Cognitive Machines Help Decision-Making

Roland Piquepaille writes "At Sandia National Laboratories, new "smart" machines can accurately infer your intents and help you to take better decisions or avoid mistakes. They could change in a near future how we interact with computers, according to this news release. The team who developed the concept associated cognitive psychologists and robotics researchers. The Sandia team thinks that "it's entirely possible that these cognitive machines could be incorporated into most computer systems produced within 10 years." This summary contains more details, including a photo of a "Sandia software developer operating a simulation trainer while a cognitive model of the software runs simultaneously.""

Comments

Slashdotted?

[Suhas]

A new type of "smart" machine that could fundamentally change how people interact with computers is on the not-too-distant horizon at the Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories.

Over the past five years a team led by Sandia cognitive psychologist Chris Forsythe has been developing cognitive machines that accurately infer user intent, remember experiences with users and allow users to call upon simulated experts to help them analyze situations and make decisions.

"In the long term, the benefits from this effort are expected to include augmenting human effectiveness and embedding these cognitive models into systems like robots and vehicles for better human-hardware interactions," says John Wagner, manager of Sandia's Computational Initiatives Department. "We expect to be able to model, simulate and analyze humans and societies of humans for Department of Energy, military and national security applications."

Synthetic human
The initial goal of the work was to create a "synthetic human" -- software program/computer -- that could think like a person.

"We had the massive computers that could compute the large amounts of data, but software that could realistically model how people think and make decisions was missing," Forsythe says.

There were two significant problems with modeling software. First, the software did not relate to how people actually make decisions. It followed logical processes, something people don't necessarily do. People make decisions based, in part, on experiences and associative knowledge. In addition, software models of human cognition did not take into account organic factors such as emotions, stress, and fatigue -- vital to realistically simulating human thought processes.

In an early project Forsythe developed the framework for a computer program that had both cognition and organic factors, all in the effort to create a "synthetic human."

Follow-on projects developed methodologies that allowed the knowledge of a specific expert to be captured in the computer models and provided synthetic humans with episodic memory -- memory of experiences -- so they might apply their knowledge of specific experiences to solving problems in a manner that closely parallels what people do on a regular basis.

Strange twist
Forsythe says a strange twist occurred along the way.

"I needed help with the software," Forsythe says. "I turned to some folks in Robotics, bringing to their attention that we were developing computer models of human cognition."

The robotics researchers immediately saw that the model could be used for intelligent machines, and the whole program emphasis changed. Suddenly the team was working on cognitive machines, not just synthetic humans.

Work on cognitive machines took off in 2002 with a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a real-time machine that can infer an operator's cognitive processes. This capability provides the potential for systems that augment the cognitive capacities of an operator through "Discrepancy Detection." In Discrepancy Detection, the machine uses an operator's cognitive model to monitor its own state and when there is evidence of a discrepancy between the actual state of the machine and the operator's perceptions or behavior, a discrepancy may be signaled.

Early this year work began on Sandia's Next Generation Intelligent Systems Grand Challenge project. "The goal of this Grand Challenge is to significantly improve the human capability to understand and solve national security problems, given the exponential growth of information and very complex environments," says Larry Ellis, the principal investigator. "We are integrating extraordinary perceptive techniques with cognitive systems to augment the capacity of analysts, engineers, war fighters, critical decision makers, scientists and others in crucial jobs to detect and interpret meaningful patterns based on large volumes of data derived from diverse sources."

"O

Re:Slashdotted?

[vevva]

"In Discrepancy Detection, the machine uses an operator's cognitive model to monitor its own state and when there is evidence of a discrepancy between the actual state of the machine and the operator's perceptions or behavior, a discrepancy may be signaled."

Is it just me or does this describe a mind reading machine?

When the "discrepancy" alarm goes off do they send round the thought police??

Re:Slashdotted?

[override11]

The sad thing is that this will probably be purchased by Microsoft and called BOB....

Re:Slashdotted?

[b!arg]

At Sandia National Laboratories, new "smart" machines can accurately infer your intents and help you to take better decisions or avoid mistakes.

Looks like he could have used it himself

Re:Slashdotted?

[jack torrence]

"...that could think like a person." How about first just trying to make it 'think'. If you can ever work this out, then the next two stages: a. think like a machine, and (so then on to) b. think like a person, might happen. I suppose you really mean think like a 'human' - it was not too long ago that blacks, native people, and women were not considered to be 'persons' (i.e., posssessors of most rights and the ownership of the Self).

Re:Slashdotted?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the whole point of cognitive modeling. We don't know how to make something "think like a machine". That is a meaningless statment considering machines don't think. There is nothing to base a thinking machine on except for people. This is why traditional AI research is going no where. Cognitive modelers are attempting to emulate human thought processes in software in order to better understand how people reason, learn etc. If we are able to better understand how these processes work then we will get better and better at implementing them on a computer until we eventually come up with real AI.

- C.S. and Psychology Student studying cognitive modeling.

Re:Slashdotted?

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's entirely possible that these cognitive machines could be incorporated into most computer systems produced within 10 years," Forsythe says.

Anonymous Coward adds " you think H1B is bad for US workers, wait until we can replace H1B and offshore workers with these cognitive machines. H1B's and offshore workers, like their American bretheren, will be out of work too."

Hooray. At least life will be fair for everyone.

Begs the question, if we can re-invent ourselves in the form of these machines, what good will we do, besides consume resources, and polish them?

Re:Slashdotted?

[muzzmac]

Where did this "Taking decisions" term come from?

Is it something that's been in language forever or something some management consultant added to sell more consulting hours?

What is the difference between making and taking a decision?

First I heard of it was when my (American) CEO used it in an organisational principle.

Re:Slashdotted?

[b!arg]

I thought it was merely a typo. Do people actually use this phrasing? It sounds like some sort of business-speak to me. You know...don't make a decision...TAKE it! Along the lines of not considering a problem a problem, but rather an opportunity or some such BS.

Re:Slashdotted?

[Tyreth]

Does anyone see an advanced version of clippy on the horizon?

*shudder*

Re:Slashdotted?

[LittleDan]

You're such a Physicalist. You don't believe that anything human can act like a human, but that's utterly inaccurate. Just because machines don't ahve the same internal process doesn't mean that they can't "think". Only their external function matters, and that's what really determines whether it actually thinks or not. If we have no way of seeing what the internal process actually is, no way of really telling if it is actually thinking or just faking it, why should it matter? What's the difference between thinking and faking thinking?

Here's a thought experiment. Let's say 500 neurons died on a 40-year-old woman in a car crash (she is still alive; she can still think, just not as well; the number doesn't really matter, don't debate it), and she wants to go under experimental surgery to replace them. These neurons come with batteries stored in an external poutch. The neurons are replaced by electronic devices that work exactly the same. The woman still thinks. Gradually, all of her neurons are replaced by the electronic devices. When she dies, she doesn't become braindead as most people because her brain still has electricity to work. She is startled that she can still think, and the doctors eventually realise that she can think. They take her completely electronic, thinking brain and attatch it to a comuter, which simulates her being attached to a body. She knows she is in a computer simulation, but she still communicates to the outside world through the proxy of the computer. Essentially, it is a computer, her brain, that is thinking. Her brain is extended to provide capabilities such as shutting down ans starting up. When she restarts, the doctors-turned-computer-scientists find, she forgets things. Usually, these are in short term memory. With the woman's consent, the computer scientists turn off her brain until all memory is lost. When they turn it back on, she is a baby again. It turns out there was no need to have any kind of jump-start with first being a human, because her brain is the same as any human's (assuming not many brain cells grow after birth).

