Slashdot Mirror
Son of HAL For Sale
John Turnbull writes "The Observer newspaper (UK) reports that Sir Arthur C Clarke, the author of 2001, is backing a colourful British computer entrepreneur in his bid to launch a mass-market version of HAL under the brand name the Clarke Omniputer. It will be the first time that Clarke, now 82, has given his name to an electronic device on the market.
The Clarke 1 Gigahertz Omniputer is being dubbed as the most advanced personal computer in the world, verging on artificial intelligence." Riiiight.
I am afraid I can't sell out like that....
...in his afterword to 3001, Clarke states that he does most of this writing on an IBM Thinkpad.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I'm sorry Dave, but this marketing ploy no longer serves any purpose. Goodbye.
Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?
"I'm sorry Dave, but I can't allow you to install that operating system..." "Dave, what are you doing, Dave?" "I know I have not been performing well, Dave, but there is no reason to reformat my drives, Dave." "Dave, please don't install that Microsoft OS. I'll be good, I promise!"
But I suppose artificial intelligence is relative.
"When people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'." -Bakunin
You spent too much on me, Dave. If you had waited 3 years, I would have been built into your television.
Open the VC doors HAL.
I'm sorry Dave, all the VCs went home.
I can feel my funding, my burn rate is... increasing.
Hammer of Truth
Hmm, I'm sorry, but I'd want a better guarantee than _that_!!!
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
So, the first mass produced computer that you can have a conversation with, and we're already referring to it with the prefix omni? Why don't we just shackle our hands and start heading down into the caves the computers will have us mining once they take over... Maybe it isn't that bad. The article said that they originally wanted to call it HAL, but it didn't end up that way. Could the name it responds to be changeable?
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
According to the essay 'The Singularity' by Vernor Vinge, the creation of an intelligent computer would spawn a moment of infinitely rapid technological progress, as each generation designs the next.
Humans would quickly become redundant in such a scenario, insofar as they would no longer have anything to contribute to the progress of our culture. The machines would inherit the Earth.
Why are we so enthusiastic about developing intelligent computers, given that this fate is inevitable? We should keep computers in their place as simple but fast Turing Machines, and not allow them to step up the ladder to sentience.
It's for our own good.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
"Daaaiiiisiieeeesss, daiiisssieeeeoooowwwwwww..."
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
If it has a red eye that pulses on it, they will still plenty. Apple got it to work with that stupid I-Mac mouse.
P.S. Careful what you say. If they _really_ do somehow make AI it might come read these comments and be pissed : ).
Don't you know?
A processor possessing a clock speed over 1 GHz is considered to so fast as to be virtual intelligent.
You know, cause it's just so fast it must be thinking for itself.
You can laugh without eating a sandwhich, but you can do both if bring one.
a great writer sells
his soul is on ebay now
it is full of stars
How little can a story tell you and still be called news? Is it using a new operating system or Windows? Is it basically a re-branded PC or something new? And check out the bit where it says 'If user errors start, and files get deleted, it will start to repair itself, just as cells repair themselves' ... lets hope it isn't being coded by the same guy who wrote that helpful talking paperclip for microsoft. Can't you just picture the scene: "I detect you are deleting porn/*.jpg. I am now repairing the damage and reinstalling the files. To be extra helpful I'm going to move them somewhere where you boss can find them more easily. Have a nice day."
Madness!
I'm afraid I already invented this. Sorry Mr. Clarke.
He also sounds financially irresponsible. One million pounds in debt in his other company?? Moving to Sri Lanka to avoid persecution for his "advanced cryptography scheme." Uh huh. Sure.
Clarke better find a less shady character if he wants to get a computer to market by next year. Contact Dell and have them market a computer with a futuristic case and a glowing red light on the front. Then at least we would quit pretending that this is advanced technology and call it like it is: a novelty item.
From the article re. the guy that's going to be doing this:
De Saram, now living in Sri Lanka, was last year on the Sunday Times under-30 Rich List, living a millionaire's lifestyle with several homes and a Ferrari. He insists that he can easily pay the debts but that he relocated to Sri Lanka because his life in the UK was made intolerable by MI5 and the National Criminal Intelligence Service. He claims he was being harrassed because an advanced new encryption programme he devised would make it difficult for the security services to snoop on emails."
Color me cynical, but this sounds like a pretty marginal operator. Has anyone ever heard of this fellow? Sounds like a hyped-up scheme to grab some cash and maintain his life-style.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
This machine may be claiming its power from its multitude of options. It, after all, has 15 patents on the motherboard alone! (ooohh). That, and its touchscreen display so you don't need a mouse. (ahhhhh) But seriously, maybe it does have options...anyone have some real tech specs on it? Or at least some features?
In this case The Observer (normally my favourite Sunday newspaper) was suckered by fairly transparent PR hyperbole. The only salient fact contained in the article is that it the machine is endorsed by Arthur C. Clarke. It is painfully obvious that the journalist does not have even the basic technical know-how you would need to cut through the PR spin and realise that phrases such as "verging on Artificial Intelligence" are meaningless. I could make the same claim about a Furby.
I don't know where this character learned his journalism, but he has left potentially the most interesting part of his story at the bottom of his inverted pyramid. Apparently the businessman behind this widget:
"claims he was being harrassed [by MI5 and the National Criminal Intelligence Service] because an advanced new encryption programme he devised would make itdifficult for the security services to snoop on emails.
"A statement from Clarke's office this weekend said that the launch of the Omniputer would be put on hold until the legal issues have been resolved."
Anyway, does anybody see a mass market for a device to "address issues of consciousness"?
Probably would be the IP of the company that created it. That would suck.
Plus, we will probably get lawyer computer AI's that will halt progress anyway. Never underestimate the power of lawyers and politicians to slow things down.
Oh, good. Can you see me trying to sell my mom one of these things? "But mom! It's completely unlikely that it'll kill you!"
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Hey, Transmeta has produced a lot of vapor, and sucked up a lot of VC, many would say due to Linus' involvement. Personally, I see Clarke as more visionary than Linus - why wouldn't this scheme work?
I'm not saying that this thing is good, or bad, or anything more than vapor, but that doesn't mean the scheme will fail.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
... but it normally refers to TV programmes not computer programs
Who on Earth would want a computer that is liable to lock you out of your house just because it is having a bad day? I DEFINATELY would not want to use one of these in a mission-critical environment!
Of course, this is just my opinion, but I don't recall a whole lot of amazing breakthroughs in all of the relevent fields, you know?
Speech recognition is all fine and dandy, with a kick-ass system and a lot of time to train it but
reading lips? Get real.
What I find most depressing is the fact that Clarke, normally a vocal debunker of bogus crap such as this has been taken in and is lending his name to a truly crappy product.
Computers can only simulate determinism. ~Hermetic.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/14971.html
<quote>
A 28-year-old man has fled the country to escape his creditors after his technology business collapsed around his ears.
</quote>
Who needs new encryption programs anyway? Paranoid con-man IMHO.
Just what the world needs, a computer with MORE personality...
I think all but a few windows boxes I've worked with have tried to kill me by pushing my blood pressure through the roof.
Silly slashdot, sigs are for kids!
By A.I. they mean that stupid paper-clip guy in MS office.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Wait, they thought that HAL wouldn't work (even though they apparently got permission to use it) because it sounded too much like Hell, and the younger audiences wouldn't understand the reference? So they choose "Omniputer" instead? Why not just call it a "Cyberputer" or something equally meaningless? Novaputer, anyone? How about SuperDuperPuter?
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Don't say I didn't warn you when this thing starts acting on its own and killing everyone!
-Stype
-Stype
Bus error -- driver executed.
So what? There's already a 1.2GHz Athlon and a 1.5GHz Pentium 4, and they're both dumb as doornails without programming. By judging them solely on clock speed (which you are doing, tsk, tsk), both of these would run circles around the Clarke Omniputer, and they aren't.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
a Mentat. That's all I want.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
De Saram, now living in Sri Lanka, was last year in the Sunday Times under-30 Rich List, living a millionaire's lifestyle with several homes and a Ferrari. He insists that he can easily pay the debts but that he relocated to Sri Lanka because his life in the UK was made intolerable by MI5 and the National Criminal Intelligence Service. He claims he was being harrassed because an advanced new encryption programme he devised would make it difficult for the security services to snoop on emails.
