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mike3 · Guest

On Jul 26, 7:15 am, ju...@diegidio.name wrote:
[quote]On 26 Jul, 07:14, "|-|erc" <h...@r.c> wrote:

In 5 to 20 years search engines will have a new feature,
contextual search.

You are quite misinformed: there is no intelligence at all in a search
engine. In 5 years, the whole R&D around intelligent search agents is
going to be recognized for what it is: a big bunch of rubbish, a waste
of some 50 years for humanity, the usual gain for the usual
speculators.

Nothing new under the sun: the new man is still not here (he>s heard
about us and has taken a detour to Andromeda).

[/quote]
Who>s that supposed to be, anyway?

Sanforized · Guest

Occidental wrote:

[quote]On Jul 28, 6:43 pm, Dave Seaman <dsea...@no.such.host> wrote:

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:59:10 -0700 (PDT), Occidental wrote:

On Jul 28, 5:51 pm, Dave Seaman <dsea...@no.such.host> wrote:

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:05:17 -0700 (PDT), Occidental wrote:

On Jul 28, 2:44 pm, Dave Seaman <dsea...@no.such.host> wrote:

Edsger Dijkstra once remarked that the question of
whether a computer can think is no more interesting
than the question of whether a submarine can swim.

hmmmmmm. This POV has been more or less refuted by Searle>s Chinese
Room Thought Experiment, no?

Not at all. I am not about to launch into a discussion of Searle. Let>s
just say I don>t accept his conclusions, and my reasons have been stated
by others.

Who?

I told you, I am not going to discuss Searle. I don>t consider it a
useful discussion. If you read what I said elsethread, it is useless to
argue over whether performing a chemical analysis is comparable to what a
human does in tasting wine. By the same token,

errr...you are discussing it. Sorry to have to point that out.

it is useless to argue
over whether what a man/machine combination does in reading and answering
questions in Chinese is comparable to what a native speaker of Chinese
does.

But why is it useless? (Feel free to explain why in the context of a
response in which you maintain that you are *not* going to explain
why).
[/quote]
This subthread should probably be renamed "whine tasting."

Kyle T. Jones · Guest

Jesse F. Hughes wrote:
[quote]"Kyle T. Jones" <KBfoMe@realdomain.net> writes:

He isn>t mindlessly manipulating symbols as he claims, or the
Chinese he returns would be random.

I see that you>re trolling much like your dear pal, John Jones.

Searle, after all, never claims to be *mindlessly* manipulating
symbols. He merely claims to be following instructions which happen
to (per hypothesis) produce coherent Chinese responses, while he does
not personally understand Chinese.

[/quote]
"Dear pal"? How odd. Here I thought I was providing anti-troll basics.
It>s pretty simple: "Don>t feed the trolls".

Jesse, you should read the previous posts before replying. When you say:

"Searle, after all, never claims to be *mindlessly* manipulating
symbols", did you not notice, from the first post mentioning Searle:

"Searle argues that his lack of understanding goes to show that
computers do not understand Chinese either, because they are in the
same situation as he is. They are mindless manipulators of symbols,
just as he is."

Now, you can argue with this interpretation, just note that it>s not
*my* interpretation, and that, in fact, I was simply responding to what
had been posted.

I don>t require an apology for the "troll" snark. I know you big branes
have a tough time admitting error. An amazing amount of intellectual
insecurity in the world of academia (and, for that matter, in Usenet), no?

Cheers.

PS: I had to repost this because of your follow-up BS. Why do you
think you should have the right to restrict responses to your response
to one of the three groups to which you yourself responded?

Rude!!!

David Bernier · Guest

Occidental wrote:
[quote]On Jul 28, 2:44 pm, Dave Seaman <dsea...@no.such.host> wrote:
Edsger Dijkstra once remarked that the question of
whether a computer can think is no more interesting
than the question of whether a submarine can swim.

hmmmmmm. This POV has been more or less refuted by Searle>s Chinese
Room Thought Experiment, no?