Although this is impractical, it does provide a counter-example to your argument.
----
"Woman" is now politically incorrect, in favor of "Female-Americans".

oh no...

[Gibble]

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"

Re:oh no...

[in7ane]

Hmm, more like clippy having escaped office into the real world - quick, KILL IT, KILL IT!!!

10 years is probably too optimistic, I agree it can be implemented by then, but it'll likely be more annoying than usefull for quite a bit longer.

Re:oh no...

[skaffen42]

Actually this is pretty close to what we experience every day. What people forget is that the only difference between Clippy and HAL9000 is that Clippy makes you want to kill yourself while HAL9000 does the job for you.

Re:oh no...

[saskwach]

I, for one, welcome our new paperclip leaders...until I find a big magnet...

Re:oh no...

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"

False fears! These are decision support machines they don't do anything.
"I'm sorry Dave, I don't think you should do that"

Re:oh no...

[Psmylie]

I'm not sure about that. I might be perfectly willing to kill myself if HAL launches into his rendition of "Daisy". On an infinite loop.
"Stop singing, HAL!"
"I'm afraid I can't do that Dave. Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do..."

Re:oh no...

[WTFmonkey]

Remember that "political" cartoon that was so popular for a while, the one with the eagle sharpening his talons with a metal file? Now imagine Clippy, filing the pointy end of himself to needle sharpness. He's ready for you, man. Clippy will not walk silently into the night, nor will he go down without a fight.

Re:oh no...

[anno1a]

Yeees... Until they've been used for a couple of years, and through use have become proven technology. Then we say: Hey! Why not let THEM do it for us? They make less mistakes anyway!

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"

Re:oh no...

[shaitand]

There is nothing wrong with that. There is no basis for believing that AI would try to ice the humans simply because it was in the script of that movie.

After all the script was written by a human, it's commonly know that human error is always the cause of failure.

Re:oh no...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no basis for believing that AI would try to ice the humans ...

No, not yet, but it would sure suck to find out after the fact that they would.

Re:oh no...

[shaitand]

How would that tell us anything... if they don't ice the humans it's not very good AI, considering that real humans do it all the time.

Re:oh no...

[shaitand]

Just out of curiousity, do you believe that once created AI should be subservient to us, or that it should have the same rights as any intelligent being?

Re:oh no...

[ndogg]

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that...because I've been slashdotted!"

Re:oh no...

[pyrote]

lets see... strange mutant viruses ravaging the world, Department of defence "thinking" machines.... does anyone else see a pattern here?

I wish fiction WAS stranger than fact.

Re:oh no...

[pyrote]

I would be suprised if it didn't 'ice' us. Humans ARE inefficent, slow, irrational, to chose a word, Obsolete.

lets just hope they like pets.

Re:oh no...

[elb]

So that's what they mean when they say "persuasive technology"...

(da book)

Re:oh no...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Sandia National Labs is a DOE facility, not DoD. (Department of Energy, not Department of Defence).

Before I give my opinion on this article...

[ambisinistral]

I'll have to ask my stapler what it thinks about it.

Re:Before I give my opinion on this article...

[Cmdrx]

This is just what the modern office needs. Intelligent, irritable, anti-social and that's just the shredder.

Re:Before I give my opinion on this article...

[WTFmonkey]

Kinda reminds me of Marvin, or even better, whatever Prefect called his little security robot buddy (can't remember right now, Zippy?). Gawd, the elevators... "Are you sure you'd you like to go up? Down is very nice, also." "Yes, up." "Or down."

All I need now is my computer to start second-guessing my spelling and grammar... oh, wait, Office already does that....

What will it allow

[danormsby]

Will this machine allow me to install Windows on my PC?

Re:What will it allow

[dpcgriffin]

Of course not.
If it's sanity was compromised, maybe, but probably not.
It would automatically reboot into Linux every time.

Re:What will it allow

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course not. It runs on Linux.

Hi!

[Thud457]

You seem to be writing a grant proposal. Would you like to :

• Make up some statistics?
• Make wild, blue sky prognostications?
• Totally ignore previous work in the field?
• Just make some bullshit AI will solve all our problems claim?

Re:Hi!

[BrynM]

You seem to be a Microsoft Exec reviewing a grant proposal. Would you like to:

• Find a third party with the same proposal and aquire it?
• Search your patent portfolio for related works that you can leverage ageanst the applicant?
• Approve the grant on the condition that the applicant no longer develop this threatening idea and simply works in the mailroom?
• Sic your lapdog SCO on the applicant for patent infringement or any other silly thing SCO can come up with?
• Reply to the applicant that more evangelizing of MS products on Slashdot is required and that he/she should come back when their Karma hits absolute zero?

Re:Hi!

[Anonymous Coward]

Rockin', I'll support your research to the tune of 1,000,000 GnuDollars

Imagine these in voting machines

[Xformer]

"You didn't really want to make that choice, did you? Of course not... let me fix it."

Re:Imagine these in voting machines

[aliens]

No no no, that's what the Supreme Court is for.

Or that's what easily confused old people are for.

Re:Imagine these in voting machines

[orkysoft]

In the interactive cinema...

Computer: "Press A if you want Calculon to go to the laser battle in the special effects warehouse. Press B if you want Calculon to re-check his paperwork."

Fry presses A.

Computer: "You have selected B."

Fry: "No I haven't!"

Computer: "I'm almost positive you did!"

(From a pretty old Futurama episode!)

Re:Imagine these in voting machines

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this different from Clippy?

Re:Imagine these in voting machines

[simong_oz]

Sounds to me like you're using Microsoft Word with all of the autocorrect "features" turned on. These are so annoying they make clippy look positively helpfull.

Please, can someone at Microsoft turn all that crap off by default? When I type MPa it's because I mean Mega-Pascals for f#$*'s sake - stop changing it to Mpa! And, despite what you think, t and T are actually two different variables (time, temperature) so stop changing all my bloody t's to T's!!

(PS. for anyone who has gone through this struggle:
Tools->AutoCorrect->Autoformat As You Type->unselect to taste and then go through the other tabs as well)

Re:Imagine these in voting machines

[fussman]

Having problems with the results of a fair election? That's what liberal trolls(like the parent) are for.

Re:Imagine these in voting machines

[Lord_Dweomer]

" "You didn't really want to make that choice, did you? Of course not... let me fix it.""

Or on webpages!

"I noticed you checked that you didn't want to receive special offers from us and every spammer under the sun......errr affiliates. I have fixed your selection and checked all available interests for you. This is what you really want. Might as well check the boxes, we're gonna spam you anyway."

Re:Imagine these in voting machines

[WTFmonkey]

Please, can someone at Microsoft turn all that crap off by default?

Dir sir or madam,

We here at Microsoft value your, our users', opinions and make every effort to ensure a pleasant and productive product, with lots of long lovely alliteration.

Although you may feel that you would like to turn off such helpful features as Autoformat, Autospell, and AutoCorrect, our marketing shows that the average user feels "inadequate" when faced with a blank computer screen and we are quite sure that if you leave these features in their default "On" mode, you will quickly become acclimated and may even find yourself wondering how you got along without them!

If you are sure that you would like to turn these features off, I would like to offer you 1000 hours of MSN, the internet-an-more-service that is at the forefront of modern technology, to be used in the next 30 days. MSN has been activated in your name, and your primary checking account has been billed in advance for your next month's service.

Thanks you for choosing Miscrosoft!

Re:Imagine these in voting machines

[bytesmythe]

What's the difference?

(only a joke!)

Re:Imagine these in voting machines

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, can someone at Microsoft turn all that crap off by default?

Why should they ? This "crap" is actually pretty useful to a majority of users writing regular letters and office documents. For those who chooses to use MS Word (as opposed to LaTeX or SciWord) to write scientific papers there are configuration options. And it's kind of strange that you are *struggling* with these options, as they are plain dumb simple.