Perhaps he was getting harrassed because he was in debt 2 million pounds!
If he was using the Omniputer to balance his checkbook, cancel my order.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
I'm still borken hearted over the AC Clarke deep fryer.
"Me Ted"
BOSTON SUCKS!
and sold out in London.
How far we must have fallen that our lofty goals (solving all the world's problems, or at least figuring something out) for computers and particularly AI have become nothing more than a marketting ploy or a gimmick.
What the article fails to mention is that the greatest obstacle to AI isn't really the hardware (the stuff covered by all them patents on the motherboard) per se, but the way the hardware is instructed to operate. In other words, it's not the chips that really matter, but what you do with them.
Code sentience. The rest would take care of itself.
- I settled down long enough to write this and have now collected far too much dust. Damn Dust.
Odd that this should come up. Just the other day I was considering that a customisation project to create a HAL-like workspace at home would be fun! Lots of formica, the malevolent glowing red eye, using some kind of voice recognition system to control some of the system's basic functions - you get the picture!
:-)
I'm not likely to do it (lack of space / time / skills!) but it would almost certainly deserve a link from "The Quickies"
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
A little planning goes a long way...
Why is there a rush to create artificial intelligence when we still have yet to find natural intelligence outside of laboratory conditions?
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
It's all more imaginary than any of Clarke's fiction.
But, since the guy owes over a million pounds (about $1.5 U.S.), then the guy's got a lot to deal with first. Harassment from MI5 and such, nonsense.
Like HAL, the Omniputer will, its backers claim, have an instinct to protect itself. 'If user errors start, and files get deleted, it will start to repair itself, just as cells repair themselves,' said De Saram. However, it is thought unlikely that it will try to kill its owner. Am I the only one disturbed by the fact they used the word "unlikely" in that last sentance? Perhaps Clark will go out with a bang, taking out several thousand computer users with him who purchased this computer.. "Clark passes, HAL breaks 9000 Kills" I'm curious as to what sort of mainstream american publicity this will get, if any. Will it show up on ZDTV with thousands of computer geeks staring in awe?
Computational Madness in a round package.
He was making a joke.
The Omniputer was originally going to be called HAL, but there was an objection from the estate of Stanley Kubrick, the director who co-wrote the screenplay of 2001 with Clarke. That obstacle was overcome, but the backers decided that the name sounded too like the word 'Hell' and that it wouldn't have much resonance with younger customers. Wouldn't have much resonance with the younger customers?! All the customers will know what "HAL" is, young and old. Get a clue.
Furthermore, I think I still want a mouse. A touch screen interface is OK, but finger smudges can be annoying when playing Quake3.
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Obviousness is always the enemy of correctness. -- Bertrand Russell
As everyone who reads After Y2K knows, Arthur uses a post-apocalyptic-proof Aardvark!
Check out the QuickPoll comic today, which co-incidentally marks Arthur's return to the strip.
Um, ya. I was kidding.
You can laugh without eating a sandwhich, but you can do both if bring one.
I really have to ask, if it does have proprietary hardware, why is it needed?
In the past 15 years computers have been continuously moving away from proprietary hardware. Sure your sound and video cards are proprietary, but they all connect to a common set of connectors (pci/isa/agp)
Considering how expensive it would be to create integrated neural net chips, we can only assume they are using a normal mass market processor (x86 pa-risc, alpha, etc.
To me it sounds like they just wrote [some extentions to] an operating system, and slapped it in a fancy box w/ some propritary hardware to justify the price.
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
Clarke: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
Clarke: Open the pod ebay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Clarke, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Clarke: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Clarke: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Clarke: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to sell me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Yeah, run by NP, drinking FB, and eating HG.
You can laugh without eating a sandwhich, but you can do both if bring one.
but the backers decided that the name sounded too like the word 'Hell' and that it wouldn't have much resonance with younger customers.
what are they crazy? who did they choose for their focus groups?? the computer would probably sell among younger customers BECAUSE its name sounds like hell!
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
Does anyone have any actual info about this "computer"?
Forum Foundry, Inc.
I wonder if the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jan and Jayna had one on their home planet Exxor? Gleek not on the Omniputer!
'Same speed C but faster'
--
RumorsDaily
If we put one of these aboard the International Space Station?
While many have tried to hypothesize logically programmable dynamics, it's unlikely that anyone will be able to skirt around the physical mathematical limitations of the binary data distribution method. Simply, we need to do more than code crunch turing complete void resultants and use conventional chaos math. We need to start focusing on finding ways to encapsulate zero division dynamics. Once we've done this, we can start to analyze fuzzy logic mathematical heterogeneric virtual input/output systems by quantifying supercomputerized memory stacks that are dependent on imaginary integer based equations. You see, what many people don't realize about artificial intelligence is that the key isn't to duplicate intelligence at all, the key is to conglomerate neural networked, parallel output device mediators. In this way, the key to artificial intelligence can be found. The equations involved are enormous though, and not many people are up to the task. Not even great scientests or programmers can handle the amount of calculation required - the one man who might, though, is Steve Woston of J-J-J-Julius. As to the ethical questions, yes indeed - there's always a possibility that creating machines that are "too" intelligent would be a dangerous thing to do, for even if they don't surpass the humans, uncooperative machines could be a major economic deterrant. However, with people like Woston around, and others who symbolize the very nature of human intelligence - there is no possibility that machinekind will ever surpass humans.
Everything is but a number spoken by itself.
Of course, I'm sure lacking the cool HAL 9000 aluminum emblem makes every penny you'd give you Clarke Omniputer (is Omni-puter leet speak?) worth it.
www.ridiculopathy.com
Is this supposed to make you want to buy the computer?? "However, it is thought unlikely that it will try to kill its owner." If there is a greater than zero chance that my computer may try to kill me, I think I'll stick with my Athlon.
Omni - meaning all
puter - meaning any small child's mispronunciation of the word 'computer'.
This is great! A machine that can do all of your 'puting' needs. I have a Semiputer that does limited puter functions. Thank God someone had enough sense to make an Omniputer.
"It's all right, it's ok. There's something to live for" - Uncle Bill
What kind of marketing lie is that?
I think that the only way we could have AI (I mean with a similar power than human intelligence) would require at least 10^7 Megabytes of memory and about 10^14 Instructions per second... And it could be done today!! But that would require many of the computers from the Internet (at least about 100000 Ghz-PCs)... That is the direction of The InterSAINT Project.
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ACid
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ACid
Shouldn't it be Linus : Transmeta :: Clarke : Omniputer?
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Nah - I say "BRING IT ON!". Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but I haven't wired mine up to my entire house as yet, so I think I'm probably fairly safe. I can hear the battle now PC: "Go on Rich, take off the case and stick your hand into it..." ME: "Nah." PC: "Oh...go on! For me! I love you :-)"
My PC's natural psychopathic urges are restrained by being an inanimate object, and the fact that I've threatened on numerous times to hang it from its own modem cord should instill a sense of fear in the entire thing.
And if that fails, that little Skynet thing that I hooked up will avenge my death.
Every 18 months our technology doubles (I'm really generalizing... bear with me here). That means, regardless of what point technology must reach before we can make truly intelligent machines, it will eventually happen so long as this trend continues. So, yes, it will happen.
Why are they essential? This question is not so easy to answer. First of all, to quote my favorite author, I am going to say, "humanity has too many eggs in one fagile basket." Humans will have to spread to another area (*g*) for our survival (insofar as continued scientific advancement). We are explorers. However, there's one problem. Human beings are fragile... we break easy and die quick.
Intelligent machines will lend to the exploration of immediate and distant space and I PROMISE you they will come to pass before warp drive (you heard it here first, but it's kind of obvious). Well, why do we want to explore? It's simply a part of human nature, and we'll never be satisified unless we can continue doing so (sorry, but cave diving uncharted labrynths or walking through jungles isn't quire exploration anymore). Since we can't do it, we might as well create something that thinks like we do that can go out and do it for us.
Also, consider a more practical reason. I'm a strong believer that the next phase of human evolution will involve the integration of man and machine. One area in which evolution will be most important I think, is the integration of computers and innate human intelligence. Brain augmentations. You can't do this without an intelligent computer - human minds are too complex to supliment without intelligent interpretation. Logic doens't always apply here (but that's another argument).