QUOTE, wiki
Chinese room thought experiment

Searle asks his audience to imagine that many years from now, people
have constructed a computer that behaves as if it understands Chinese.
The computer takes Chinese characters as input and, following a
program, produces other Chinese characters, which it presents as
output. Suppose that this computer performs this task so convincingly
that it easily passes the Turing test. In other words, it convinces a
human Chinese speaker that the program is itself a human Chinese
speaker. All the questions the human asks are responded to
appropriately, such that the Chinese speaker is convinced that he or
she is talking to another Chinese-speaking human. The conclusion that
proponents of artificial intelligence would like to draw is that the
computer understands Chinese, just as the person does.

Now, Searle asks the audience to suppose that he is in a room in which
he receives Chinese characters, consults a book containing an English
version of the computer program, and processes the Chinese characters
according to the instructions in the book. Searle notes that he does
not understand a word of Chinese. He simply manipulates what to him
are meaningless squiggles, using the book and whatever other equipment
is provided in the room, such as paper, pencils, erasers, and filing
cabinets. After manipulating the symbols, Searle will produce the
answer in Chinese. Since the computer passed the Turing test, so does
Searle running its program by hand: "Nobody just looking at my answers
can tell that I don>t speak a word of Chinese," Searle writes.[1]

Searle argues that his lack of understanding goes to show that
computers do not understand Chinese either, because they are in the
same situation as he is. They are mindless manipulators of symbols,
just as he is. They don>t understand what they>re "saying", just as he
doesn>t. Since they do not have conscious mental states like
"understanding", they can not properly be said to have minds.
END QUOTE
[/quote]

It seems to me that there are mental processes of which we are
consciously unaware. For instance, when making an effort to
recall something, one might try to work by association:

``The family gathered at Christmas at Grandma>s , John was there,
Tracy, ... George with his pet kangaroo ... *Staples*".

But if I>m trying to remember something, I don>t know all the
mental activity going on, so it seems. Or say someone is
advised to ``sleep on it", when facing some non-trivial decision
or issue. Anecdotally, it does seem that our minds work on
problems without us being consciously aware of these things,
including in mathematics. If it takes 10 minutes to come to
an important insight, there are cases where it comes out
of the blue.

It seems that Searle is arguing that if someone or
something can answer in Chinese and has a mind, then it
must understand Chinese. It seems to me that before
speech, there is thinking going on [partly non-verbal].

Also, if one tries to locate one>s mind, what is there to
say? While it appears that no mind is at work in
Searle>s thought experiment, what does it mean to
say that? what are the properties of a mind? What
tests to do for mind-presence or absence?

David Bernier

galathaea · Guest

On Jul 29, 6:46 pm, "|-|erc" <h...@r.c> wrote:
[quote]"David Bernier" <david...@earth.sol> wrote

Occidental wrote:
On Jul 28, 2:44 pm, Dave Seaman <dsea...@no.such.host> wrote:
Edsger Dijkstra once remarked that the question of
whether a computer can think is no more interesting
than the question of whether a submarine can swim.

hmmmmmm. This POV has been more or less refuted by Searle>s Chinese
Room Thought Experiment, no?

QUOTE, wiki
Chinese room thought experiment

Searle asks his audience to imagine that many years from now, people
have constructed a computer that behaves as if it understands Chinese.
The computer takes Chinese characters as input and, following a
program, produces other Chinese characters, which it presents as
output. Suppose that this computer performs this task so convincingly
that it easily passes the Turing test. In other words, it convinces a
human Chinese speaker that the program is itself a human Chinese
speaker. All the questions the human asks are responded to
appropriately, such that the Chinese speaker is convinced that he or
she is talking to another Chinese-speaking human. The conclusion that
proponents of artificial intelligence would like to draw is that the
computer understands Chinese, just as the person does.