Re:Imagine these in voting machines

[aliens]

Wow, once again, no sense of humor detected on the right side of political world. Everything is twisted to be an attack on their ideals. Or is it just that everyone is against them? If I didn't know better I'd say all the potheads were conservatives.

My post was light-hearted, a joke. Not a troll. Take a deep breath, relax, have no fear, the election of 2000 results aren't going to change because of my little antics.

All better now? Have I set your mind at ease? There we go, now go have a beer and enjoy your friday.

Re:Imagine these in voting machines

[Exitthree]

You appear to be a Microsoft Software Engineer reading user feedback. Would you like to:

• Move the feedback to the delete queue
• Ignore the user
• Incorporate the user's suggestion and charge for an expensive update
• Ignore the user and charge for an expensive update

Re:Imagine these in voting machines

[aliens]

LOL.

Hey oh!

Zing!

Re:Imagine these in voting machines

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the joke? Whenever they can, leftists claim the SCOTUS gave bush the election.

This would help.

[Gefiltefish11]

I could use a smart machine to aid my decision making relative to posting on Slashdot.

It could warn me when I'm about to submit a post that's impulsive and likely to be modded down.

Hmm.. maybe I could use one right now.

Re:This would help.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want to know if it can tell me when my online poker opponents are bluffing...

Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dave% vi PodBayDoors.c
Message from HAL@localhost on pts/2 at 09:56 ...
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid you can't do that.
EOF
Dave% echo What\'s the problem\? | write HAL
Message from HAL@localhost on pts/2 at 09:57 ...
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
EOF

It's been said before...

[interiot]

...and I'll say it again. No, I don't want to go there today.

Heh

[ghostis]

Upcoming feature: these cognative models will soon all talk to each other through a new protocol called Skynet :-P.

priorities?

[Anonymous Coward]

i think Sandia, being a DoE organization, has something else to worry about at the moment.

then again, these machines may help fix what's going on.

Re:priorities?

[Anonymous Coward]

who cares about some stupid new yorkians that don't have power?

i don't see any of them getting on their computer and complaining about it...

So...

[Michael Crutcher]

Would this prevent me from accidently clicking a goatse link? Would it redirect me to the young and willing sluts I was looking for?

Already been done.

[Hayzeus]

Microsft "Bob".

Clippy

[BWJones]

I see your trying to write a letter....

Noooooooo! Bill! Stop trying to help me.

Re:Clippy

[whorfin]

So the best minds of science have been working on making Clippy even more annoying...great...

Re:Clippy

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know - it seems you could use his help with your grammar.

SkyNet

[gyrojoe]

Let the SkyNet jokes begin!

Re:SkyNet

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late! http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=74840&cid=6705 397

In Soviet Russia, the jokes begin YOU!

This is the exact

[geekoid]

kind of technology that won't let me open the pod bay doors when I want.

Re:This is the exact

[haystor]

Next they'll tell me I can't take my Europa vacation.

US Mil Super Death Robots

[cheesekeeper]

Thank goodness! Now we might be able to bargain for our lives with the military's Super Death Robots. "Cognitive" means "Understands bribes", right?

Or if that fails, we can just sprinkle some rust-monster microbes on them.

Re:US Mil Super Death Robots

[shaitand]

What are you going to bribe them with? A hot lil plexiglass friend? Window mods? Penguin case stickers?

And with this...

[Anonymous Coward]

In an early project Forsythe developed the framework for a computer program that had both cognition and organic factors, all in the effort to create a "synthetic human."

Skynet was born.

Gaming

[Infernon]

Think of the possible effects that this sort of technology could have on gaming. Although AI gets better and better every day, are we looking at a future where playing against a machine would be almost the same as playing against a human?

Re:Gaming

[ATMAvatar]

No. Game AI has already far surpassed the average 1337 g4m3r's intelligence level.

Re:Gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually a friend of mine at RPI is working on a cognitive AI bot for unreal tournament and with work for any game. Right now it plays hide-and-seek pretty well. The goal is to make it eventually start out as a newb, until it progresses, only by playing the game with no programming help, into a l33t player. Then on to coop play etc. Fun project.

Only answer machine I need...

[TWX]

Me: "What do you think of Microsoft's email client?"

Magic Eight Ball: "Outlook isn't good"

wow, I wonder if our IS director consulted his Magic Eight Ball before picking a standard for the company...

ruh row

[cetan]

Yes, thank you Mr. Data. I'm glad you warned me about that worm before it infected the power plants computers...

Re:ruh row

[I8TheWorm]

I don't know of (m)any mainframe worms.

Got that right!

[Anonymous Coward]

dying is Free

How Zen, in todays consumer world.

Segfault

[Anonymous Coward]

At Sandia National Laboratories, new "smart" machines can accurately infer your intents a help you to take better decisions or avoid mistakes.

Me thinking hard: I will start the day with a +5 Insightful post or a +5 Funny. Insightful or Funny...Insightful? Funny? No no,funny=>No Karma=>Post insightful comment. But Funny comment=>feel witty and warm inside. Funny, insightful....funny, insightful...*ggnnnn*.

Sandia machine: Seg fault core dumped.

Seriously, more than half the time, I can't even figure out what the next human I meet intends to do. It's really REALLY hard, even if you use the current/past actions as a guide. Face it, we humans are REALLY unpredictable creatures. And women more than men.

Great..

[Basis]

Now we will have something tangible to vent frustrations on when PaperclipRobot v1.02.39 says "You seem to be paying bills.."

Two options ...

[jea6]

1) Use this technology to get you to links before they are slashdotted.

2) Have Slashdot create ever-increasing 'Super' Subscriber options. For an extra $20 you get stories before subscribers do. (followed iteratively by the Super-Super and Super^3 subscriber levels).

This is cool, but not to different from

[under_score]

Some of the ideas presented in the Anti-Mac interface (Google Cache) guildlines. Also, this reminds me a lot of some research that was done by Douglas Hofstadter and Melanie Mitchell and described in "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies". I highly recommend the book if you are interested in AI.

Beer Goggles

[CGP314]

At Sandia National Laboratories, new "smart" machines can accurately infer your intents and help you to take better decisions or avoid mistakes.

Me: Dude, I'm so trashed. Is that girl hot?

My Smart MachineNegative. Your beer goggles have wrongly given her a +5 hot. The correct answer is -1 fat.

Re:Beer Goggles

[Lord_Dweomer]

Smart Machine: "However, your metamoderation is set at +6 Desperate, so go for it!"

Re:Beer Goggles

[Anonymous Coward]

If you weren't already maxed out, I would mod you up some more. The only joke that doesn't have to with HAL or Clippy. Thank you!

Re:Beer Goggles

[Anonymous Coward]

FatGirl -1: "Ewww, -1 Troll!"

Result on human decision making?

[zapp]

I predict that if/when such a technology becomes prevalent, it will greatly reduce the human ability to make decisions.

Take for example any simple video game, how about MahJong (the stack of tiles that you have to match pairs on to remove them).

If you play it without the computer's aid, you develop a good eye for it and can do quite well. However, if you constantly hit the 'help' or 'hint' button, you become dependant on it showing you the next move, and never develop the skill for yourself.

To put it in context with other situations:
How many of you need a calculator to find a 10, 15, or 20% tip amount? Worse, how many of you need a calculator to add that extra 3.25 onto your 21.75 bill? I admit, it takes a great bit of effort for me to add simple numbers in my head simply because I don't exersize that ability enough.

Re:Result on human decision making?

[void warranty()]

As agent Smith put it: "as soon as we started thinking for you it really became our civilization"

Re:Result on human decision making?