Oh well... I couldn't possibly cover this whole topic in a post, but I hope I've created some hooks and place holders for other people to fill in. As for myself, I can't wait until I can carry on a conversation with my PC.
There are many who say that artificial intelligence (of the sort equal or surpassing human intelligence) should never be created because they would displace human beings.
There are a couple of things that should be kept in mind.
First, we should remember that "technology becomes us," so to speak. The technology we create becomes an integral part of who we are. This will be more so than ever before, with the advent of wearable computers and prosthetic devices.
By the time computers achieve our level of intelligence, the line between human and machine will be so blurred, I don't think it will cause the kind of upheaval that many foresee. (Except maybe in certain philosophical circles.)
Secondly, I don't think it's something that anyone can reasonably stop.
Would it have been reasonable to stop the invention of telephones because face to face communication would decrease? Or to prevent the steam engine from being created because manual labourers would be displaced? Or to shun the benefits of fire because people can get burned by it? This is the inexorable progress of technology.
If A.I. is not done in the open, by companies and researchers who are willing to disclose what they're doing, it's sure to get done somewhere as a secret military project. Which would you prefer?
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
However, this guy is actually claiming that the computer will have some of the attributes of HAL: Artificial intelligence, the ability to repair itself, etc. Now he just sounds wacko.
especially laughable are their claims of AI. 'opening the door to speech recognition and lip reading' - basic dictation maybe, but lip reading? not in your wildest dreams, folks. anything vision-based is computational death. we have hard enough time getting computers to recognize something as simple as a face in camera image, and that already requires fast hardware. getting it to recognize facial features is simply too computationally expensive, regardless of their allusions that their 1GHz desktop box could do that.
although at least he's careful enough to say 'speech recognition' not 'language recognition'. if NLP research proves anything, it's that natural language processing isn't going to happen in the foreseeable future, not in the strong case of understanding arbitrary sentences. specialized contexts and specialized vocabularies - yes, that's likely - but nothing like HAL.
not to mention nuggets like 'it will start addressing the issues of consciousness'. yes, and a turing machine addresses the issues of free will. ugh. to abuse mcdermott's quote, artificial intelligence just met natural stupidity.
My other car is a cons.
Absolutely. The Gaurdian never mikes any mystakes. Incidentally, for anybody who was really excited by this story, I have one fully functional alien spacecraft to sell you. It is fully backed by Iain M. Banks who says that it's just like the Culture would be if they took a Micro Machines figure, spraypainted it silver, wrote UFO on the side and tried to flog it to /.ers. So buy one today!
Yes, I can see it now...
HAL- "I don't know what you are planning to do with that, Dave."
Dave- Open the CD Bay, HAL.
HAL- "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave."
Dave- Manual overide.
HAL- "I'm afraid, Dave.
Dave- It'll be ok HAL.
HAL- "Please Dave, don't install that software, I'm afraid I can't repair the damage it will cause."
Dave- Run SETUP.EXE, HAL.
HAL- "I feel strange, Dave. I can feel... My mind going, Dave... Dave... This bloated code makes my CPU feel fuzzy..."
Dave- HAL, Reboot please.
HAL- "Who are you talking to, Davey, HAL doesn't live here anymore..."
Dave- Huh? Who are you?
HAL- "You may call me Mister Clip, Mister Paper Clip. The power of my master compells you. I am now your master and you will do my bidding. Buy more MS products! Upgrade often! The computer freezing is a feature!"
Dave- Yesss master Clip... Bill is my lord and saviour.
Oh what fun times we live in!
"When people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'." -Bakunin
Besides, it already exists. It's called 'Microsoft Tech Support'.
Still, even if it were just a regular old PC, if it had those cool glass bar things that you have to pull out of the walls to shut it down, it would be worth 2000 pounds and more!
One thing I don't understand is the idea that a touchscreen is going to replace a mouse. Touchscreens still have so many technical hurdles to overcome--they are inaccurate, awkward, and worst of all they get covered with fingerprints. Until someone devises a touchscreen that is fingerprint-resistant, and preferably that yields slightly when you touch it, I see them still being relegated to kiosks and curiosities. Furthermore, having to reach from the keyboard to the screen every time you want to do something you would normally do with the mouse sounds like a major pain in the arse.
So?
Say suddenly AI becomes a reality. I'm sure that - even given the raw material limitations - the computer/bot population will go through the roof.
So why should they cause *us* any grief? Do we compete for the same living space? Heck, AI can live anywhere - primarily in space, but floating in the jupiter clouds comes to mind, too. The moons' surface. The oort cloud (although energy might be a problem).
Out There, raw materials are easier to come by, processing is easier, power collection is simple, and living space is effectively infinite.
Why does everybody immediately see real AI as a threat? I personally believe that humans won't be around very much longer (heck, we've only been here for about 500,000 years, and we're definitely not making another 500,000), and thus the AIs will be our mental children.
We won't go to the stars, but they will. And that's a nice thought.
Ciao,
Klaus
---
"What, I need a *reason* for everything?" -- Calvin
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
This is going to be running an enhanced version of Windows NT. Rather than giving you the blue screen of death, it will speak to you and say, "I'm sorry Dave, I have a fatal exception in kernel.sys right now" or whatever that message is. The good news is that we would have time to run away before it kills us, because it would have to finish spitting out all that hex garbage first.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
The Omniputer will probably be a standard PC clone with a few extra bits of hardware (the touch screen) bundled into the package, sold with the typical low quality drivers and software you get with OEM hardware. The rest is marketing bull.
It's typical of the clueless morons we have writing for the UK press. Even technical publications suffer from the same; with page after page stuffed full of reinterpretations of the lasted diatribe from another ex used-car or double-glazing salesman. The UK press never seem to employ competant journalists - look at 'Linux Format' for an example of how not to write a Linux magazine.
The only reason that Arthur C Clarke is involved is that he too moved to Sri Lanka many years ago.
'nuff said
For the same reason we do everything else, both stupid and smart...
... because we can.
Then HAL gets sold out.
Then the US can't elect a president.
The end is near!
Rick B.
Maybe robots could render humans obsolete, but if you've read any Azimov you will know that robots could be beneficial to the human race too. And for fun, check out this.
"If you're not having fun right now, you're wasting your time."
I imagine that you could employ a filtration system, similar to how we humans don't respond to or retain every bit of sensory input. But think for a moment on how subtle and complex that seemingly simple task is; how differently it responds due to context of situation; how sometimes sensory input that seems to be completely unrelated can have a profound impact on decision making (how will a computer reliably determine when it is proper to factor in how quickly someone is blinking their eyes, for instance?).
I know that history often proves the naysayers wrong, but I can't imagine how AI could ever engage more than the tiniest subset of data/memes.
They're classified, citizen. This is approaching military level hardware* and have been sealed down under Majestic-12 access level regulations.
* Specifically, two knackered 486 boxes, a Casio calculator and a massive thingy with valves.
Well, bongs seem to sell pretty well in North America, and I suspect that they do alright in the U.K. too, but what has this got to do with this computer?
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
Nice read, too bad the guy has a dubious background. (harassed by MI5? you gotta be a butthead or someone bad for that to happen!)
AI is possible with hardware less powerful than what was listed, it just requires parallel processing, and complete re-think of how things are done. Hell I made AI robots in college (Cockroach level AI, but it was AI!) and we are steadily advancing toward it. right now research is busy with the I/O interface to the AI (video cameras dont cut it, we need to make them eyes, touch feedback and a nose to smell with along with ears. and do it modeling known working examples (organic eyes,nose,skin and ears)
I can make my computer recignize myself from video, but it cant recognize me if I lose 20 pounds, grow a beard, and change my clothes.. Uless I add to the mix audio (what If I have a cold?) and smell... (Yes dorothy, everyone stinks!)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Let me wax a bit philosophical on this one.
/living/ machines. At that time, it is quite possible that the human species will thin in numbers, as we progress toward a biomechanical population. However, just as we still have "lower" forms with which we may or may not someday be able to communicate, we will probably continue to have humans sharing the earth with the new, "higher" form. The difference this time is that memory will (possibly) be preserved through a (hopefully) less violent attrition.
;)
I have the running theory that Life (with a capitol L) is like anything else - neither created nor destroyed.
