are to multiply and cover the surface of the Earth. It says nothing about spreading further. In fact, I believe it says when men tried to build the Tower of Babel to reach for the sky, so they could kill God with an arrow, God punished man by making him speak in many tongues. Interesting questions: even if God existed, was alive, plus showed up, how would we know he was the real God, and not a fake? The Spanish certainly fooled Montezuma. He thought he was seeing their patron God Quetzalcoatl. Funny thing is, Quetzalcoatl looks more like the serpent from the Garden of Eden, than our Christian God. Plus the American Indians engaged in human sacrifices. This is partially why the Spanish hated them so. So, if God existed, perhaps this was in fact part of his master plan. If there are supreme beings with über-technology they would all seem like Gods to us. It gets more loopy as I start connecting pieces of mythology, so it is probably better that I stop here. In a couple of seconds I will be grabbing tin foil in fear the supreme beings will reprogram my head and turn me against my own with their silly games. Hmmm... perhaps I should get really quiet now, like Elmer Fudd hunting rabbits. :-D Besides, even the Bible only says to think about God on Saturday, not everyday. ----- 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/?member_id=4007604&id_secret=39774569-a180f7