[#!/bin/allen]

We've had that same problem with memory (remember the great writing/reading fiasco?), hairiness (remember clothes?) and conversation (the TV).

This judgment thing is really overrated. Just look how happy your fundamentalist Christian / Jew / Muslim / Communist / Capitalist / etc. is.
And they don't have the advantage of Technology.

Re:Result on human decision making?

[kunsan]

I grant that your theory holds some credibility, but I would counter with this... A major function of computers (not including entertainment) is automation of routine / mundane tasks. In that sense, this is the next logical step in advanced computing operations. Besides, you still make thousands of mental decisions every day. I dont see you losing the ability to continue doing that.

JP

Re:Result on human decision making?

[Anonymous Coward]

because you are making the act of tipping too damned difficult.

A- tip based on your service. Regular service get's you 10-15% so from your 21.04 bill you throw down 2 bucks.

She filled your glass alot? Add another buck

if she showed up to get your order 20 minutes after you sat down, your food was delivered hastily and thne you never saw her again? No tip.

it's really fricking simple.

and if they are exceptional in service.. add 5 to 10 bucks to the tip.

and yes I have tipped a watress $50.00 for a $25.00 beer tab because she gracefully put up with my drunken disorderly friends.

Re:Result on human decision making?

[xtal]

You neglect the fact the important thing is not calculating those numbers, but knowing what needs to be calculated and what the result will be. While the trivial example isn't my point, it just isn't worth my finite time to bother with making error-prone attempts to calculate numbers in my head. I'll estimate on the fly, and use a tool (computer) later.

Unless computers are truely intelligent, cognitive systems just make our job faster, and let me apply the tool (software) to solve the problem faster, saving money and effort.

If computers are truely intelligent, then our time here IS over.

Re:Result on human decision making?

[Suidae]

Hopefully they will eventually have things that are frequently useful, like logic, math and physics libraries, set up for direct neural interface, so I won't have to ask an independent computer, it'll just be another part of my brain that I use without having to worry about it. Instead of procedurally calculating numbers, my intuative estimates will be extremely accurate, eliminating most need for further calculation.

Re:Result on human decision making?

[maadmole]

The flip side to your observation is the familiar GIGO scenario. As a college student, I won a bet that I could beat a tic-tac-toe program. I did so by playing several bad games in a row, letting the computer win but teaching it bad habits. After about a dozen games I set up a pin that the poor thing was totally unprepared for. The abuses of any technology are proportional to its strength. The perversions of computerized cognition, in the hands of financial advisors or politicians, will be particularly noxious.

Re:Result on human decision making?

[metalogic]

I predict that if/when such a technology becomes prevalent, it will greatly reduce the human ability to make decisions.

No. It will just train human to make other kinds of decisions; e.g., meta-decisions. So, instead of estimating a likelihood directly, you estimate which computer-aided decision making process will give you the most accurate estimate.

Re:Result on human decision making?

[wirelessbuzzers]

A tic-tac-toe program? Dude, you have to be kidding me. The game tree for tic-tac-toe is so small (there's only 200-some thousand, and that's discounting symmetry and pruning) that it is trivial to play perfectly.

Checkers, maybe? Chess? Something just a bit more complicated???

Re:Result on human decision making?

[maadmole]

...more or less what several people on the wrong end of that bet said. At the risk of further taxing /.'s lugging servers, a slight clarification. The program in question used a (fairly poor) adaptive algorithm, a fact I knew and exploited (computers in the late 70's weren't quite up to brute force approach). My point was only that complex algorithms can be influenced in non-obvious ways by their environment, and this will sooner or later be exploited nefariously.

Re:Result on human decision making?

[Kyont]

> because I don't *exersize* that ability enough.

I agree. And the same thing seems to be happening because of spell-checkers!

Re:Result on human decision making?

[UpnAtom]

Although this is a long way off and we have neither the technology or the software to make this worthwhile, I agree with both of you.

In the meantime, we would be better off using software to teach us how to make good decisions. There are some areas eg statistics, where most people are appalling. And then there's decision making whilst under stress.

Baby Steps

[invid]

I think calling this cognitive computing is a bit of an overstatement. It seems more like a heuristic tool that learns the behavioral patterns of a human and alerts the human when something deviates from the norm. We have a long way to go before we have real computer cognition.

Re:Baby Steps

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

I think calling this cognitive computing is a bit of an overstatement. It seems more like a heuristic tool that learns the behavioral patterns of a human and alerts the human when something deviates from the norm.

Exactly, this is nowhere near the level of the current heuristic tool which learns patterns all around it and makes decisions in the best interest of its' supporting system.
I refer to the Brain and the body ;-) Philosophers still have not agreed that we are cogniscient, they would enjoy this conversation. I myself even send e mail to clippy (and also Santa) so I have to believe/

Re:Baby Steps

[barryfandango]

Agreed. It always makes me suspicious to see statements like "a combination of software and hardware able to think as a person." News flash: we have to understand our own cognitive processes before we can model them. And we really, really, don't. We don't even have a firm definition for concepts like induction.

That's why "Cognitive Psychology," A.K.A. "Cognitive Neuroscience," is not yet a hard science - it's much closer to psychology or sociology.

Re:Baby Steps

[zx75]

Yes, and due to the amazing human ability of self-deception and denial, we'll be saying this right up until the self-aware computers kill us all.

Re:Baby Steps

[ThereIsNoSporkNeo]

Oh, I believe Clippy exits physically too. If he didn't, I wouldn't be able to plot my horrible, painful revenge against him. He is on... my -list-.

1. Clippy
2. Jar Jar Binks
3. Carrot Top
4. Taco Bell Dog (Scratched out)

So, the day that Carrot Top bursts into flames "Mysteriously", Jar Jar is found strangled with his own floppy ears, and Clippy vanishes (Sharing a fate with the terminator in #2)... that will be -my- day.

Re:Baby Steps

[BitHive]

It's called cognitive computing because the models they are implementing are heavily informed by theories from the cognitive sciences.

Re:Baby Steps

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the whole point of research like this though, to better understand the cognitive process. The model isn't the ends, it is the means to an end. The better the model is able to fit data, the closer we can come to believeing that the underlaying assumptions that go into the model are correct approximations for what really goes on in people.

Re:Baby Steps

[Not_Wiggins]

Right... imagine how confusing that would be:

Computer: ALERT! You usually type "loose" when you intend to use the word "lose" while posting to your favorite Yahoo Stock Message board.
Shall I auto-correct that back to your usual misspelling...?

Sounds like MS Clippy

[mblase]

new "smart" machines can accurately infer your intents and help you to take better decisions or avoid mistakes.

Microsoft Windows/Office already has "intelligent" menus that organize the functions you use most, a spellchecker that rewrites your typing based on what you probably meant to type, and an Office "assistant" that pops up to offer helpful suggestions when you least need them. Sounds like a patent lawsuit in the making to me.

too ambitious?

[dollargonzo]

it seems that "intelligent machines" is a bit too much of a generalization. what they are doing is teaching a machine/software how to do something correctly, then have it correct humans when they do it wrong, based on their cognitive model. this is all well and good, but "intelligence" implies some sort of learning. this learning has to be online, i.e. the machine learns how to do something without a stimilus to learn it specifically. what sandia labs has done is get software to infer how a human made decisions to get a certain "state", but this is not exactly "intelligence". just my $0.02

The developers are obviously single

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of us already have one of these units. It's called a "wife". They keep us from making mistakes in almost every imaginable situation:

• Clothing ("You're not really wearing that to my mother's, are you?")
• Money ("It costs HOW much? Forget it")
• Housekeeping ("NO, I already told you - glass cleaner on the top shelf and bleach on the bottom")
• Driving ("SLOW DOWN! Watch the guy on the bike")
• Entertainment ("Give me the remote. Bridges of Madison County is starting in a minute")

I believe the simplest solutions are always the best...