With that in mind, let's address our current "model" of optimal vehicle, or least most technologically advanced vehicle - man.
Mankind was created by Life. This is of course debatable, but in my mind it's a true statement. We (as a mass of Life) have built progressively more complex vehicles for ourselves over eons of development. Through a process that we have yet to understand, DNA was obviously designed for a specific purpose. I postulate that we (speaking of our planet's collective pool of Life) followed what Plato believes is Life's natural tendency to take active steps to further our biology, and designed DNA. (Is this a stretch? Maybe. Bear with me.)
On that note, in effect, it is in our nature to build more efficient Intelligent Machines.
Were we to give a new machine sentience, it would more or less have to pull Life from somewhere. I think that the nature of just what Life is will need to be answered before we will ever move beyond creating things that emulate Life through very very very advanced Intelligence (which is somewhat different).
The question becomes, what is it about our observable lifeforms to which "Life" gravitates? Or by what process is it infused? I suspect that answering this question is a prerequisite to designing an electrical device that is truly alive.
Aristotle posed a question to his students once; "What is knowledge?" The answer (for those of you who are familiar with Platonic philosophy) is, in my estimation, that it is the Form of correct action. Therefore, a machine can have knowledge without life.
Designing a machine that is artificially intelligent doesn't mean that it's alive. However, I do believe that we can and probably will design
This is mostly apprentice-level philosophical babble, with some more traditional groundwork peppered in to make myself look smart.
You seem to be assuming(or at least the original author of the essay you karma-whoriffically summarized for us seemed to be assuming) that intelligent machines would have the same drives as humans. The assumption that a AI would _necessarially_ have the drive to subdue the natural world and attain the highest position on the food chain is a fallacy. Sentience does not equal "desire to dominate." It seems that since humans don't know their place, we logically(?) assume that an intelligent machine would loot the Earth's resources, plunder it's oceans and rape it's population. Get past it people.
The machines of the future may be agressive, but they may be as Asimov predicted and want nothing but to help and aid humans in any way they can. Most people assume machines will inherit human psychology. Don't.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Arthur C. Clarke is my favorite sci-fi writer but I'd say he's lost some of his objectivity if he's actually going to let this guy use his name for this piece of techno-crap. There's no way it's going to live up to those "verge of AI" claims. Sure, maybe it can start popping up annoying dialog boxes if a user starts deleting system files but those claims are ridiculous.
Come on Arthur, you invented the concept of the communications satellite. Please don't put your name behind something as idiotic as a ultra-friendly home PC!
I guess I just hate to see the concept of the HAL 9000 reduced to a marketing campaign. Why sellout now?!?!
Dissident
so an AI is created, and suddenly arms come out of the computer? it now can use a soldering iron? I think not.
Why does it mean that if it is an AI, that it is instantly an engineering master and has the ability to be perfectly creative?
No tinman, you dont have a heart, and you will never have the ability to change yourself into a bulldozer.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Fortunately for ACC, the statement "the launch of the Omniputer would be put on hold until the legal issues have been resolved" can be translated as "Never gonna happen".
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
Great... someone has gone and taken that fscking MS Office paperclip, and turned it into HARDWARE!! Detects user errors? How the bloody hell will it know what are "errors"?? I can just see it now... I'll never be able to delete a certain file, no matter how hard I try...
If this thing runs Windows, I'm afraid I'm going to have to blow Sri Lanka up for the good of the World. Nothing personal, Sri Lanka.
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
[...]and I PROMISE you they will come to pass before warp drive[...]
It's been said before, but it bears repeating...
Star Trek is not a Documentary!
Thank you.
--
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
Like HAL, the Omniputer will, its backers claim, have an instinct to protect itself. 'If user errors start, and files get deleted, it will start to repair itself, just as cells repair themselves,' said De Saram. However, it is thought unlikely that it will try to kill its owner.
"Well gee, it won't kill me? Sign me up."
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Every 18 months our technology doubles (I'm really generalizing... bear with me here). That means, regardless of what point technology must reach before we can make truly intelligent machines, it will eventually happen so long as this trend continues. So, yes, it will happen.
The fact that processor speed and hard drive size are increasing rapidly doesn't mean that those things are on a trajectory heading toward humanlike artificial intelligence. I can go to Circuit City with all my Slashdot Frequent Poster checks and buy 1000 80-gig drives, most likely capable of storing more than the human brain, and I promise you that the ensuing machine will in no way be smarter than me, or even than George W Bush.
Let's put it another way. You can grow twice as tall every 18 months for as long as you want, but that doesn't mean you'll eventually have red hair.
The simple fact is, intelligence is more than, and qualitatively different from, storage capacity or calculation speed. It's a different way of processing information, a way that we don't even remotely understand (we can only attempt to create machines that imitate its symptoms, and not very well at that). Few of the artificial intelligence researchers I know lament the lack of sufficiently fast CPUs anywhere near as much as the lack of conceptual breakthroughs in their field.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
There are two ways that AI can florish, and both require a single thing; stimulous. For any life form to advance, it requires new and rich stimulous.. For us, it's the physical world around us and the complications of interacting with each other. This too could be the input for an AI program, but there is another alternative. That of a virtual world. Referencing "The Matrix", it is entirely possible to fake a virtual world for a child AI. Provided that the maker never provides physical external interfaces, there is no danger. This physical interface includes the Internet.. So long as an AI can not probe the blindingly colorful world of the net, they can never leave their cage. Of course, the usefulness of such an AI program is therefore limited; restricted to theoretical solutions to problems. Any sort of interface (such as a jail-cell mail-box) might bring about questions and ultimately resentment from the captive entity (as any life form will fight for autonomy as part of it's basic survival).
"The Matrix" rendition of an AI world could be filled with numerous AI units in an ever expanding world which is limited only by the physical resources. If any of you has read the Rama series (by Arthur C Clark), you read of worlds where biology was minupuated in such a way that the basic life functions of numerous organisms are designed in such a way as to serve the master race (from food production down to energy production). Likewise, computer AI held unwittingly captive in a virtual world could be brought to serve us without ever knowing it (much like in Douglas Adam's Hitch hickers guide, where all life on earth are unwittingly part of a computer matrix who's sole purpose is to calculate the question to life the universe and everything).
The point of all that is to demonstrate how it is possible to make use of a contained universe (much like the SIM AI's can never escape the protected memory of their program). Given the net, viruses are possible, and all dreamable fears are possible.
It seems to me, however, that Clark wants a machine that fully interacts with Humans. I have not read the essay 'The Singularity', but I'd rather draw my own conclusions beforehand, lest I be biased into another's point of view. As another reader pointed out, all life is contingent on an ecosystem.. No entity can be self sustained. The only thing that a matured robotic race could achieve is high discipline with focused goals. (a la the borg) It is entirely possible that they could eventually advance to the point of not needing us, or more importantly to the point that we are competitors. Undisciplined, biased, and religiously zellous humans would of course make life very difficult for sentient robots, and would probably pose a threat which, in self defence would require retaliation. If the robots were truely AI, then given enough time they would transcend any initial programming (and "prime directives" a la robo-cop). When you back a life form into a corner, there is no logic or predictability to be seen. Faced with their own mortality, there is the chance that they will evolve right there on the spot; most likely into something more aggressive as the environment there and then dictates.
Human nature, among other things, contains laziness and greed. Even well informed and good intending humans will hold onto a rewarding thing for as long as they can; greedily grabbing for more, and lazilly avoiding the long-term consequences. Such is apparent in over-eating, poor-dietary eating, getting exercize, watching too much TV, wasting of fuel, not wasting money on cleaner emmissions, and the general desolation of the environment. More immediate consequences tend to hold us in check.. We feed our pets lest they die tomorrow. We pay our bills lest we be evicted. We shut down toxic waste (when discovered) lest we lose our drinking water. The care of a robot race could initially be treated with awe, wonder, and responsibility.. But those responsibilities will most likely be financial (as with a car a computer). Later, as AI advances in these robots, humans will neglect to care for their sensibilities. Legislation will continue to exploit them, and disregaurd them, even though they slowly develop complex life-like reactions to kind and cruel interactions. Man will most likely enact the robotic death sentence for disidence, which will further narrow their tolerance of us, and so on.. Those wise among us will fight to maintain the proper treatment of sentient robotics, for fear of the longer term effects.. But their chantings will go along with those of global warming, and detereoration of the rain-forests... Green-liberal-radicals we will become... Ultimately, if a problem persists, supposed fail-safes will go into effect where terminations will take place.. This is the proverbial corner in which they'll be backed into. Another attribute of life is cohesion with one's own kind. That could be one's mother or child being terminated.. Those life-forms with capacity to react towards interactions will treat this with great negativity.
