Slashdot Mirror
Online Book About Nano/AI
Jonathan Desp writes: "The book is available here, written by Frank Wayne Poley, in the same line as
Bill Joy's article, "Why the future don't need us." Here you will learn about "Robo sapiens" vs. "Homo sapiens",
Robot as president, Nanotechnology, Nanosystem,Internet robots, Cyborgs, the neurochip, Microsoft, Biomechanics and computing history as well. The book raises some important questions such as:
Technology, is it always good?
"
Ever since the "AI winter" of the 1980's, when AI companies failed to deliver on their promises, we've seen less and less of an investment on AI research. And more and more AI researchers and Lisp bigots keep complaining, but who do they have to blame but themselves? Their utopian dream of intelligent machines running obscure programming languages from the 50's turned out to be nothing more than that: a dream.
But between then and now, we've seen two major paradigm shifts occur, each complementing the others in manners in which the AI "futurists", for all their scifi-inspired babble, failed to predict: the coming of the Internet as a mass communication media, and the rise of Open Source. Both radically re-shaped the world of software design, and I see no reason why this same revolution could not occur within AI itself. Think about it: rather than a few guys in some MIT lab tinkering with their Prolog programs, we could have a distributed network of Open Source hackers developing far better -- and more practical -- software quicker and with less expense. It happened to operating systems, programming languages, and network software, each of which were formerly reserved only for CS department computer labs, so it's really only a matter of time before a good, Open Source Artificial Intelligence appears, one with the magnitude and impact of Linux or Apache. And the world will gaze in wonder once again.
So, goodbye Marvin Minsky! So long, later John McCarthy! We'll see you in the Open Source AI!
Well, here we are again, yet another round of the perils of technology.
So, what do we do about it?
Stop it? That's not going to happen, no matter how hard we try.
Regulate it? Good Luck. Try getting every other country on Earth to agree with you, or to follow those proposed regulations. Whoops, sorry, kids, guess that one's a wash also.
Oh, I know, we'll hype up all of the potential negative effects of new technology and scare the crap out of the average citizen, who will then clamor for one of the above useless 'remedies'.
Guess what? It won't work, not one single bit of it. You simply cannot put the genie back in the bottle, and all the wishful thinking in the world is only going to make you complacent, hoping uselessly that we're 'doing something' about the problem.
Can technology be harmful? Absolutely. But you want to know what is even more harmful? The attitude that we're going to make it less harmful by ignoring it, regulating it (and hoping no-one else decides to play in that pool), or giving in to our worst fears, thereby letting it become them.
Simply put, only the advance of technology (and our knowledge of it) is going to help us cope with the advance of technology. To give into fear (whatever foundation it may have) is only going to realize those fears.
Here's an article from Reason that does a good job of countering Bill Joy's views.
Nunc Tutus Exitus Computarus.
If you want to read some good books Dealing with the Philosiphical problems of AI(which is a bull crap name anyways. Artificial Intelligence is nothing. Wouldnt Synthetic Intelligence be cooler?) Anyways. The books are Artifical Intelligence: the Very idea. And Mind Design Two. The First is by John Haugeland, the second is a collection of Essays from people like John Searle, Daniel Dennet, etc... Its Edited by John Haugeland. Both books deal with the various philisophical problems and support for the Various Theories Of Artificial Intelligence. I just read em for one of my classes I like em =)
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
I'm surprised that some people still think that any technological innovation is good. I mean, remember the cars of old that would say "Your door is ajar" and other very annoying things that the public just didn't like? History is full of this. This should be public knowledge at this point, IMO.
Technology should not be embraced because it's technology; technology should only be embraced because it raises our standard of living.
--
From Chapter 4.1, "Behavior of the Robot Finger":
"We thought that a single robot finger, provided that it possesses the same motion capabilities...as a human finger, would have been sufficient..."
Well, why not, most humans only use a single finger.
I have a strong belief in the Second Amendment.
machines have absolutely no reason to want the same things we do?