Now, Searle asks the audience to suppose that he is in a room in which
he receives Chinese characters, consults a book containing an English
version of the computer program, and processes the Chinese characters
according to the instructions in the book. Searle notes that he does
not understand a word of Chinese. He simply manipulates what to him
are meaningless squiggles, using the book and whatever other equipment
is provided in the room, such as paper, pencils, erasers, and filing
cabinets. After manipulating the symbols, Searle will produce the
answer in Chinese. Since the computer passed the Turing test, so does
Searle running its program by hand: "Nobody just looking at my answers
can tell that I don>t speak a word of Chinese," Searle writes.[1]

Searle argues that his lack of understanding goes to show that
computers do not understand Chinese either, because they are in the
same situation as he is. They are mindless manipulators of symbols,
just as he is. They don>t understand what they>re "saying", just as he
doesn>t. Since they do not have conscious mental states like
"understanding", they can not properly be said to have minds.
END QUOTE

It seems to me that there are mental processes of which we are
consciously unaware. For instance, when making an effort to
recall something, one might try to work by association:

``The family gathered at Christmas at Grandma>s , John was there,
Tracy, ... George with his pet kangaroo ... *Staples*".

But if I>m trying to remember something, I don>t know all the
mental activity going on, so it seems. Or say someone is
advised to ``sleep on it", when facing some non-trivial decision
or issue. Anecdotally, it does seem that our minds work on
problems without us being consciously aware of these things,
including in mathematics. If it takes 10 minutes to come to
an important insight, there are cases where it comes out
of the blue.

It seems that Searle is arguing that if someone or
something can answer in Chinese and has a mind, then it
must understand Chinese. It seems to me that before
speech, there is thinking going on [partly non-verbal].

Also, if one tries to locate one>s mind, what is there to
say? While it appears that no mind is at work in
Searle>s thought experiment, what does it mean to
say that? what are the properties of a mind? What
tests to do for mind-presence or absence?

David Bernier

There>s 2 options, the mind is a set of parallel computing processes,
with certain predominant algorithms giving rise to consciousness,
or the mind is some quantum soup of neural activity that only brains
will ever possess. In the latter case, computational AI may be
very limited with its ability, though it should still be impressive and
able to talk and do clever things. When a (futuristic) pattern recognition
algorithm scans over an image, will it *see* any pixels at all? Or
will androids be blind and guided by concepts alone? My guess is
that its all computational, but it doesn>t really matter as long as we
get there we will find out.
[/quote]
all quantum algorithms have classical analogues
(adding a layer to solve the diffy-ques)

there doesn>t seem to be anything holding back simulation
and since neural architectonics are being better modeled every year
progress appears to follow that of any science

AI will probably not be procedural

it will likely end up modular
built from models of the much simpler brain systems
that actually are involved in decision processes

ever since rana computatrix
it has become clearer that such models have no inherent limitations
and now we have pretty good models of simple hippocampi
many of the components of the limbic system
and have even begun to map the ennervation to the cortex

any AI will need to be taught

immersion in learning environments is magnitudes more successful
than trying to procedurally program knowledge
and scalable over time

what is needed is a better understanding of what this all means
at a much more foundational level

the fact that systems able to learn
must be able to grow in complexity
that there is a fundamentally logical relationship
between complexity and learning systems
and that evolution is selective on these attributes
has still not been given the attempts at formalisation it deserves

once these ideas can be discussed through observable models
i suspect the discussion will lose much of it>s mystery
since these attributes are found in many physical systems

and this is from someone who at one point
was strongly influenced by the school of poetic logic...

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
galathaea: prankster, fablist, magician, liar

galathaea · Guest

On Jul 29, 6:46 pm, "|-|erc" <h...@r.c> wrote:
[quote]"David Bernier" <david...@earth.sol> wrote

Occidental wrote:
On Jul 28, 2:44 pm, Dave Seaman <dsea...@no.such.host> wrote:
Edsger Dijkstra once remarked that the question of
whether a computer can think is no more interesting
than the question of whether a submarine can swim.

hmmmmmm. This POV has been more or less refuted by Searle>s Chinese
Room Thought Experiment, no?

QUOTE, wiki
Chinese room thought experiment

Searle asks his audience to imagine that many years from now, people
have constructed a computer that behaves as if it understands Chinese.
The computer takes Chinese characters as input and, following a
program, produces other Chinese characters, which it presents as
output. Suppose that this computer performs this task so convincingly
that it easily passes the Turing test. In other words, it convinces a
human Chinese speaker that the program is itself a human Chinese
speaker. All the questions the human asks are responded to
appropriately, such that the Chinese speaker is convinced that he or
she is talking to another Chinese-speaking human. The conclusion that
proponents of artificial intelligence would like to draw is that the
computer understands Chinese, just as the person does.