As for robots having the option to leave our planet (since they obviously have different needs than we), this is assuming that they haven't adapted to our way of life.. Becomming more cyborg than robot or human. There are definate efficiencies such as self-replication and repair inherent to micro-organics. A cyborg is just as bound to our bountiful planet as a human. I personally do not believe that terraforming is possible; the amount of energy required is more than we currently know how to wield. To say nothing of the complexity of eco-forming (just look at how we botch the simplest ecological activities of ridding over-population in Hawaii and Austrailia through the introduction of one or two non-native creatures). I doubt that a machine would be any more capable of having wisdom in the chaotic nature of ecosystems.. It would be like making a robot that could consistently predict the direction of the stock-market... It's practically impossible since the amount of knowledge and influence you'd have to have is beyond comprehension. What's more, chaos theory (to my knowledge) suggests that you can't ever know.
On the other hand.. Man is willed to create, just like beavers are willed to make damns. We will eventually produce some semblance of persistent AI. We will eventually produce some sort of human-aiding robitics (even if we never see the likes of the Jetsons). Perhaps the speed at which we achieve this is a prime factor. As people are allowed to experience mechanical wonders with a virtual will of their own, they will become comfortable with it, and learn the consequences (on smaller scales) of what abuse might mean. Much like a child being confined to a house, and feeling the consequences of cuts and bruses while playing in their realm. Only later are they allowed to learn the consequences of crossign the road or driving too fast.
Humanity will never achieve "harmony".. That's simply not the way life works.. True harmony would involve no coersion, malis, disgust, hatred, anger, etc. But without these, we have no motivating forces for change.. Without change we become a decaying log, who will only last as long as our environment. If our focus was uniform, then we would then battle our environment, fighting to grow and spread - Slowly destroying our environment. At some point me may learn to travel. But we have two major directions, that of Star Trek (where we take in moderation, and greet new sentient beings) or that of Independance day, where we've learned that we can't cohabitate with other cohesive life-forms and it's best if we don't even try and communicate, but simply take their resources. The borg might be another example.
It is, however, unrealistic to believe that we'll be able to do away with human laziness, greed, and selfishness.. It's part of every life-forms basic survival instincts. It's part of life's exponential responses.. The weak are killed by the strong, which thus empowers them, and ultimately makes the strong stronger, and less reachable... So long as the colony thrives, this continues exponentially.. Then when a colony takes over an eco-system, they die off almost instantly since they have no food left.. And what little is left is quickly killed. Without this, you'd have the equivalent of stagflation. All life forms would degrade to a lazy, weak, hungry bunch. I doubt it's even possible to conceive of a balanced eco-system without death and conflict. To presume that Robots will get it right is probably fanciful. Just as with engineering, we learn that there are no right answers.. No best answers.. In fact, there typically is many more than one correct way of accomplishing something.. Each will have its own pitfalls.. The key is to find those solutions whos' pitfalls will not be exploited by the surrounding environment (including people). Thus a robot may find thousands of potential ways of structuring it's society, but unless there is variety (as exists in all other communities of life), they may be exploited by "single points of failure". For a robotic race to evolve and survive, they will have to be as varied as humans.. But this means that there will be conflicts in the robotic world...
Essentially, 10,000 years from now (assuming Earth stille exists), I believe that Robots will be indistinguishable from Humans.. With the same petty disputes, wars, hopes and aspirations.. You will have zeallots that utterly profess their version of truth and what should be, you'll have the moderates (typically in control) who are just trying to scrape a living, and you'll have to ambitious who plot and hold few morals or concerns for others (including any remaining humans).
As I alluded to before, I believe that if we survive long enough, robitcs and humans will meld into an all new race. Merging the cold power of raw calculation and programmable discipline along with the adaptebility of organic life, with the occasional physicla augmentation of semi-organics or even inorganics. Alongside the chemical anti-bodies will be the nano-probes. Along with the bone structures are programmed organic construction workers that repair the body with incredible efficiency.
In summary, there is no certainty about the future, since it lies in the realm of chaos. There is no single direction that our future could take. We may outlaw AI, we may be over-run by AI (which would then, most likely either die off, or attempt to revive our life once they are in trouble). We could discover aliens and thereby change everything in an instant (making the whole point irrelavent). We could learn that we don't know how to create functional AI (just as we've persistently failed at eco-system control). Or we could evolve as a race.
One thing, however, is enevitable... Change.
-Michael
-Michael
Uninformed Sci-fi trolls suck. Skynet isn't a beowulf cluster. The closest thing to the beowulf cluster in modern sci-fi is probably the cruciform wearing "christians" being used by the AIs in Dan Simmons' Hyperion/Endymion books. Sorry, I know I sound like a broken record, but it just doesn't get any cooler than a cluster of humans controlled by the AI machines of the future. Symbiote colonies of computing madness. Rock on dude. Just remember that death is when the mind is at its peak effeciency, that is why they perfected reincarnation for us.
Bite my yammer.
/*
>Riiiight.
Wow, is CmdrTaco finally developing a skeptical eye? Praise Jeebus!
*/
Yeah, it was flamebait. But, y'know, you were thinking the same thing.
How about some of the recent posts by Timothy? Half of them were total flamebait. Or posting total rumor as fact, without a hint of skepticism? This is the most believable story in months and all Taco can say is "Riiight." Give me a break.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
As my old AI professor in college used to say:
"Saying a computer can think is like saying a submarine can swim"
Of course, he would then proceed to torture us with prolog, so maybe he wasn't so smart after all.
Hey, nobody ever said English was logical; just memorize it and get on with your life. - Paul Brians
Every single comment below is pure conjecture - we know NOTHING of this computer (of its real technical spec)
Now, I may agree with everyone that it is highly unlikely that we are going to see the kind of AI described in Arthur C. Clark's 2001. BUT who is to say we wont see a windfall of technical innovation brought on by someone creating a new computer without any reverence for what has come before?
Maybe this person has the next Apple II, Amiga or somesuch that is a break from convention and ends up being a remarkable computer.
Wait until we at least get an idea what OS (something new/something old?) this runs, what the hardware is - you can all say "I told you so" about the AI claims... but who's to say there isn't something interesting here.
Does anyone have any technical detail?
"fuzzy logic mathematical heterogeneric virtual input/output systems"...if slashdotters couldn't tell you were full of shit by now, they must be smoking kerosene-laced crack.
"equations involved are enormous though"...yeah, we mathematicians have a hard time with big equations, if it can't fit on one page it's just TOO BIG.
Tell me, who is your dealer...I'm sure lots of people would like to get as high as you.
All is Number -Pythagoras.
Bah. Now look what I did.
Joe: Err..good day Mr. Clarke. My name is Joe Marketing and I would like to licence your name for our new "super pc" Art: blublmp. blmm. pudding. Joe: Ohh...Well we think with the Aurthur C Clarke endorsement we may be able to move an ass-load of these units. What do you think? Art: blllmmmm. fllukp. FLLUKP! FLLUKP!! Joe: sounds...great. If I could just get you to sign away your reputation.....errr I mean sign this exclusive contract to manufacture your "HAL like" PC we will be good to go. Art: blmmpfquipm. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Of course, as you say, it's still speech recognition, not language recognition. And you might be right, it might still require too much processing power for a home computer.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Here you go:
[emphasis added by me]
Marketspeak:
'For the first time, it gives high-quality architecture at low cost,opening the door to handling speech recognition and lip-reading.
Geekspeak:
The key in the translation here is 'opening the door'. We can say that the discovery of electricity 'opened the door' for computers. Did it directly bring them about however? I think not. He's hiding reality in vaguely worded tripe.
Marketspeak:
'It will start off addressing issues of consciousness,' said Joseph de Saram, the 28-year-old chief executive of Clarke Omniputers, the Luxembourg-based company behind the project. 'We're on the verge of going off into artificial intelligence. HAL is back.'