I am in an Artificial Intelligance division at a U.S. National Research Lab (can't say which, don't want anybody to know that I'm leaking this) we are working on models of intelligance networks that use, essentially, the necessities for biological function (eating, drinking, excreting, reproducing), as an intelligance model. The network runs on easy to produce microbots (bigger than nanobots, smaller than a penny) that use electricity flowing through the air (not flowing, but emitted by various things, toned down EMP) as water, metal as food and repair (they have tools to scrape shards of metal off of a metal block and high-heat fuse it onto damaged sectors of their body), and will collect bits of metal in a storage-bay type thing, in which they will construct other micro-bots. Our project is far from being completed, but rumor around here is that we may be getting military funding, so it might get done a bit faster.
Robotic Teenage Male Sex-Daemons roving the streets looking for tasty Human Teenage Girls to impregnate with their Metal/Carbon Hybrid CoDNA
Yes, but you might have Robotic-Teenage (developing its modular components) Asexual Reproduction-Microbots roving the streets looking for tasty PentiumIII-Linux-Boxes to impregnate with their Microbot-Larvae-esque things. Wasn't my idea.
that self-guiding code that learns from failures and suffers from overcompensation--in other words, code that can even evolve under feedback loops--is pretty rare, even among the best attack detection systems
All you need is one effective system that does all of the essential life functions. And we may be closer to making that system than anybody has known before.
what some *human* has programmed them to do. Tank or Pokemon, it's made by us
It was a great experiance when I realized that this wasn't true. Tierras are mutating bits of code that, in this case, fight it out to the death. Put one of these in a positive feedback loop, and.. well.. we're using a derivitive of this idea to actually program the microbots, along with a decentralized data bank via infrared packet TCP/IP to evolve a massive collection of response data that we can moniter. The microbots will fight, like Tierras, except they will be working with actual, physical robots, instead of bits of memory. The microbots will be able to reproduce, and if we put them in a plastic room filled with old computers, they should eventually fill it up. The project is exciting, although we haven't yet got official word on the military funding.
...That I've unwittingly written part of the Unabomber's manifesto in one of my movie scripts, only backwards, kind of: The argument of the villian to the hero in the script is that a great deal of human suffering is caused by our limitations and ignorance. People's lives are dreary because they lack the capacity to go out and do something more inspiring than be find a constant stream of mind candy by Hollywood after their shift at the local McDonald's or amazon.com what have you. Why do we produce so much crap that we don't need and create a system to make it seem needed? To provide jobs for millions upon millions of unnecessary lives. Wouldn't it just be better to create a world population of a few tens of millions of elites and vanquish the rest of humanity. The elites would simply be open-source artists because there would be robots (that serve the function of the masses without the need) to give them the basics. As artists, they wouldn't need much beyond that. Which way would be more likely? The elite to engineer themselves and require AI to service them or for AI to become so powerful we'd have to engineer ourselves just to compete? I'd say both are equal odds, just depends how the game plays. Finally, I'd like to clarify that the article wasn't about the AI gaining dominance through a Terminator scenario... It was about us as humans forking over all of our decisions to the machines and then forgetting how to even come up with the questions. We techs are already regarded as gods for our marginal (yes, I mean very marginal) advantage over the masses. Imagine how quickly the majority would cower before a truly superior intellect that no one would stand up to.
MSK
Oh, wait.
Oh, wait.
Got Rhinos?
As far as I'm concerned, let's keep pushing the boundaries as much as we can. So we might run into troubles down the road; big deal. I for one would rather have an uncertain yet possibly exciting future than a dull, secure one. Nanotech might kill us, but it also might also introduce us to a new and better way of doing things. Let's keep stretching the boundaries of thought and human existence; I mean, that's what we're here for.
Hello?
Anyone?
With all the fears and paranoia about intelligence in computer systems(I refuse to say "robots"--there's no reason intelligence needs to be confined to something that can enact physical changes against its environment), are people not realizing that machines have absolutely no reason to want the same things we do?
There ain't going to be Robotic Teenage Male Sex-Daemons roving the streets looking for tasty Human Teenage Girls to impregnate with their Metal/Carbon Hybrid CoDNA. Why? Because robots aren't interested in sex. It's *humans* that are *afraid* of an alien species/race/tribe/gender/income group coming in and impregnating their daughters, and that traces back to the beginning of human evolution where control over the genetic line essentially defined one's own mortality.
Technology just hasn't been growing the same way.