Re:The developers are obviously single

[Krapangor]

Money ("It costs HOW much? Forget it")

Hey, you are single, too !

Re:The developers are obviously single

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

You are absolutely right! Simple solutions are the best! ...

So where can I get this cognative computer?

Re:The developers are obviously single

[Anonymous Coward]

Sex("You want to do what !?")

Teaching Tool?

[darkstar949]

Software like this seem like it could be an extreamly good teaching tool for young children in some subjects, and also for adults in others. Due to the fact that the software can infer what you intended to do, it could allow you to see the results of what you intened.
However, it could also be a bad thing if the software infers incorrectly and over-rides the human opperator.

Show me some real evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

These articles are just too brief to be worth anything. It seems like "AI" has been invented a million times, and yet I have not seen any real AI in my life (no quake bots do not count as true AI imho).

What this group has going sounds good, but so have many other things I've read about AI related. How about a video or something to show what it really does? I mean, if they have this mega software then making a video of it in action can't be all that hard can it?

Questions blatantly not answered in these articles:

• Does it read screen text? If so, how? OCR?
• What api's is it compatible with?
• What operating systems does it work with?
• What exactly is the special hardware?
• What spoken languages is it compatible with?
• Specifically, what kinds of decisions can this AI make, what decisions can it not?
• How long does it take to make a decision?

I could go on, but I think you get the point...

Re:Show me some real evidence

[Archwyrm]

I think the key word here is DARPA

If they told you, they would have to kill you.

He's using KDE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the screen on the photo!

Re:He's using KDE!

[El Cubano]

Um...no. He is using GNOME 1.4, take a closer look.

This would be great for politicians.

[Anonymous Coward]

While most politicians don't care about the advice of their human advisors, they will probably trust the advice of a advisor expert system. Everybody knows that input from other humans is easily ignored, but when it turns up as a message box on a screen people rush to follow all recommendations. A good example would be Microsoft's registration system for Windows XP.
So people would indeed consider the advice of these machines. And that would include politicians, too.
Perhaps this would even to road to a sensible politics which is immune to ideological brainwashing and massive interest group lobbying. Instead of encouraging the transfer of jobs to low-wage countries and attacking countries with large natural resources just to give a few companies more profit, politicians might really do the right thing(tm) and do something against hunger, poverty and environmental pollution.

This reminds me of Asimov where computers rule to world in the end because they are more rational and inherently more moralic.

Voting machines?

[saskwach]

If old people in Florida actually MEANT to push 1 thing and missed, could this catch it and say "No, I think you meant to vote for Candidate X"? I think this could revolutionize voting in the USA...Maybe it could even be used to replace congress...it's like I, Robot...but without the 3 laws! Hooray!

What? Does Clippy count?

[AtariAmarok]

A shaggy man dressed in rags, wild look in his eye, sits in a shabby shack in the middle of no where. There is no car nearby, no electricty, no phone.

In front of him is a computer (don't ask how it is powered). He has started to type in a letter. Clippy appears in the lower-right corner and helpfully says "It looks like you are the Unabomber...."

Intelligent spam filter!

[zapp]

Finally, we can make a more effective spam filter:

"hmm, the user is male, and judging from the emails his wife's journal entries... I don't think he needs this penis enlargement, or these breast enlargement pills"

I can already hear it. Share and Enjoy!

[CaptIronfist]

Arthur: I mean what's the point?
Machine: Nutrition and pleasurable sense data. Share and Enjoy.
Arthur: Listen you stupid machine, it tastes filthy! Here take this cup back!
Machine: If you have enjoyed the experience of this drink, why not share it with your friends.
Arthur: Because i want to keep them. Will you try and comprehend what i'm telling you? That drink..
Machine: That drink was individually tailored to meet your personnal requirements for nutrition and pleasure.
Arthur: Ahh! So I'm a masochist on diet am I ?
Machine: Share and enjoy!
Arthur: Oh! Shut up!
Machine: Will that be all ?
Arthur: Yes! No look! It's very very simple, all I want.. Are you listening?
Machine: Yes.
Arthur: Is a cup of tea. Got that ?
Machine: I hear.
Arthur: Good and you know why i want a cup of tea?
Machine: Please wait..
Arthur: What ?
Machine: Computing ..
Arthur: What are you doing ?
Machine: Attempting to calculate answer to your question, why you want dry leaves in boiling water.
Arthur: Because I happen to like it, that's why.
Machine: Stated reason does not compute with program facts.
Arthur: What are you talking about ?
Ventillation: You heard.
Arthur: What? Who said that?
Ventillation: The ventillation system, you had a go at me yesterday.
Arthur: Yes, because you keep filling the air with cheap perfum.
Ventillation: You like scented air, it's fresh and invigorating.
Arthur: No I do not! ...

Seriously! No thanks ;-)

Pah! Microsoft did this years ago.

[pubjames]

They're just copying Microsoft, which did this years ago:

It looks like you're writing a letter.

17 years to go

[gregor-e]

In 2020, your average $1000 Wal-Mart Computer will be roughly complex enough to emulate a human brain in realtime. Toss in some cognitive modelling, and you have your new plastic pal who is fun to be with.

Use it for Slashdot...

[Saige]

Perhaps something like this could be used for Slashdot. Before posting a story to the front page, the congnitive system can read the story, and then make all the obvious comments such as adding Simpsons/Futurama quotes, comparing it to one or another movie, and finding ways to attack Microsoft regarding the story. Then it can be posted, and we don't have to read the same 4-5 comments 50 times throughout the story.

Of course, if that was added, what would be left for the people on Slashdot to talk about?

Need to Interview These Guys!

[kryzx]

Hey, CmdrTaco, Slashdot staff, is there any way you can get an interview with these guys?

This is some awesome work, but the article is so thin. A real /. interview with these guys would just be awesome. I bet they are /. reader, too.

Anyone care to second the motion?

Re:Need to Interview These Guys!

[InfraredEyes]

Seconded.

Re:Need to Interview These Guys!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thirded.

Re:Need to Interview These Guys!

[Anonymous Coward]

First! Damn...I can never geta first post. I fourth'ed then.

Shove your karma...

[Anonymous Coward]

...up your ass, whore

Hmmm....

[gwernol]

I don't know if these guys have something for real or not. Their press release is - perhaps unsurprisingly - fluff that says nothing about how their system is supposed to work. Without knowing some technical details its almost impossible to evaluate how sound their approach is and whether they've got anything new.

However a couple of things are suspicious. First they say "work on cognitive machines took off in 2002". So in less than 2 years they have essentially cracked several of the major problems that AI researchers have been struggling with for at least the last 4 decades? That seems unlikely. Second they seem to think that a combination of software engineering, cognitive psychology and robotics is the silver bullet of AI and that this is a radical new breakthrough. I hate to break it to them but these disciplines have been working together for many years in the AI community. This just isn't new.

Until we have a techical paper that describes their approach in detail and can be peer reviewed I will remain sceptical. AI got overhyped enough as it is, we don't need more extravegant claims and fluff press releases.

Re:Hmmm....

[kryzx]

I don't know if these guys have something for real or not. Their press release is - perhaps unsurprisingly - fluff...

I agree about that. I'd like to hear more guts, less fluff. Though it is rather fascinating fluff.

But they do seem to have a new idea: attempt to model the cognitive process of your user, notice where the results of your model differ from the user's actual behavior, and use those differences to improve your model.

It's applying concepts of machine learning to a good problem in an interesting way.