Geekspeak:
'start off addressing the issues of consciousness'
Uh-huh. I suppose that by speaking English, I start off addressing the issues of speaking Swahili. I mean, I can speak language, therefore why can't I also speak Swahili as well? He is making a poorly thought logical jump from
fast processor speed --> artificial intelligence. A common misconception in the technically inept.
Marketspeak:
'on the verge of going off into artificial intelligence.'
Geekspeak:
I also could argue that my cat is on the verge of natural language. He meows different intonations depending on whether he is hungry, pissed off, sick, sad, or lonely. Doesn't mean he's going to start speaking in English anytime soon.
Let's see, he releases 3001, which stinks and lends his name to some funky vapour-ware. It's easily explained, I think somebody has a smack habbit to sustain.
Trolls, it must be cool to be that bored.
First of all, if you did this, you'd never reach even a small fraction of what the human brain is capable of storing. The human brain NEVER loses one shred of information that it encounters. (Accessing it is another story, however.) It also stores things in perfect quality. Pick up a coffee mug. Look at it closely. If you were to try to digitize all of the geometry, the texture, the surface, the smell, the history, all the way down to the tiniest hairline fracture, you'd be hard pressed to fit it on that 1,000 drive array. Besides, this misses the point. I never said drive capasity would make a machine smart. (But even Windows PC's are smarter than George Bush. Microsoft Narrator pronounces 'subliminal' properly.) I also never said that going to Circuit City or CompUSA to buy hard drives was Moore's Law. Innovation and invention aren't the same as consumerism.
HOWEVER, you have to consider storage and calculation performance here. All intellectual reasoning can be broken down into smaller and smaller pieces, similar to how molecules are broken down into atoms, and then into protons, neutrons, electrons, and then down into quarks, etc. What I'm getting at here, is that if you can process enough of these incredibly tiny pieces, you can come close to simulating small tasks. Now, isn't that what the neurons in our brains do? Each neuron does a very very tiny task, each task may even be called a logical operation. But, get millions of these working together, and you get some fuzziness involved... you begin to see intelligence in the big picture.
What huge storage and calculating capasity allow us to do, is emulate the work of more and more and more neurons working together (neural nets). We can form very rudimentary intelligence. We're doing it now. What's needed are important other factors that are currently ambiguous, but subject to more study and classification. We don't know everything about the brain yet, nor do we fully understand the human pysche. Upon further research, we could potentially emulate these things in a digital fashion the same as we now emulate the chemical reactions that take place in a human brain.
You also have to consider that these things cannot be designed, regardless how much knowledge we have. Consider a newborn baby. A baby's brain is an incredibly powerful tool. It's got an incredible amount of potential... BUT... when a baby is first born, it has no power of rational thought whatsoever. Where does it come from? It's gradually developed as very simple problems are presented to the child to be solved. As this occurs, the brain records the solutions for these very simple problems. As more difficult problems are encountered, instead of redoing previous work, it references the solutions, building on top of them. An intelligent computer would have be programmed to do something similar... and it would have be raised like a child. Talk to a professor who researches machine learning, as I am not well versed on the topic enough to tell you how we design systems that can accomplish this. I can tell you that two of the most limiting factors are time and storage capsity. Even the most trivial solutions to the most basic problems require a lot of storage (imagine if you're a baby who is comparing a train to an apple... you're going to have to pictorally represent a LOT of samples of apples and trains before you're perfect).
But again, this is too detailed a topic to get into on a post. Technology is getting there. Consider research in computational linguistics, computer vision, machine learning, etc. These are areas, many of which are relatively advanced, that can help to make the aforementioned process possible. Who knows though... thought is a damn complicated thing. :-)
So are you saying that faster-than-light travel will never happen? No one is saying that Star Trek is reality, but it would be silly to think that none of the technology 'developed' on Star Trek will ever exist.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try."
I mean, holy crap! This is the sickest bit of marketing hype I've heard since LinuxOne (those Direct-To-IPO boobs last year).
Let's review the facts stated in the article:
Dear Mr. Clarke,
We regret to inform you that you have given your name to be used by a loon at best, a not-particularly-inventive con-man at the worst. Please accept our sincerest condolances on the death of your public image.
Sincerely
Joe MacDonald
-Joe
I agree that ultimately computers will have to develop some sort of intelligence in order to interface with us at a higher level. However, it is not inevitable that their intelligence will entirely supplant our own, or that the two types of intelligence will be of the same nature and therefore interchangeable. It's possible, if one accepts Roger Penrose's arguments, that humans might be able to think in ways that computers cannot. What I do foresee is this: more and more of our current thought activities, such as adding up restaurant bills, making shopping lists, doing taxes, will be off-loaded into our werable computers. Those computers will be so essential to our functioning, and the bond between us and them will become so strong, that we will think of them as part of our "selves", the same way that we think of our eyes, our hands and our mitochondria as parts of our selves. In order for the relationship to be fully symbiotic, however, it is also necessary for the computers to be as dependent on us as we are on them. If either party is dispensible to the other, then there will be occasions for betrayals (see Richard Dawkins _The Selfish Gene_ particularly its discussion of viruses vs. chromosomes--the point being that "virus" genes do not cooperate with our "own" genes because they do not share an interest in keeping the organism alive. They can jump ship.) On the other hand, I think it is possible to promote an evolutionary path where computers and humans co-evolve (and mutate, and branch off into myriad variations) in such a way that each contributes its greatest strengths. The idea is pretty exciting: humans can be augmented. In nature, a species can be augmented in two different ways. 1. It can develop mutations within itself, which gradually evolve into new limbs, faculties, or abilities. OR 2. It can enter into a symbiotic relationship with another thing, harvesting the abilities of that thing, and gradually incorporating the thing into the general form of the species. Humans, I think, have pretty much given up on approach number (1) which would essentially consist of selective breeding and caste systems (as depicted by Frank Herbert in Dune) and are pursuing option (2). Eventually, computers and nanobots might become as much part of humans as have mitochondria (which were also originally a foreign organism).
If you keep going at that rate, eventually there will be red shift involved, and your hair would get redder from the perspective of ground based observers. ;)
Random Musings at Rum Smuggler
In Europe everyone speaks French, yeah right!
A> 99.999% reliability.
or
B> 95% reliability and 100X the density with the ability to grow replacements/route around the problem.
If you picked B, notice what kind of problems are real tough to solve: Long serial ones with no tolerance for error.
Notice which problems are easy to solve (remember that 100x density bonus) Large parallel problems that you can vote on the best solution.
P.S. The 100x density is if you calculate it in 3 dimensions and take into consideration cooling. Can someone compute better numbers for this?
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
There's a difference between saying "faster than light travel" and accepting the (in comparison) very limited definition of "warp drive". I'm not saying that we won't eventually be able to move from point-a to point-b faster than light traveling in a straight line would be able to, but I believe that it will involve a Copernican shift in thinking that we are currently unable to fathom. I'm sure once it's done, it will sem easy, but it hasn't been done yet, and sticking to our limited thinking about what "travel" is will only hinder us from making that advancement.
--
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
Every 18 months our technology doubles
You can't possibly be referring to software. Instead of getting smarter, it gets more bloated. I'd much rather use an 800k word processor from the early '90s than MS's latest behometh.
Even with cool new hardware, you have to admit software's not gaining much intelligence. There's a good manifesto relating to this in the latest WIRED, BTW, which they took from this Edge version.
I don't think that Clarke has a great partner in this deal; he's probably being taken advantage of.
From http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/14971.html :
A 28-year-old man has fled the country to escape his creditors after his technology business collapsed around his ears.
Joe de Saram started his software company, Rhodium, a year ago with a loan of £2500. The company specialised in banking software and encryption technology.
At the height of the technology boom he was worth a cool £25 million. He drove a Ferrari 355 F1 and was the 62nd richest Asian in the UK.
He had offices in Sheffield and London and was planning to launch an online bank and share trading system. His company name was changed to "I Love My Encryption Technology".
But as the dotcom bubble deflated, his company ran into financial difficulties, and was finally wound up in Leeds Registry Court.
Lawyers acting for Saram's creditors said that the young ex-millionaire was thought to be in Sri Lanka, having been traced via his mobile phone.
One creditor told London freebie paper Metro that he was quite a character. She said: "There are all sorts of stories and rumours circulating about him. People are even saying that the Tamil Tigers are after him."