Now, Searle asks the audience to suppose that he is in a room in which
he receives Chinese characters, consults a book containing an English
version of the computer program, and processes the Chinese characters
according to the instructions in the book. Searle notes that he does
not understand a word of Chinese. He simply manipulates what to him
are meaningless squiggles, using the book and whatever other equipment
is provided in the room, such as paper, pencils, erasers, and filing
cabinets. After manipulating the symbols, Searle will produce the
answer in Chinese. Since the computer passed the Turing test, so does
Searle running its program by hand: "Nobody just looking at my answers
can tell that I don>t speak a word of Chinese," Searle writes.[1]

Searle argues that his lack of understanding goes to show that
computers do not understand Chinese either, because they are in the
same situation as he is. They are mindless manipulators of symbols,
just as he is. They don>t understand what they>re "saying", just as he
doesn>t. Since they do not have conscious mental states like
"understanding", they can not properly be said to have minds.
END QUOTE

It seems to me that there are mental processes of which we are
consciously unaware. For instance, when making an effort to
recall something, one might try to work by association:

``The family gathered at Christmas at Grandma>s , John was there,
Tracy, ... George with his pet kangaroo ... *Staples*".

But if I>m trying to remember something, I don>t know all the
mental activity going on, so it seems. Or say someone is
advised to ``sleep on it", when facing some non-trivial decision
or issue. Anecdotally, it does seem that our minds work on
problems without us being consciously aware of these things,
including in mathematics. If it takes 10 minutes to come to
an important insight, there are cases where it comes out
of the blue.

It seems that Searle is arguing that if someone or
something can answer in Chinese and has a mind, then it
must understand Chinese. It seems to me that before
speech, there is thinking going on [partly non-verbal].

Also, if one tries to locate one>s mind, what is there to
say? While it appears that no mind is at work in
Searle>s thought experiment, what does it mean to
say that? what are the properties of a mind? What
tests to do for mind-presence or absence?

David Bernier

There>s 2 options, the mind is a set of parallel computing processes,
with certain predominant algorithms giving rise to consciousness,
or the mind is some quantum soup of neural activity that only brains
will ever possess. In the latter case, computational AI may be
very limited with its ability, though it should still be impressive and
able to talk and do clever things. When a (futuristic) pattern recognition
algorithm scans over an image, will it *see* any pixels at all? Or
will androids be blind and guided by concepts alone? My guess is
that its all computational, but it doesn>t really matter as long as we
get there we will find out.
[/quote]
all quantum algorithms have classical analogues
(adding a layer to solve the diffy-ques)

there doesn>t seem to be anything holding back simulation
and since neural architectonics are being better modeled every year
progress appears to follow that of any science

AI will probably not be procedural

it will likely end up modular
built from models of the much simpler brain systems
that actually are involved in decision processes

ever since rana computatrix
it has become clearer that such models have no inherent limitations
and now we have pretty good models of simple hippocampi
many of the components of the limbic system
and have even begun to map the ennervation to the cortex

any AI will need to be taught

immersion in learning environments is magnitudes more successful
than trying to procedurally program knowledge
and scalable over time

what is needed is a better understanding of what this all means
at a much more foundational level

the fact that systems able to learn
must be able to grow in complexity
that there is a fundamentally logical relationship
between complexity and learning systems
and that evolution is selective on these attributes
has still not been given the attempts at formalisation it deserves

once these ideas can be discussed through observable models
i suspect the discussion will lose much of it>s mystery
since these attributes are found in many physical systems

and this is from someone who at one point
was strongly influenced by the school of poetic logic...

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
galathaea: prankster, fablist, magician, liar

|-|erc · Guest

"David Bernier" <david250@earth.sol> wrote
[quote]Occidental wrote:
On Jul 28, 2:44 pm, Dave Seaman <dsea...@no.such.host> wrote:
Edsger Dijkstra once remarked that the question of
whether a computer can think is no more interesting
than the question of whether a submarine can swim.

hmmmmmm. This POV has been more or less refuted by Searle>s Chinese
Room Thought Experiment, no?