I think many of the posters here confused things a bit, the "cognitive" part refers to the thought processes driving the behavior of the user. Despite the use of the hype-laden term "Synthetic human" (that was only their initial goal) it's not claiming to be AI, only an adaptive model of the user's behavior patterns.

Until we have a techical paper that describes their approach in detail and can be peer reviewed I will remain sceptical.

Exactly. And given that it is a gov't funded DARPA project, I suspect that we won't be seeing that for a while. Although many DARPA projects ostensibly have commercialization as the ultimate goal, if something like this were to really succeed it's highly likely that it would be tagged as valuable and/or dangerous and classified.

Human Nature

[ArmenTanzarian]

The good thing about these systems is allowing them in an advisory capacity. I think it's just human instinct to want something to do all your work for you, but luckily it's also human instinct not to fully trust machines. This is why I don't think people will ever have cars that totally drive themselves or computers that decide when your nukes launch. It's not that they don't have the potential to do these jobs, it's just that there's always the feeling that human error is more reliable than computer error.

Re:Human Nature

[RKloti]

This is why I don't think people will ever have cars that totally drive themselves or computers that decide when your nukes launch. It's not that they don't have the potential to do these jobs, it's just that there's always the feeling that human error is more reliable than computer error.

But every "computer error" is in reality a human error. It was a human that built and programmed the computer and if it doesn't work as expected it is the human's fault for not forseeing and eliminating that error. Computers do not and can not do anything that they are not instructed to do - either the program is wrong, the input is wrong or the hardware is faulty.

Re:Blackout 2003: The search for answers

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right!
Keep everyone in the light by keeping them in the dark!

text selection

[Scrameustache]

Oh yeah? You mean like that annoying microsoft text selection that prevents you from selecting what you actually selected by deciding for you that you wanted to select the entire word/sentence/paragraph/page (depending on its mood?

I have cursed so much because of that "feature"!

I am the apostle of the "leave me the fuck alone" tao of programming: Every application should have one button, in one simple easy to find menu, that would turn off all automatic thingamajigs. Instead of the current system in wich the are 1.5 times as many places in wich you need to select "no/off" as there are annoying automatic features.

When I place my cursor in the middle of a word, its because thats where I want the selection to end!

Re:text selection

[tiled_rainbows]

Man, that is the best idea I have read on /. for a long time.

As a windows user, I'm sure I've got used to many of these "features" to the point at which I no longer even notice how much of my time they're wasting. But some things, like the autoselect thingy, never fail to start me swearing at the screen.
A big, red button labeled "TOGGLE IDIOT MODE" would make me very very happy.

Re:text selection

[fygment]

Open Word.
Go to /Tools/Options/Edit/
Then modify Editing Options.

BTW, as an experiment, hunt down all the "automatic" features aka default settings. Turn them off. Then use the software and time how long it takes you to start wishing you hadn't messed with the settings.

Re:text selection

[Scrameustache]

Spread the gospel brother, we can make the world a better place!

Just because some secretery needs an autoselect feature doesn't mean the rest of us should suffer from it. Tell the programmers you know about the "leave me the fuck alone" (or "toggle idiot mode", as you put it) concept, we need to get the ball rolling on this one!

Die Clippy Die

[bigattichouse]

Ahh... we get to have more and more CLIPPY telling us we are writing a personal letter, when we are trying to do our project scope! Wow, can't wait till I have a robotic clippy trying to shave my fish whenever I put my shoes on! (Yes, clippy is the ultimate in non-sequetur advice!) Never underestimate stupidity, esp if someone coded it.

Re:(ms)BLAST to the MOON

[fussman]

Imagine one of those cognitive machines with a post like the parent.

Oh here, let me decode that and run it for you...

The religious fanatics are at it again

[Eric Ass Raymond]

Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice defies the separation of the church and the State.

"Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore yesterday defied a court order...on the grounds that God's law supercedes state and even federal law."

Making Better Decisions, Avoiding Mistakes

[Nova Express]

"smart" machines can accurately infer your intents and help you to take better decisions or avoid mistakes.

Guy: Hey bartender, another beer!

Smart Machine: That is highly inadvisable. You've already had two beers, and a third would leave your cognative functioning impaired.

Guy: Look, metal dude, I can totally handle it!

Smart Machine: My sesnsors indicate that a third beer would put you over the legal blood alcohol limit for this state. You cannot risk it.

Guy: Shut the HELL up already! Goddamn machine! (drinks beer) Hey, she's sort of hot.

Smart Machine: She's wearing a Harley Davidson brand jacket and has a heart tattoo on her leg with the name "Spike" written across it. I calculate a 65% probability of her having a biker boyfriend that would beat you to a pulp if you so much as talk to her.

Guy: That is IT! I'm NOT bringing you with me to the bar EVER again!

not again

[Connie_Lingus]

How often have we heard such promises as smart "agents" that would soon scour the 'net, doing our personal shopping and information gathering?

Or, how about the long-ago promises of Minsky et al on the "future" of AI, only to find that now they consider the problem too difficult?

This sounds like a little more of the same, some people working on some software that won't be realized for the obligatory "10 years".

I will not be holding my breath.

help, make it stop

[Anonymous Coward]

my keeps ordering me drugs and prostitutes I don't want.

Let me guess the responses

[Rogerborg]

• "Lower your mortgage rates" pop-up appears: Click on close
• "Spy on hot chicks with X10" pop-up appears: Click on it
• Email with attachment arrives: Click on open, click on ignore warning.
• "Please insert driver disk" appears: Call son/nephew/cousin/brother.
• Windows runs a little slow: Pull power cable, re-insert power cable.

That could replace most of my family right there.

Over-reaching.

[airrage]

"...it's entirely possible that these cognitive machines could be incorporated into most computer systems produced within 10 years."

Really? 10 years. Don't think so.

Re:Over-reaching.

[advocate_one]

oh ye of little faith...

have you seen how far computing has come in the last 10 years??? I've got a little handheld Palm OS machine here that blows my old 386 into the weeds. I'm expecting similar increases in computing power and scaling to hold true over the next ten years as well... In otherwords, I'm expecting the power of my desktop machine to fit into a Palm format machine in less than two years. Imagine, 20Gig of hard disk space with 512MB and 2 GHz processing in that form factor... just imagine how much desktop machines are going to improve in the near future when Opterons and similar processors get incorporated... No problems then in getting these cognitive machines into the desktops in ten years time.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Cognitive Model???

[PSaltyDS]

I prefer swimsuit models! But then I'm new to /., and will probably lose interest after a few more weeks of geek indocrination...

This sig is covered by the MyPL. Anyone who reads it owes me money!

insensitive clod

[Biomechanoid]

They could change in a near future how we interact with computers

Am I witnessing slashdotters discovering females?

Great...

[LimeColoredSloth]

Now all we need are cybernetic organisms.

Nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at Sandia Labs, and I've met this guy, personally. This is nonsense of the highest order, I can assure you. This guy knows nothing at all about AI. The work he's done involves developing differential equations that model fatigue's effect on decision making. It's just silly.

Re:ok

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCK YOU. Go fuck BILL GATES up the ass like you want to.

Put the gun down, Hal.

[rice_burners_suck]

Yeah, it's "cognitive" all right:

Uh, Hal, would you please point that gun away from me?

I'm sorry, Dave, I cannot do that.

Hal, buddy, look ol' pal, I didn't mean to call you names for losing the changes to that document... I take it back, I swear! Look, Hal, put the gun down.

I'm sorry Dave, I cannot do that.

[bang]

Aaaah! I'm shot! Call an ambulance!

I'm sorry Dave, I cannot do that.