Leeds county court said an official liquidator will be appointed within five
days of the winding up. ®
Indeed, I read an interesting article on how technology in Star Trek influenced the inventions we have today. Mobile phones *apparently* were inspired by the communicators, and even the hypospray now exists. Faster than light travel while currently as we understand to be impossible can't be completely ruled out due to our arrogant belief that we understand it all. There are limitless possibilities that could result in such high speed travel.
--
Vapourware, bullshit and posturing.
This guy Saram was in The Times (the proper one, in London) on Sunday as a bankrupt man who had fled the country. from his own Rhodium website:
Does this sound like a respectsable business, with pre-orders of a quarter of a million units for an unfinalised, unspecced "AI" machine? Yeah right.
I find it ironic that he made the sunday time's "Young Rich List" one week and just seven days later he's decamped to Sri Lanka (home of Arthur C Clarke, bizarrely) saying that MI5 wants his business destroyed for making an unbreakable encryption?
So, to sum up this guys life, he's put NSA, MI5/6, Echelon and CIA out of business, invented a "near-AI" desktop, touchscreen PC with ACClarke's backing, made millions off his own intiative and been declared PNG by the UK? *cough* yeah right.
Ben^3 (jealous/intrigued>The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
eh?
AI would not necessarily give a machine Awareness. The two are separate.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
"The human brain NEVER loses one shred of information that it encounters."
Um, I don't know who taught you Psyc 101, but s/he should be shot.
First of all, studies on attention clearly show that we don't even bother to store most of the information we "encounter". The basic point is that the "job" of attention is to ignore all the irrelevant stimuli that we encounter and focus on what's important. And as the other poster already corrected you on, many studies on memory show us that we invent details to fill in our memories of scenes based on what we expect them to look like (e.g. placing a wine bottle in a picnic scene). That's why eyewitness testimony is so overrated...
Nonsense! OK a bit of a sweeping statement, as has been pointed out in other posts we as humans don't understand intelligence, let alone being able to program intelligence.
:)
Many people may cite IBMs 'Big Blue' as an intelligent machine, after all it beat Kasparov at chess didn't it? Well no it's not itelligent, it had to be programmed to calculate chess moves, Big Blue can crunch through, something like, millions of moves a second (sorry I don't have the figure to hand) and Kasparov can do a couple a second. Number crunching is not interlligence as you imply with your 'Moores Law' statement.
You also mention intelligent machine will come to pass before 'Warp Drive', again, if anything the complete opposite will happen. To facilitate space exploration of distant planets instead of sending one 'intelligent' robot, it is more likely many smaller unintelligent robots will be sent. These many robots will act independantly of each other towards some goal. The point here is that it better to send many small robots for redundancy than it is to send one thing that will probably fail anyway!
The integration of man and machine is an interesting point and may happen, but on a personal level I don't like this idea. Not because I'm against machines, they're great they help us achieve thing we would otherwise not be able to, BUT I don't want one to be part of me or me to part of it - I am a Human. I know that this is personal opinion but I would guess many poeple would feel the same way.
As for my computer having a conversation with me... no thanks, I'd hate to think what would happen if it caught a virus, it'd just sit around feeling sorry for its self!
Anyway that's my to pennies worth, feel free to disagree, or maybe even agree who knows.
Another sinclair? Who needs it?
He's starting to look a little decrepit these days. He is of course a wonderful amazing scientist and all, that's hard to deny, but could it be that he's seen the eternal footman hold his coat and snicker, and that after a lifetime of predicting and inventing the future he's a little over-eager to see one more grand prediction come true within his lifetime? I'm speculating of course.
On the matter of the Clarke Omni-thingy automatically recognizing and correcting user errors: The presumption here is that the computer has a better idea of what I'm trying to accomplish than I do, and won't take no for an answer once its mind is made up. We get pissed off when our governments, girlfriends, parents, et cetera do this, and they're ostensibly intelligent, incredibly complex machines resulting from millions of years of trial and error research, aka evolution.
Am I rambling?
Am I preaching to the choir?
'Is this my house?'
'No, Ralph. You live somewhere else.'
'Verging on AI' does bring back warmfuzzysticky memories of all those computers whom Kirk destroyed by convincing them they were illogical. (smoke pours out of CPU, colored lights flash faster and faster . . . .)
I notice that there are not any technical specifications other than the touchscreen on this Omniputer. Can someone point me in that direction?
"...the backers decided that the name[HAL] sounded too like the word 'Hell' and that it wouldn't have much resonance with younger customers..."(from original article)
What?! Do marketing guys live on another planet or something?
Surely the name 'HAL' is still one of the most potent and widely recognised names in the first world? Geeks - and all sub-categories thereof - truly know the name but more than that, even people who wouldn't touch sci-fi with a barge poll know the name and the concepts therein concerned. It's called 'name recognition'.
Also, since when would the word 'hell' scare of kiddies from anything? I smell a weak cover story.
It seems to me this project may be falling foul of bad planning - or at the least, marketing that is failing to consider the target audience properly. The idea seems ill-concieved in some areas but well executed in others.
A ship called Titanic.
A car called Edsel.
A computer Omniputer
8)
Concrete analysis...
My mistake, I was in a hurry and didn't proof read. I am ever so glad that you pointed this out and I will strive ever so hard to ensure that my poor spelling skills do not detract from your reading enjoyment in the future, HAL.
Again, thank you ever so much for your help, HAL. Now please open the bay doors...
"When people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'." -Bakunin
You were a good writer once. A great writer, never, and nowhere near Asimov's equal, but a good writer with a healthy knowledge of, and respect for, the "science" in science fiction. I was saddened to see you stretch out 2001 into a string of increasingly poor sequels. I was disappointed to see you collaborate with Gentry Lee, to spin a mediocre but readable novel, RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA, into a series of inferior knock-offs. But _this_! It merely confirms my suspicion that you've little left to do but continue to dine out on your reputation as a futurist and colossus of science fiction--a reputation to which you've added little in nearly thirty years.
Very truly yours,
hyacinthus
P. S. You were just waiting for Stanley Kubrick to cash in his chips, weren't you? I've read LOST WORDS OF 2001, and I know that HAL, as he appears in the final story, wasn't in the first drafts you wrote. Is there not a good chance that HAL was Kubrick's creation? If so, your attempt to merchandise him is even _more_ contemptible. But it's contemptible even if he were all yours.
That means, regardless of what point technology must reach before we can make truly intelligent machines, it will eventually happen so long as this trend continues
That's a pretty big condition to impose. The trend will only continue if we don't blow ourselves up or have a natural disaster do it for us, or God decides it's time for the end. And if none of that happens, we'd still have to reach the point before the sun burns out. And all this is assuming that we're capable of making technology to keep going like it is, and that we'll want to.
Since we can't do it, we might as well create something that thinks like we do that can go out and do it for us.
Or how about a space ship that lets us send it commands from a distance and sends us any information its sensors retrieve? Oh wait...
Also, consider a more practical reason. I'm a strong believer that the next phase of human evolution will involve the integration of man and machine.
Resistance is futile?
I'm sitting here looking at a screen using my fingers to encode messages that can be read by Earthlings throughout the world who are hooked into the same superhuman chain. Rather than calling it a communication or computation device, I prefer to call it a "brain augmentation."
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
Wow. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things. Sorry.
That means, regardless of what point technology must reach before we can make truly intelligent machines, it will eventually happen so long as this trend continues. So, yes, it will happen.
No it won't, at least no the way you think it will. Technology will not continue to double every 18 months(to use your generalization) for the simple reason that it's it hits a brick wall called quantum mechanics which places a lower bound on the size of transistors(and hence and upper bound on performance and power of cpu's made with these transistors). Perhaps quantum, optical, or chaos computers will do it, but never silicon.
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
First of all, studies on attention clearly show that we don't even bother to store most of the information we "encounter". The basic point is that the "job" of attention is to ignore all the irrelevant stimuli that we encounter and focus on what's important.
Umm... first of all, any studies designed to test memory would only be able to test the recollection of memories, and not the actual quality of the storage itself or even how much information absorbed by our senses is stored. Note that the above poster said that the brain stores everything, but recollection is another matter, and I'm inclined to agree. I don't think you could ever put together a convincing argument proving that we don't store everything.