QUOTE, wiki
Chinese room thought experiment

Searle asks his audience to imagine that many years from now, people
have constructed a computer that behaves as if it understands Chinese.
The computer takes Chinese characters as input and, following a
program, produces other Chinese characters, which it presents as
output. Suppose that this computer performs this task so convincingly
that it easily passes the Turing test. In other words, it convinces a
human Chinese speaker that the program is itself a human Chinese
speaker. All the questions the human asks are responded to
appropriately, such that the Chinese speaker is convinced that he or
she is talking to another Chinese-speaking human. The conclusion that
proponents of artificial intelligence would like to draw is that the
computer understands Chinese, just as the person does.

Now, Searle asks the audience to suppose that he is in a room in which
he receives Chinese characters, consults a book containing an English
version of the computer program, and processes the Chinese characters
according to the instructions in the book. Searle notes that he does
not understand a word of Chinese. He simply manipulates what to him
are meaningless squiggles, using the book and whatever other equipment
is provided in the room, such as paper, pencils, erasers, and filing
cabinets. After manipulating the symbols, Searle will produce the
answer in Chinese. Since the computer passed the Turing test, so does
Searle running its program by hand: "Nobody just looking at my answers
can tell that I don>t speak a word of Chinese," Searle writes.[1]

Searle argues that his lack of understanding goes to show that
computers do not understand Chinese either, because they are in the
same situation as he is. They are mindless manipulators of symbols,
just as he is. They don>t understand what they>re "saying", just as he
doesn>t. Since they do not have conscious mental states like
"understanding", they can not properly be said to have minds.
END QUOTE

It seems to me that there are mental processes of which we are
consciously unaware. For instance, when making an effort to
recall something, one might try to work by association:

``The family gathered at Christmas at Grandma>s , John was there,
Tracy, ... George with his pet kangaroo ... *Staples*".

But if I>m trying to remember something, I don>t know all the
mental activity going on, so it seems. Or say someone is
advised to ``sleep on it", when facing some non-trivial decision
or issue. Anecdotally, it does seem that our minds work on
problems without us being consciously aware of these things,
including in mathematics. If it takes 10 minutes to come to
an important insight, there are cases where it comes out
of the blue.

It seems that Searle is arguing that if someone or
something can answer in Chinese and has a mind, then it
must understand Chinese. It seems to me that before
speech, there is thinking going on [partly non-verbal].

Also, if one tries to locate one>s mind, what is there to
say? While it appears that no mind is at work in
Searle>s thought experiment, what does it mean to
say that? what are the properties of a mind? What
tests to do for mind-presence or absence?

David Bernier
[/quote]

There>s 2 options, the mind is a set of parallel computing processes,
with certain predominant algorithms giving rise to consciousness,
or the mind is some quantum soup of neural activity that only brains
will ever possess. In the latter case, computational AI may be
very limited with its ability, though it should still be impressive and
able to talk and do clever things. When a (futuristic) pattern recognition
algorithm scans over an image, will it *see* any pixels at all? Or
will androids be blind and guided by concepts alone? My guess is
that its all computational, but it doesn>t really matter as long as we
get there we will find out.

Herc

Nam Nguyen · Guest

Kyle T. Jones wrote:

[quote]The great AI accomplishment would be creating a machine that actually
had esthetic judgment.
[/quote]
Agree. If a machine exhibits *only* non-aesthetic behaviors then we would
call it machine, not an AI machine.

[quote]No one has the remotest clue how such a system could be built, even in principle.
[/quote]
Not agree. How do you know that?

|-|erc · Guest

"galathaea" <galathaea@gmail.com> wrote
[quote]There>s 2 options, the mind is a set of parallel computing processes,
with certain predominant algorithms giving rise to consciousness,
or the mind is some quantum soup of neural activity that only brains
will ever possess. In the latter case, computational AI may be
[/quote]
<snip>

[quote]
all quantum algorithms have classical analogues
[/quote]
there may be some entanglement going on with the neurons or synapses
that we can>t emulate on computers, or some quantum process we don>t
know about. it does seem like a leap of functionality for a computer program
to SEE a picture, or HEAR a sound; plus our other senses. what algorithm
SEES a single white pixel? Can it be extended to see a white plane? a
camera image? does optical pattern recognition trigger the sensation of sight?

