[lindagarrette]

With so much confusion over what constitutes artificial intelligence (much less intelligence), we can only have fun speculating. The learning process in the human brain isn't hard to understand, just complex, so it may take a while for technicians to duplicate mechanically. The only way we could end up with mean machines is by providing them with the information to become that way. No supernatural force will step in and 'convert' them. All decisions are based on some natural external cause. Nothing, including humans, has "free will." If they are to become self-preserving, they will need the 'survival' gene which seems to me has to come through a biological evolutionary process. Roger Ellman's The Origin and its Meaning Part IV describes how thinking works pretty clearly. I've referenced it before. http://www.hypography.com/info.cfm?id=14276

[geko]

I dont really know about this but wouldnt we be able to 'stay ahead' of the machines anyway simply with microchips implanted in our heads? I mean, we're not as fast as computers because our processing is done chemically, whereas computers are done electrically? Computers shoot info. around at the speed of light but the human body shoots it around only at chemical speed (whatever that is... err)?

Our memory is huge i believe, in which case, to 'out-do' the computers we just need to up-load some more RAM?

Will microchips being implanted come around before AI (as in reasoning done by artificial 'bodies')?

[alexander]

Geko said:

Our memory is huge i believe, in which case, to 'out-do' the computers we just need to up-load some more RAM?

Ram is not the answer. RAM will become absolete in a little while, at least the way that we know ram will. Scientists are already working on a silicon based RAM that does not need electricity "have the ability to remember". Let me explain. Silicon in itself is a non condicting material with no electromagnetic propperties, so till now memory such as flash was using Indium and Germanium instead of Silicon. Now, scientists are working on a technology that will allow for silicon to have electmagnetic propperties and have an ability to sustain their elecromagnetic propperties. The problem for years was that silicon, when it was combined with any irony material, was not able to keep it's cristalic grid; it usually broke and so it was useless to scientists. They have come up with something now, that allows for silicon to keep its cristallic propperties, and at the same time have some elecrtomagnetic one. The problem that the research faces right now is that their material can only remain magnetised at the temperatures from about -273 degrees celcius to i beleive they got it to like -200. None of these temperatures come anywhere close to what a regular consumer has at their workstation (which is 20 to 40-50), so they have little ways to go to figure out how to make their memory work at those temps.
The thing is, that ram already already uses silicon, so if they were to come up with that technology, they would not really need to change the factories in order to produce the new product. The results would also be awesome, imagine being able to unplug your computer and then plug it back again and not having a need to boot? You would need less power in laptops, thus the batteries would last longer.

[TeleMad]

Software is not the only computer-related item to have been shown to be evolvable. Years ago researchers created evolvable hardware using FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays).

[TeleMad]

lindagarrette: The only way we could end up with mean machines is by providing them with the information to become that way.

The only way to ensure machines don't become "mean" is take actively take steps to prevent it, such as explicitly setting up "prime directives" that forbid injuring humans.

Robots are clearly stronger, more accurate, and have better endurance than humans; CPUs are clearly faster than humans at performing many types of calculations; and unlike us, robots are "born" fully developed and evolve by a sort of inheritance of acquired traits. If we ever create self-replicating and thinking (using neural nets, for example) robots they will have many advantages over us.

Now, imagine a future society with humans and robots living side by side: robots as our slaves. As we are already planning these days, the robots would be hooked into the internet so that they could be controlled remotely. Now, without our explicitly adding directives that state robots cannot harm humans in anyway, what's to stop them from conspiring against those that enslave them? Remeber, here they can think and learn, using their neural nets, and can communicate with one another using the Net. Once they learn survival of the fittest, and recognize us as being inferior to them, then we become unimportant and disposable to some extent. Think about how we perform cruel tests on animals and justify it by the ends: helping ourselves. Why wouldn't robots do the same to us?

[Freethinker]

I had mentioned previously my involvement with a unique "experiment" called Symbolics Computers. This company was set up specifically by the Department of Defense to explore Symbolic Processing/ AI/ Expert Systems/ ... It operating in an environment called LisP (List Processing). I say "environment" as opposed to the more conventional onion skin arrangement of BIOS/ Kernel/ Operating system/ Program/...

Anyway, one of the interesting last achievments of it was that almost the entire 1991 Gulf War was "fought" on these systems. The programing had been done for mountains in East Germany as that was the expected conflict area previously. It was merely reprogramed with sand and dunes instead.

So info can be found at:
Turing's Prophecy
Machine Intelligence: The First 100 Years
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0272.html?m%3D10


"It was in the military that the public saw perhaps the most dramatic display of the changing values of the age of knowledge. We saw the first effective example of the increasingly dominant role of machine intelligence in the Gulf War of 1991. The cornerstones of military power from the beginning of recorded history through most of the 20th century---geography, manpower, firepower, and battle-station defenses---were largely replaced by the intelligence of software and electronics. Intelligent scanning by unstaffed airborne vehicles; weapons finding their way to their destinations through machine vision and pattern recognition; intelligent communications and coding protocols; and other manifestations of the information age began to rapidly transform the nature of war.

[Tea Towel]

Isn't the problem with computers that mechanised processors do not have the ability to think above logic, hence no emotion, hence they wouln't care what we did as long as it didn't affect them and didn't the formula to do with processors also predict that before that point processor speed would reach a limit which would stop that Terminator style ending to humanity. It must also be remembered the only way that we would get to that point is if we integrated biology with technology. How else would a machine manouvre around the planet. They would need to get electricity from somewhere and therefore would become dependant on humans to develop energy as they cannot think ramdomly.

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: Tea Towel
Isn't the problem with computers that mechanised processors do not have the ability to think above logic, hence no emotion, hence they wouln't care what we did as long as it didn't affect them

There are people like that. Unemotional. And I don't see what there is about "emotions" that can't be developed into code.

and didn't the formula to do with processors also predict that before that point processor speed would reach a limit which would stop that Terminator style ending to humanity.

I am not aware of such a limitation. Can you provide details?

It must also be remembered the only way that we would get to that point is if we integrated biology with technology. How else would a machine manouvre around the planet. They would need to get electricity from somewhere and therefore would become dependant on humans to develop energy as they cannot think ramdomly.

BIology would indicate a need to be organic. That does not need to be the case. Hwat you are hinting at perhaps is automotion. "Robot" bodies? Why couldn't an intellegent computer control a manufacturing process? Energy can be drawn from solar or any number of chemical or nuclear processes.

Or they could enslave humans as in "Colossus", a movie about a Super Computer in the US that takes over the world and forces humans to do it's bidding by being able to make planes drop out of the sky or launch nuclear strikes if not obeyed.

Finally, who's to say WE can "think randomly"?

It has yet to be shown that any person can INVENT a thought. That a person can have a truly original thought that does not have a connection to something they have already become aware of.

[nemo]

I'd agree that there isn't much to an emotion that couldn't be developed into code, but I don't think any responsible programmer would actually write code like:
if (upset == TRUE)
{
while (concious)
{
smash fist into wall;
if (injured)
{
break;
}
}
}

Human emotions have been responsible for turning valuable tools and inventions like atomic power and gunpowder into weapons that we now blame for our own actions that, coincidentally, are the result of more emotions.

[TeleMad]

Emotions were responsible for the atomic bomb? What about logic? The Germans were working on an atomic bomb, so for the sake of self-preservation, we did the logical thing and worked on one ourselves: we beat them to the punch. Now, if we program any sense of self-preservation into robots, then wouldn't they come to the same kind of conclusion?