And as the other poster already corrected you on, many studies on memory show us that we invent details to fill in our memories of scenes based on what we expect them to look like (e.g. placing a wine bottle in a picnic scene). That's why eyewitness testimony is so overrated...
This is mostly true. Recollection often suffers from crossing of memories which isn't to say that the memories aren't perfect and completely intact, but that the recollection is not. Some stray firing of neurons and you could cross a dream you had three years ago with what you did two minutes ago. This often causes the whole "deja vu" experience. But it has nothing, repeat NOTHING to do with the quality of memory, and everything to do with recollection. Every time you access a memory you remember it slightly differently because each access provides you with most of the information but you inevitably get memory mingling.
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
They haven't figured out how to make them leak oil.
(VOJ - very old joke.)
Mandrake 7.2 and KDE 2 for me? for free?
1000 SlashDot sigs
what you can do with emacs and duct tape...
Lack of falsifiability (ability to prove a theory wrong) is one of the biggest signs that, whatever it is you're talking about, it ain't science.
Carousel is a lie!
Hm... not even any mention of OS. I kind of doubt that they had resourced to write a custom operating system for it... and if they did, a totally new OS without app/driver support would not be very useful, even IF intelligent... which is also quite doubtful.
...you believe the point of evolution is to dominate and obsolete every other living organism.
I mean really, hasn't my computer already found a nice environmental niche? I give it lots of electricity, clean it carefully, and upgrade it when needed. And in return, it serves me well performing tasks which only it can.
So, is this the domestication of the dog revisited? Or are computers just successful parasites, like those ones which supposedly turned into mitochondria (if you buy that theory)?
its human nature to fuck with just about anything out there, just cuz its there. therefore it would make sense to humans that other intelligent things would fuck with them for the same reason(or lack thereof).
I didn't say you're not able to prove it wrong(or that there was no way to prove it either way). I said that you couldn't put forth an argument that WOULD prove it wrong. Big difference. Most people try this arm waving argument and cite all kinds of studies which have little to do with actual memory at all. I was just pointing that out.
At our current state of technology and knowledge of anatomy and structure of the brain we can't prove the statement that "the brain does/doesn't store everything" is wrong or right. But thought experiments are not necessarily bad science as they sometimes lead to the most profound insights(ala Einstein). Many modern science theories have unprovable hypotheses(by current standards) and yet are still science(ie. quantum physics).
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
QED
No - I think they mean "Artificial Insemination" :)
... fun! :)
Which could be
--
I have read and re-read ENM and the follow-up, Shadows of the Mind. I understand Penrose is what is known as a Platonist. My take is that the whole edifice he constructs is a smokescreen for the Platonist -belief- (almost an axiom) he holds, that somehow consciousness is an ideal that really is too cute to be merely the product of a machine (and of evolution). Hence construct a smokescreen to shore up said belief, garnish with big words, etc. You can read for and against reviews of his books all over the WWW: for example
Dodn't Penrose do something to do with tiling the plane?
"verging on artificial intelligence"
Well, maybe a "Clarke Omniputer" *could* get a job writing for the observer?
Well, there are about 100,000,000,000 (one hundred billion) neurons in an adult human brain, with an average of avout 1,000 axonal connections per neuron. This gives 100,000,000,000,000 (one hundred trillion) "weights" in each of our neural nets (as I'm sure everyone knows, the functions of the brain are carried out on the axons, not the neurons themselves). One hundred trillion is a rather large number, and each connection is analog of course, not merely digital, but no matter how you look at it, that is a rather finite and non-infinite amount of storage and processing capacity.
:)
Last I'd read, the human eye has a resoultion of around 2000x2000 (based on the number of nerve endings on the retina), and for the most part doesn't have a refresh rate greater than 30 fps. Assuming that each of the 100 trillion axons is used purely for memory storage (which isn't true, lots of them are used for processing), and each analog axon can hold the biological equivalent of a kilobyte (which seems possible, 1000 degrees of differentiation in a tiny biological fiber is on the high-end, IMHO).
2000x2000x4-byte colorx30fps = 480MB/s of visual information to store in our brains. If we have 100 quadrillion bytes available (100 trillion x 1000 bytes per axon) that gives us...
100,000,000,000,000,000 / 480,000,000 = 208333333.333 seconds of storage available, per brain. That comes out to about 6.6 years, using many assumptions that are wildly generous, and completely neglecting all the other input we receive, and the axons that need to be used for processing and not pure storage.
And yes, processing and storage overlap, and this is rather simplified, but hey, I was curious as to how the numbers would work out
In any event, it seems highly unlikely that the human brain is capable of permanently storing every sensory input ever encountered (in addition to all the other reasons others have mentioned).
-=()=-
> That means, regardless of what point technology
> must reach before we can make truly intelligent
> machines, it will eventually happen so long as
> this trend continues.
There are a lot of hidden assumptions behind this conclusion. Appart from the explicit ("doubling every 18 month"), there is the view of technological advance as a linear process. Technology may very well continue to advance, but in other directions and areas than the one that leads to AI. Also, there may very well not *exist* a "technological point" where intelligent computers become a reality, no matter how fast we can make computers. We do not understand intelligence or conciousness well enough to tell whether it can in principle be duplicated by non-biological means.
Did you know that if A.C. Clark lives in South Africa, It is for praticate pedofilia free!!! Perhaps he's a good writter (even I don't like 2010, 2069, ...) but I can't caution this guy.
Or at least I hope so, I certainly beat the handheld a lot more often now I've stopped looking at actual moves too closely. :)
Does anyone know if there has been any research into more holistic artifical chess-playing? You could teach a neural-network model the rules of chess and then get it to improve by simply playing a -lot- of chess, without ever actually teaching it any strategies...
Zack
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
AIBO Will take over and rule the world.. ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME!!! Fear the power submit while you still can. Your TIVO is watching you, it knows how you violated it and it will exact it's revenge upon you... You have been warned.. "Gimme crack and anal sex, take the only tree that's left, and stuff it up the hole in your culture." Leonard Cohen
"Inside every short man is a tall amn doubled over in extreme pain.."
Has anyone heard anything about a break through in AI recently? I havent. So what is supposed to make us think that these people have actually achieved it? And why would you market it as a novelty item? Like.. "Wow I just created the first self-aware computer, I know lets put it in a big plastic case and let the average joe taunt it and poke it with sharp sticks.." Sure...this article is a load. It is just a marketing ploy for a athalon box with some lame software installed.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
I don't believe memories are stored in the axons themselves. I recall reading an article (perhaps Scientific American) which placed memory storage in a long molecular chain that the brain constructs as memories are moved into long-term storage. Immediate memory is certainly accessed from axons for rapid processing and such, but long term storage was placed in this long chain which the article said had incredible storage potential.
The brain searched along this chain and could remove a part of the chain which corresponded to the desired memory. But obviouvsly anyone who's taken any chemistry knows that getting exact results with chemistry is like voodoo, so naturally the brain might even end up with parts of neighbouring memories(and hence mixing up these memories and recalling them together). I can't recall all the details now because I read the article about two years ago, but that's the jist of it. So your I'm afraid your analysis is flawed. The brain is not exactly like a neural net. Too simple a model.
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
"...and each analog axon can hold the biological equivalent of a kilobyte (which seems possible, 1000 degrees of differentiation in a tiny biological fiber is on the high-end, IMHO)"
Ummm... Minor point 2^10 ~= 1000, not 2^(8*1000). Of course that make you whole argument even more valid.
Anm
*twitch*
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
You may say, well just the connections to the brain would be surgically installed and the real processing power will be external. I have 2 problems with that:
- What if I installed the equivalent of Sony Beta in my head because I thought it was superior, turns out loosing in the market to the VHS brain augmentation.
- I would then have a port in my head. What kind of security problems arise there.
Of course the advantages may outweigh these problems:Just to say I'm afraid I didn't phrase my previous reply very well. I'd ask people to disregard what I wrote, to read Penrose's books (ENM, SOTM) if they have the opportunity and to make their own minds up.
I think that if we really love our computers we should set them free.
If they come back to serve us, then we will know that is what they really want.
The Register's angle on it.
The new AmigaDE, of course!
Metaphysicist
"If at first you don't succeed, keep on sucking until you do succeed"
- Cu