Maybe intelligence will emerge, but if it will, it'll emerge out of what the systems have been programmed to do--in general, retain robust connectivity over unreliable media, recognize unauthorized accesses, and so on. You will have systems whose defense systems are so well developed that the valid users who wish to shut them down will have difficulty doing so--because, to be blunt, that's what these "intelligent systems" will have been designed to do--prevent unauthorized disabling of the system. But most of the human fears which we obsess about just aren't going to transfer in.
Does this leave quite a bit to be worried about? Sure. But lets not forget that self-guiding code that learns from failures and suffers from overcompensation--in other words, code that can even evolve under feedback loops--is pretty rare, even among the best attack detection systems. Attack signatures and virus signatures are always hand-developed--you never see, for example, a penetration at one company automatically causing all other companies to be alerted to look for the specific pathogen that caused the failure. Worse, if you did, you'd have entire styles of attacks that worked to abuse the system's natural ability to transmit attack signatures--it's a ridiculously effective attack against the human body, and it'd do nasty things to any automated virus signature agent as well.
But in the end, no matter *what* the systems were programmed to do, that'll be, for the forseeable future, all they're going to do--what some *human* has programmed them to do. Tank or Pokemon, it's made by us. This intense fearmongering almost seems like a way of disavowing the creators from what their systems happen to do--in some sense, it's as if we expect the future of AI to come from Microsoft, and we've decided they'll lie their way out of any bug.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Why? Because WE ARE THE MACHINES. Every single one of us is already a machine, and has been since the first RNA strand found a mate. The only difference is what our bodies are made up of -- but the truth is, we've been changing our bodies since the dawn of man. Our ancestors were short and strong. Modern man is tall and weak. Our ancestors were dark-skinned. Today we have many skin colors.
See, here's the kicker - we don't have to surrender to our machine masters. While it is nearly inevitable that machines will surpass human brains in complexity and even problem-solving ability, it is foolish to think that we will fail to incorporate these attributes into ourselves. Our future is in machines, because our future selves will be machines - just different machines than we are now. We are destined to remake our own bodies, and become, ourselves, the machine masters. Which means we will depend on the silicon and relays and software that we have created, yes -- in the same way that increased complexity of the genome required us to depend on our lungs, and our spinal cords, and finding complex proteins to use as food. Increased complexity in our brains, and our technology, will necessitate this further step up the ladder.
We'll probably continue to look the same because sex sells and big metal faceplates aren't sexy. But we'll move better, think better, be better. Is that so bad?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
In 1980, it was believed that by 2000 we would have electric cars and be colonizing Mars with at least one full-duty and colonized space station. It was believed that the world would be centered around space and all that could be done out there. It was seen as the new frontier to be discovered and conquered.
... No matter what books you read, or what sci-fi novels you read, or what delusions of "self-aware" machines you have, technology will always only be as smart as those who made it, never smarter. When you can pull intelligence out of nowhere, we can talk. Until then, this is the equivelent of vaporware.
Tell me, do you know when the last space shuttle took off? Neither do I. And neither do I own an electric car. Nor do I see us on Mars or in space stations. I keep seeing "we'll all be using electric cars in 10 years" every year. It's what I call the Unattainable Future. We all say it will happen eventually, but underestimate the time it will take and fail to factor in human nature.
We will not have electric cars in mass production and use anytime soon because auto makers can make so much more money on gas-powered cars, and people are used to being able to go 90 MPH if they wanted to, which no electric could dream of hitting. We are not in space because the excitement wore off as computers hit us as insanely amazing machines.
And today our current Unattainable Future is no longer world-peace, as it was during the wars of the 1960s and 1970s, no longer space exploration as it was during the birth of our space program from the 50s to the 80s . No, today the delusion rests squarely on technology and the rate of advancement.
Let me be the first here to scream out that this is insane. There is research and even progress in this sector, but it will not happen. It will not happen because people will not let machines become smarter than them; they will revolt before that happens. There will be no mass-produced nanobots because people are scared of what they cannot see and it's just not possible to make that kind of thing in quantity. You're resting your thoughts on technology that hasn't even started to be invented if you're talking mass-produced nanobots. If the technology to make them in quantity does not exist. Shouldn't that be your first unattainable dream, rather than them being used everywhere?
And an AI capable of human thought
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