Herc

Lars Kecke · Guest

|-|erc schrieb:

[quote]There>s 2 options, the mind is a set of parallel computing processes,
with certain predominant algorithms giving rise to consciousness,
[/quote]
probably

[quote]or the mind is some quantum soup of neural activity that only brains
will ever possess.
[/quote]
quantum correlations decay much to quickly (within nanoseconds) at
temperatures that are compatible with life as we know it.

[quote]In the latter case, computational AI may be
very limited with its ability, though it should still be impressive and
able to talk and do clever things.
[/quote]
But if you can have a meaningful conversation with it, it just passed
its Turing test and should be considered human.

[quote]When a (futuristic) pattern recognition
algorithm scans over an image, will it *see* any pixels at all?
[/quote]
even today>s compression algorithms don>t work with pixels, since e.g.
wavelets are much more suited to describe photographs. Pixels are just
artifacts, it>s shapes that matter, so the higher-level algorithms will
use a pixel-free description.

Lars

Lars Kecke · Guest

|-|erc schrieb:
[quote]"Lars Kecke" <larskecke@gmail.com> wrote ...
|-|erc schrieb:
In 5 to 20 years search engines will have a new feature,
contextual search.
you mean, like the Science Citation Index? Has been around since the
invention of <meta> tags.

I once found a book that contained how to write a web browser in visual basic.
Try searching for it, "web", "browser", and "visual basic" all produce a tonne
of fluff, its impossible to search for what you actually want.
[/quote]
Searching for "browser in visual basic" will lead to
http://www.acky.net/tutorials/vb/wbrowser/ with four clicks. What was
your problem?

[quote]1 year after contextual search is available, we will crack
artificial intelligence.
no way. Since we still don>t know what this "intelligence" thing is, we
won>t recognize AI until it kicks us.

if it understands sentences and makes up answers, its doing what
the language part of our brain is doing, that>s a big chunk of brain!
spatial and temporal reasoning should be easy once the computers
can talk.
[/quote]
but this point was "just around the corner" since the times of ELIZA
(1966), and there hasn>t been much sizeable progress so far. So your
statement is equivalent to "interstellar travel shoult be easy once we
get FTL drives".

[quote]By 2060 there will be natural feeling
bionic limbs, and bionic eyes for the blind.
Probably no need for it. Just use headless clones as organ donors.

how does a headless clone secrete the right hormones to grow properly?
[/quote]
you can just fiddle with those Hox genes to prevent the formation of
higher brain areas. The brainstem will remain intact.

[quote]how do you stop your brain from aging? you>d be in a fit body but you>d
be senile.
[/quote]
you wanted replacement limbs, I gave you replacement limbs. Ageing and
senility are good things, they prevent stratification of our society.
With a cure for senility, you would have to kill the old guy in power in
order to replace him.

Lars

Lars Kecke · Guest

mike3 schrieb:

[quote]Nothing new under the sun: the new man is still not here (he>s heard
about us and has taken a detour to Andromeda).

Who>s that supposed to be, anyway?
[/quote]
John Galt.

SCNR

Lars

Chris Menzel · Guest

On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:35:47 GMT, Nam Nguyen <namducnguyen@shaw.ca> said:
[quote]...
The great AI accomplishment would be creating a machine that actually
had esthetic judgment.

Agree. If a machine exhibits *only* non-aesthetic behaviors then we would
call it machine, not an AI machine.
[/quote]
Nonsense. Building a machine capable of making aesthetic judgments has
*never* been a significant part (or any part?) of AI research. If we
had a machine that couldn>t tell a Chagall from a xkcd cartoon but which
could learn from its experience, draw relevant conclusions from given
information, and respond appropriate to novelty, there is no question it
would be considered a huge AI success.

[quote]No one has the remotest clue how such a system could be built, even
in principle.

Not agree. How do you know that?
[/quote]
For one thing, what would it even mean for a machine to "have aesthetic
judgment"? Even the problems facing the success story above, where the
goals are much clearer, are huge -- not least because most every
interesting AI problem is at least NP-hard. How do you fancy getting
around that impediment?

