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N.Y. Times Magazine Chats With ALICE Bot Creator
aridg writes: "This week's New York Times Magazine has an article about Richard Wallace, the programmer of the ALICE AI chatbot that won first place in several competitions for realistic human-like conversation. Wallace sounds like a pretty unusual and interesting fellow; the article quotes an NYU prof both praising ALICE and saying to Wallace: '... I actively dislike you. I think you are a paranoid psycho.' A good read. [Usual NY Times registration disclaimers apply.]"
So if a person is born without legs, you say "well, it's their own fault they refuse to walk"?
Obviously not, if you read what I said at all. It's not about will or choice, it's about traits and actions, regardless of their origin.
It would be that person's fault that they are unable to walk. Who's fault could it be but his? It's just the same for someone who's unable to learn advanced physics or who has a poor singing voice or who lacks self control. Weaknesses and strengths are integral parts of a person. Our categories of blameless damage and despicable faults are entirely arbitrary.
By setting a person above (or, rather, beneath) accountability, you are essentially saying, "This person is broken and useless, no threat or offer of reward will make this person a productive member of society, he is fit only to receive our charity so the normal rules don't apply." Otherwise, you expect people to struggle along and compensate for their weaknesses the best they can with their strength and whatever crutches they can lay their hands on, and live with the honestly-earned status their performance merits.
Now, if this is an accurate evaluation, there is certainly no point in heaping miseries upon them. If it's not, it's the most horrible insult I can think of.
This award-winning AI researcher is certainly not a hopeless basket case. He can and does get along despite his problems, and the difficulties and scorn they cause goad him to find ways to minimize their impact. You think telling him, "It's not your fault, you can't do anything about it..." is going to help?
Life's a bitch for all of us. If we all coddled each others' tragic weaknesses, the human race would die out in about a week. Save your absolution of responsibility for the hopelessly incapable.
This has inspired me to launch an artificial intelligence project of my own. I call it AFF -- Artificial Firefighter.
The AFF consists of a 200 lb. sack of cement that sits on a couch in front of the firehouse television.
This elegant solution occurred to me when I realized that less than 1 percent of a firefighter's time is spent actually fighting fires. Thus, the AFF is just as effective as a fully and rigorously trained human more than 99 percent of the time!
With a whopping 0 lines of code, I believe the AFF to be the ne plus ultra of minimalist robotics.