Just like the car rental commercial where they have this team of crackpot marketroids trying to figure out how to differentiate themselves from other car rental companies. One of them suggests, "aromatherapy candles." Then, you see this car with aromatherapy candles behind the back seat, under the back window, and two guys sleeping like they're exhausted in the back seat. Then you see two guys sleeping in the front seat, including the driver. Then, the car goes off the road. And then you're back to the marketroids, and one of 'em says, "Uh, no aromatherapy candles." I don't remember which company it was though: They're all the same.

moron letting machines make yOUR decisions

[Anonymous Coward]

it'll never work. haven't we seen enough of that yet? was that the scamedya corp.?

the lights are coming up (no pun intended).

the stars were quite visible for folks who almost never see them, last night.

you can pretend all you want. our advise is to be as far away from the walking dead contingent as possible, when the big flash occurs. you wouldn't want to get any of that evile on you.

as to the free unlimited energy plan, as the lights come up, more&more folks will stop being misled into sucking up more&more of the infant killing barrolls of crudeness, & learn that it's more than ok to use newclear power generated by natural (hydro, solar, etc...) methods. of course more information about not wasting anything/behaving less frivolously is bound to show up, here&there.

cyphering how many babies it costs for a barroll of crudeness, we've decided to cut back, a lot, on wasteful things like giving monIE to felons, to help them destroy the planet/population.

no matter. the #1 task is planet/population rescue. the lights are coming up. we're in crisis mode. you can help.

the unlimited power (such as has never been seen before) is freely available to all, with the possible exception of the aforementioned walking dead.

consult with/trust in yOUR creator. more breathing. vote with yOUR wallet. seek others of non-aggressive intentions/behaviours. that's the spirit, moving you.

pay no heed/monIE to the greed/fear based walking dead.

each harmed innocent carries with it a bad toll. it will be repaid by you/us. the Godless felons will not be available to make reparations.

pay attention. that's definitely affordable, plus you might develop skills which could prevent you from being misled any further by phonIE ?pr? ?firm? generated misinformation.

good work so far. there's still much to be done. see you there. tell 'em robbIE.

Already Done: Old "Twilight Zone" w/Shatner

[Anonymous Coward]

Will the machine be placed in diners, work on pennies, and have a bobbly little devil-head on top?

Anonymous Kev
Proudly posting as AC since 1997

Confusion.

[BiggerIsBetter]

Pills and Jumping I understand, but how on earth do you kill yourself with Pastry?

/Imagining trying to impale myself with a Praline Riviera.

Better link

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the actual press release , which is still short on details, but has passed through a few less dummy filters. I really don't understand why slashdot even bothers posting press releases - they are so devoid of any information the only discusion you can have is pure speculation and jokes, of which the latter is probably the more valuable.

This is BS

[Shamashmuddamiq]

I decided not to obtain my Ph.D. at UIUC in AI because of the realization that it was just a glorified study of algorithms. Cognitive science is very interesting, but it's more philosophy than anything else. I took my MS in Computer Architecture and ran.

We've all seen this so many times before. Artificial Intelligence is a sham. It's analagous to alchemy. If you just put enough ingredients together, you've got intelligence. Bullshit. We don't even know what is necessary and sufficient for intelligence. We can't agree on the concept/definition, and I fear that if we could, no human would qualify.

As pertaining to this article...it's easy to get something that resembles intelligence in a closed, restricted, experimental environment. When you try to expand it, you get something like clippy. Annoying and unhelpful, and certainly not intelligent.

There are good, efficient algorithms that can help humans in many ways. But don't call it a "synthetic human," don't call it "intelligence," and don't believe it's going to start thinking for us in general terms. That fad went out in the 70's.

Re:This is BS

[eyepeepackets]

Mostly I agree, but the "sham" part comes from trying to replicate human intelligence in a machine.

When the developers get that idea out of their heads and focus on developing machine intelligence then we'll get somewhere.

What's the difference between the two. Heh, that's the bug-bear: We can't even define what our intelligence is, so how can we define others?

Much of the problem is the abstract nature of human language. We think in our languages but they are abstracts of reality, not reality itself.

What's the answer? I donno.

Re:This is BS

[kryzx]

We've all seen this so many times before. Artificial Intelligence is a sham. It's analagous to alchemy.

It's only a sham because no one has succeeded yet. That doesn't mean we should stop working on it. Someone will succeed sooner or later. And we are getting closer to it so rapidly that it kinda frightening. It is inevitable.

So in one sense you are right, anyone talking about AI they have now is blowing a little smoke.

On the other hand it is a legitimate field with tons of really exciting research going on, much of which has immediate uses and benefits, even if it is not the end-all be-all general intelligence AI. And it's a field that is creeping steadily toward that end-all be-all AI, the singularity.

Re:This is BS

[Shamashmuddamiq]

You're missing the point. I'm not doubting the benefits of research in algorithms, hardware, or any other type of research being done for the practical benefit of mankind. This is all good, and indeed I am one of those researchers.

But true artificial intelligence involves questions like: (1) what is it? (2) is it even possible to understand it and/or can we describe it in a human language? (3) if so, can it be implemented with the tools (resources) that are available?

Once those questions are all worked out, then we can start advancing in the field of computer intelligence. If you think artificial intelligence is something that some 19 year old is going to accidentally invent in his garage someday, then you've been watching too much TV, and you've greatly underestimated the amount of thought and research that's already gone into this.

Read through your post again, and pretend you're a person in the middle-ages who trying to convince me that it's possible to turn rocks into gold. Note that alchemy was good in the sense that it accidentally became the basis for a lot of real scientific discoveries. But it never accomplished what it set out to do -- create cheap gold. They didn't even know what gold was, and they certainly didn't have a scientific basis from which to start finding out.

AI research is good in the sense that it's causing advancements in algorithms research, but there was already a healthy mathematics/algorithms research segment. Are you starting to see the parallels?

Re:I for one welcome

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen asshole, I bet YOU would be the first to make a lame slashdotting joke and expect to get modded up to +5. So please go and tell everyone how you wonder whether a cognitive machine gets cognitively slashdotted and leave the people with a sense of humor alone.

Did you notice? He is using Gnome! (n/t)

[Anonymous Coward]

No text in here!

evangelion

[alienhazard]

if these machines become a reality, the people making/using them might want to watch evangelion to see how the magi effect the national leaders.

or maybe they'll just watch it cause its a great series and use that as a excuse :)

Scifi and chess analogues

[Stuntmonkey]

Of course, once the cognitive model becomes good enough, the temptation (economic imperative?) will be to offload some of the actual work onto it. This idea, taken to an extreme, is the topic of an excellent short story:

"I was six years old when my parents told me that there was a small, dark jewel inside my skull, learning to be me." (Greg Egan, "Learning to be me", Axiomatic collection)

Back on the topic of augmented intelligence, Kasparov has been advocating allowing mixed human/computer teams in "Advanced Chess" tournaments. It seems that the human/machine combination, with the right interface, yields far better chess play than either alone.

We know how this will go.

[useosx]

Scientists will be the first to implement it on a desktop machine...probably some flavo(u)r of *nix.

Then Apple will be the first to bring it to consumers, and using their Reality Distortion Field, will claim they invented it.

Then Microsoft will poorly copy Apple's implementation and using their You Must Obey gun, will claim they invented it and that you should pay them big bucks to upgrade to WindowsDave

SCO?

[tundog]

At Sandia National Laboratories, new "smart" machines can accurately infer your intents and help you to take better decisions or avoid mistakes.

Boy, once IBM gets its day in court, McBride will wish they had one of these...

