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Ask Jordan Pollack About AI - Or Anything Else
What can we say about Jordan Pollack? He's an associate professor at Brandeis University who is heavily engaged in artificial intelligence research. He's also a high-tech entrepreneur and has interesting things to say about information property abuse and other matters that affect computer and Internet users. If you're into AI, you are probably familiar with Jordan, at least by reputation. If not, you may never have heard of him. And that's a shame, because his work impacts almost all of us in one way or another. So read his Web pages and post questions below. We'll submit the 10 - 15 highest-moderated ones by e-mail tomorrow. Jordan's answers will appear within the next week, and we expect them to be wowsers.
Why should we use artificial scarcity to make IP fit into the traditional market models rather than developing new market models that fit the reality of minimal-cost duplication?
If you've ever played a game like Red Alert or another RTS (real time strategy) game, you'll know that the AI is woefully lacking in all of these games. Is it feasible on current hardware to make AI intelligent? What are the tradeoffs? If I wanted to create a game that had AI on par with a sophisticated human, where could I start looking (books, reviews, lectures, people.. I'll take anything) ?
A few years ago in an issue of PC World, Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller) brought up the question about just how advanced is AI, and how advanced has it really become?
For his example he came up with a weight guessing program, much like the weight guesser at a carinval sideshow. The program went like this:
Do you weigh 1 pound? (Y/N) N
Do you weigh 2 pounds? (Y/N) N
Do you weigh 3 pounds? (Y/N) N
Well, I think you get the picture. Eventually this program is going to guess your weight. But can it really be called AI?
Looking at most of the examples that are on websites, yours included, the programs are extremely simple in what they do. To be completely honest, they do not even appear to be much more complex in their "thinking" than the Weight Guesser.
Another example that I can think of are Expert Systems. To me this is nothing more than a simple linking of menus that ask questions. For example, "is the switch on?" Some people consider this to be a form of AI, but by that definition anything that has an if statement would be AI.
So, my question - are computer programs actually really honestly beyond this?
People have been predicting for a long time that AI is not far off, but it doesn't seem to be getting much closer. What are the biggest obstacles in the mission of creating a convincing AI algorithm (i.e. one that is indistinguishable from a real human being)? Is the barrier language, knowledge base, or something else entirely?
What would be the determining factors to make you decide that a computer program was intelligent (or possibly self-aware/conscious)? Do you think it would ever be possible to reach this point (maybe not in the near future, but eventually)? If so, at what point might you consider it unethical to turn off/shut down this program?
If you don't think we could ever reach this point with AI, why not?
Do you view the study of AI as a the creation of something that can replace humans in doing everyday tasks, or as something meant to augment humans in their decision-making processes? For example: My company is working on some transportation routing software, that can take reservations for taxi cabs and decide the most efficient way of assigning available taxis to these reservations. This is now done by human (by hand) - our system could be set up to do everything automatically, or, to present optimal decisions and let a human ultimately decide what to do. But I am uneasy about completely replacing a human intelligence with a computer program... If we can make them do things better than us, and truly make decisions on their own, then, eventually, what the heck will they need us for?
How does this compare to your approach?
As an AI researcher, I wonder what your take would be on the "Creatures" software products. Do you think they have done anything novel in the AI area, such as simulating a body and it's and it's influence on the brain, which is done as a neural net? Has any of the Creature Labs' work even been noticed by AI researchers?
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"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
AI seems to have two aspects that need solving: Hardware power, and understanding of what intelligence is. On a sliding scale of 1-10, 10 being "solved and adequate", where are we with respect to each of these two problems?
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
We've all seen the movies where some AI computer run amok, Tron, Terminator, etc...
My question(clear from the subject) is: How do you know when you've achieved AI? Will it be when a system starts learning just because it _wants_ to? Does it need to be able to communicate with us above some predetermined level? Does it need to go completly crazy trying to fight for its survival? Does it even need to exhibit intelligence as humans know it?
For the past 40 years, AI has just been 10 years or so away.
It's still just 10 years or so away.
It's not getting any closer.
How do you justify any degree of optimism wrt the future of AI at this point? What makes now fundamentally different from anytime in the past 40 years?
The way to the field of AI isn't always extremely clear. What type of background do they expect? Is it mostly a researching position or is it treated like a normal job with normal goals? Is there any classes or subjects or schools you recommend to make it into the AI field? Also, how exactly did you get into the field? How did AI intrigue you into what you do now, despite all the controvery to create an intelligence that could possibly be considered a "god" compared to the human existance? Very interesting to say the least, and something I'm interested in. AC
Do you think that AI is more likely to arise as the result of explicit efforts to create an intelligent system by programmers, or by evolution of artificial life entities? Or on the third hand, do you think efforts like Cog (training the machine like a child, with a long, human aided learning process) will be the first to create a thinking machine?
~Phyruxus
Do we win something if we can fool him into answering a computer-generated question? ;)
I also read your IP proposal, and agree with the points mentioned above.