Kyle T. Jones · Guest

Nam Nguyen wrote:
[quote]Kyle T. Jones wrote:

The great AI accomplishment would be creating a machine that actually
had esthetic judgment.

Agree. If a machine exhibits *only* non-aesthetic behaviors then we would
call it machine, not an AI machine.

No one has the remotest clue how such a system could be built, even
in principle.

Not agree. How do you know that?

[/quote]
Both those lines come from the post prior to mine, Nam.

Occidental is the man you want!

Cheers.

galathaea · Guest

[i really apologise if this double or even triple posts..
i am ignorantly using an ignorant interface]

Chris Menzel wrote:
[quote]On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:35:47 GMT, Nam Nguyen <namducnguyen@shaw.ca> said:
...
The great AI accomplishment would be creating a machine that actually
had esthetic judgment.

Agree. If a machine exhibits *only* non-aesthetic behaviors then we would
call it machine, not an AI machine.

Nonsense. Building a machine capable of making aesthetic judgments has
*never* been a significant part (or any part?) of AI research. If we
had a machine that couldn>t tell a Chagall from a xkcd cartoon but which
could learn from its experience, draw relevant conclusions from given
information, and respond appropriate to novelty, there is no question it
would be considered a huge AI success.
[/quote]
we already have those

it _was_ a huge AI success

simple deductive systems that learn
have been foundational to all computer science

("learn" is usually equivalent to "respond appropriately to novelty")

even though the everyman home computer is an example of such a system
there are many theoretical rewriting logics
that formalise many more aspects of learning

we can automate generation of deductions even

database architectures are even getting sophisticated enough
(and storage so cheap)
that extremely large contexts of deduction are possible

the question after these great accomplishments
has switched to "what should they do?"
and there has been much innovation recently in the automation of
drives

in a control theoretical version of decision theory
drives are generically
the working state structures that influences future behavior
(classified by some specified criteria
segregating future behavior into distinct domains)

in computational AI they are simply metaprograms
ie. programs that operate on programs as their input
and in particular metaprograms of learning algorithms

although there was originally a lot of initial research on terminating
algorithms
event loops and other unterminating evolution algorithms have begun to
be more deeply explored
and the "expert systems" of yesteryear have steadily become
more and more helpful

satisfying our drives

the science has been improving steadily
creating more and more intelligence
for decades now

people are looking for cataclysms
though
and this may end up one of those things where we just wake up one day
and realise that all of our past expectations have already been met

through silent progression

[quote]No one has the remotest clue how such a system could be built, even
in principle.

Not agree. How do you know that?

For one thing, what would it even mean for a machine to "have aesthetic
judgment"? Even the problems facing the success story above, where the
goals are much clearer, are huge -- not least because most every
interesting AI problem is at least NP-hard. How do you fancy getting
around that impediment?
[/quote]
there is already a gigantic structure in our society
illustrating the great level of prediction already held
in the science of aesthetics:

google

google is a marketing epicenter

the reason it is so wildly successful
(in addition to the covert CIA funding)
is that it manages information
that can be used to successfully predict consumer sentiment

wildly successfully in terms of economics

and as many schools of economics agree
(from the neoclassical marginalists to the austrians to even some
ofshoots of marxism)
value is describable in terms of psychological drives

when aesthetics becomes the topic
as here
it is common for it to be contrasted with other (technological) uses
but the technology is only economically concerned
with the more general notion of "actions" or "behaviors"
and the fundamental interactions with (and manipulations of) drives

in this context
the appreciation of visual arts
or performance arts
are all concerned with drives to experience certain symbologies
and these types of drives
though often subtly influenced by many subsystems
(from limbic experiences of emotions to hippocampal recollections...)
produce patterns that are effective in making predictions

all predictions of the modern science are still largely short-term
so trends don>t always track with the models long
but even short-term "what are they doing today" observations
have economic value

understanding these subtleties of social structure may still be in its
foundational period
but the science certainly exists
and is already producing an economically powerful structure through
technology

intelligence will more and more be judged
by it>s ability to satisfy various drives
and when we get to the turing point
we will finally have our long-sought-for slaves

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
galathaea: prankster, fablist, magician, liar


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