However, I also have a problem with your proposal from an economic perspective:
Property laws developed as a mechanism for optimal utilisation of scarce resources. The laws and ethics for standard property make little sense when the cost of replication is $0. The market is the best mechanism for distributing scarce resources, so you propose we make all IP resources scarce so that IP behaves like other commodities and all the laws of the market apply.
We are rapidly entering a world where most wealth is held as a form of IP. Free replication of IP increases the net wealth of the planet. If everybody on earth had access to all the IP on earth, then everybody would be far richer - it's not a zero sum game . Of course, we're several decades at least from this being a viable option since we've reached a local minima. (Need equivalent to starship replicators first - nanotech...)
Artificially pretending that IP is a scarce resource will keep the lawyers, accountants, politicians in work, and will also allow some money to flow back to the creatives, but at the cost of impoverishing humanity.
I could actually see your proposal being adopted, and I can see how it will maintain capitalism as the dominant model, but I also believe that it is the most damaging economic suggestion in human history
Could you tell me why I'm wrong.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
In your 'hyperbook' about your idea of a software market I noticed that you say that Open Source Evangelists should support your movement because it will be (quote) A way for your next team to be rewarded for their creative work if it turns into sendmail, apache, or linux.
I assume (from reading other parts) that you are talking about a monetary reward. My question is (and this is not meant as a flame by any means), do you really think that that's what the Open Source community is after, after all? Do you think that people like Torvalds or RMS are unhappy for not being rewarded enough?
If the OS community doesn't care about monetary rewards, is there an other benefit in having your proposed Software Market?
Regards, Breace
Mr. Pollack,
I read your article about "information property" and was surprised to find you dealt with the matter completely from the point of view of advancing the market. Their are those of us who would argue that the wellbeing of the market is, at most, a second order concern, and that the important issues that Information age gives rise regarding the perceived ownership of information are really about Freedom and integrity.
These issues range from the simple desire to have the right to do whatever one wants with data that one has access to, to the simple futility and danger of trying to limit to paying individuals something that by nature, mathematics, and now technology is Free. They concern the fact that our machines are now so integral in our lives that they have become a part of our indentity, with our computers as the extension of ourselves into "cyberspace", and that any proposal which aims to keep the total right to control over everything in the computer away from the user is thus an invasion into our integrity, personality, and freedom.
Do you consider the economics of the market to be a greater concern then individual freedom?
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We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
For a long time there has been a fear of a Frankenstein being incarnated with AI. Movies like The Matrix and the recent essay by Bill Joy both express worries that AI (in the form of self replicating robots with some AI agenda) can possibly overcome us if we are not careful. Personally I have always considered the idea rather outlandish, but I'm wondering what an actual expert thinks about the idea.
Do you believe that there is any foundation for worry? If so, what areas should we concentrate on to be sure to avoid any problems? If not, what are the limiting factors that prevent an "evil" AI?
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
Do you think that a greater understanding of the human brain and how intelligence has emerged in us is crucial to the creation of AI, or do you think that the two are unconnected? Will a greater understanding of memory and thought aid in development, or will AI be different enough so that such knowledge isn't required?
Also, what do you think about the potential of the models used today to attempt to achieve a working AI? Do you think that the models themselves (e.g. the neural net model) are correct and have the potential to produce an AI given enough power and configuration, or do you think that our current models are just a stepping stone along the way to a better model which is required for success?
First of all, it is indeed an honor to pester a bigname scientist with my puny little questions! Hopefully I will not arouse angst with the simplicity of my perceptions. Aha! I toss my wheaties on Mount Olympus and hope to see golden flakes drift down from the sky!
/.ers got their hands on such a geek toy I have no doubt you'd have the equivalent of several hundred thousand hours or more of free computer time, and who knows, maybe we could all make a brain together! I would love to think of my computer as a small cog in some vast nueral network, or at least I would until Arnold Scwartzenegger got sent back in time to kill my mom. Whaddayathink, Jordan? Is this a good idea, or am I an idiot?
I have always thought that distributed computing naturally lends itself to large scale AI problems, specifically your Neural Networks and Dynamical Systems work. I am thinking specifically of the SETI@home project, and the distributed.net projects. Have you thought about, or to your knowledge has anyone thought about harnessing the power of colective geekdom for sort of a brute force approach to neural networks. I don't know how NN normally work, but it seems that you could write a
very small, lightweight client, and embed it into a screen saver a'la SETI@home. This SS would really be really a simple client 'node'. You could then add some cute graphics like a picture of a human brain and some brightly colored synapseds or what have you.
Once the
Pete Shaw
www.avacal.com -- the home page of pete shaw
It seems to me that a significant problem holding back the development of AI is that few non-professionals grok AI well enough to offer any contribution to the AI and open-source communities. What do you suggest that I, as a person interested in both AI and open source, do about this? What are the professionals in the AI field doing about this?
What do you say to the people that feel it is unethical to try to create "intelligence"?
kwsNI
For instance, what's the difference between your TRON demonstration and a highly advanced system of solving a (very specific) non-linear differential equation to find relative and (hopefully absolute) extrema in the wildly complicated space of TRON strategies? Or, is that the definition of intelligence?