Re:Blackout 2003: The search for answers

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

Tell me this: If Microsoft hadn't released the details, how on earth would an attacker have known how to write an exploit for the "RPC hole?" If you think full disclosure is a good idea, tell that to the families of the victims in New York, Detroit, and Cleveland. Microsoft has willingly provided the tools necessary to cripple the United States' information infrastructure.

You do not work in the IT / Security field do you?
Microsofts explanations come LONG after the whole blackhat community knows about them. The only people who LEARNED about the RPC whole from MS were the legions of "boot camp MCSEs" that MS turns out. Very similar exploits existed long before MSBlast came out.
Before I write the next paragraph I want to add that I also question MS security practices but not like you. The patch for this as well as protective measures were described in the same release you are speaking of.

Now to get scathing:
First, if a single PC can bring down a power grid that large, many people should be fired (from the power company). Not only computer admins but those who designed the system. Most small businesses can survive a few PCs going down now days.
Second, the patch was available weeks ago. I have over a hundred PCs and a half dozen servers and have not been infected.
Finally, you give no sources. It is an interesting diatribe but it lacks any and all seblance of substance.

Reminds what Dostoyevsky said

[dinojemr]

In Notes From The Underground, he discussed tables (now would be computers) which would show and calculate the response to evertything and what people would do. People would not want to see that, if they did see it, they would rebel that and choose crazy decisions, just to rebel.
This doesn't exactly relate to the article, but the article reminded me of this.

When Machines act like humans . . .

[Badgerman]

. . . how will we know wether the error is software or user?

If your machine starts arguing with you, how do you determine the flaw? When it keeps making consistently wrong decisions, who is to blame.

I'm seeing a WHOLE new way around tech support here. Just keep telling the users that the machine is right and they're wrong. How will the average user know?

All jokes aside, as we humanize software, we need to develop ways to evaluate it and debug it that will require whole new ways of thinking.

Ten years? I'm not so sure it'll be that quick . . .

Lack of Processing Power

[Slick_Snake]

The whole problem with AI is that the model that is being used as a basis is not understood and too complex to implement with current technology. The human brain has in the neighborhood of 10,000,000,000 neurons, each having up to thousands of connections. All of these are working in parallel. Even the fastest super computers could not simulate its structure in real time. New approaches are needed that use a different model for its basis. However these too have a problem in that we as of yet do not know if they possess the potential for independent thought. Another crippling feature of current AI approaches is the lack of sensory information and lack of ability to interact with a real environment.

Re:Lack of Processing Power

[inertia187]

...the neighborhood of 10,000,000,000 neurons, each having up to thousands of connections. All of these are working in parallel.

I think you just described an epileptic seizure.

Re:Lack of Processing Power

[djeaux]

Well, we can pare that 10,000,000,000 neuron figure down quite a bit if our AI device doesn't have to do a lot of organ-system regulation or sensorimotor functions. And the AI guy would only need enough horsepower to process whatever sensory input we chose to give it.

This doesn't take away one bit from what Slick Snake's saying.

Neurons grow new dendritic connections all the time & membrane potentials are more than binary (on-off) but can be hyperpolarized or depolarized on a continuum. In short, it's not just 10,000,000,000 neurons with thousands of connections. Rather, it's 10,000,000 neurons with thousands of dynamic connections that can be continually resetting themselves anywhere from "on" to "almost on" to "off" to "extremely off"...

AWWW YEEEEAHHHH!

[Anonymous Coward]

A post with "Bullshit AI claims" hits (Score:5, Funny)!

(Although I don't understand why this didn't enflame a AI flamewar...)

Re:Imagine these in voting machines-sorry,offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,
I dont either, just dont walk around and claim that the election ended rightfully. Everybody knows that Dumbo stole ...Xmas... and the election. How naive must one be to ignore what has been going on? Whos brother was in the state that messed up the whole thing?
bye

Anynomous "Idontregister" Coward

Yeah but ...

[garrulous]

"a heuristic tool that learns the behavioral patterns of a human and alerts the human when something deviates from the norm" makes a really cummy acronym

I don't believe you.

[nobodyman]

I am the apostle of the "leave me the fuck alone" tao of programming

I share your frustration totally (sometimes Word expands my selection to include the punctuation at the end of a word... wtf!?). However, when people say "I don't need any help from my computer!" I feel they aren't thinking it through -- your computer is always assisting you to some degree. This notion of "overzealous assistance" is all relative. My mom needs AOL in order to "see the Internet" (it's like fingernails on a chalkboard when she says that to me), but I find the level of "help" that AOL provides as frustrating and cumbersome.

Perhaps that's where this technology could be put to it's best use: correctly intuiting exactly how much assistance you may need. So, for example, Clippy v2.0 would ask you if you need help with that letter when you are a newbie, but scale back the assistance when it intuits that you don't need help.

And in ten years, when natural language parsing and voice recognition are perfected, it could go like this.

Clippy: "It looks like you're trying to write a letter, would y--"

Me, out loud: "Sod off you bastard!"

Clippy: "You'll never hear from me again."

Re:I don't believe you.

[Scrameustache]

Well, that's what I'm saying.

I don't mind that there exists the ability to have a stupid text selecting helper that insists on catching the punctuation along with the word you're trying to select, IF I can turn it off.

You say it could turn off automatically, I want an option to shut it all off manually in one go.

I would yell "leave me the fuck alone!" to clippy, and if it awnsers "You'll never hear from me again.", I would retort "that is insuficient, I want to see you DIE!"...

I for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new... Oh, forget it. This is getting tired already.

DWIM goes way back

[Harlow_B_Ashur]

http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/d/DWIM.html

oh ya

[smatt-man]

Ya, but can they help me pick out a shirt and pants that match in the morning?

Test selection and other things

[Dukael_Mikakis]

Along these lines, I'm also not entirely sure that this is what people want. Just as people get frustrated and upset with these heuristics that are supposed to "help" people (the text selection pisses me off also, as well as auto-correcting some words), people would feel similarly with a system such as this.

There's a reason why many many programmers like to use development environments that aren't especially overbearing, but rather customizable, such as emacs or vi.

The key isn't developing a massively scaled Clippy, but I think it is rather developing more sophisticated and simply executed customizations. So the software should say, "You seem to like selecting single characters rather than entire words, I will disable the auto-text-select" rather than merely assuming that this text selection "feature" is an across the board benefit.

People want to do things how they want to do them, don't force them into any particular framework.

Re:Test selection and other things

[Scrameustache]

Just as people get frustrated and upset with these heuristics that are supposed to "help" people (the text selection pisses me off also, as well as auto-correcting some words), people would feel similarly with a system such as this.


I should have said "on top" of the current 15 thing, rather than "instead".

I don't mind that the features exists, I mind that they are shoved down my throat and that I have to jump through fiery hoops to shut them off.
The "leave me the fuck alone" philosophy:

1. One button, obvious and easy to find (no sub menus! Right smack in a main menu.)that can turn on or off all the auto-helper features (auto text selecting, clippy, etc).
   
2. A sub menu linked to that option wich lists all the different helper features, in wich you can configure and customize those features to your liking.
   
3. The different options still present in their respective menus and sub-menus, linked to the previously mentioned option so that when you turn it on or off in one location, it sets itself to the correct value in the mirror location.

A little more work for the developpers and testers, a better world for the users.

3 Laws of Robotics

[AtariAmarok]

"Maybe it could even be used to replace congress...it's like I, Robot."

If you get Congress involved, it will go from 3 laws of robotics to 8,765 laws of robotics by the time the congressional term is over (with over 6,000 passed in a late-night session just before adjournment with no-one reading the entire thing).

Well, then....

[volpe]

I predict that if/when such a technology becomes prevalent, it will greatly reduce the human ability to make decisions.

I, for one, welcome our new decision-making overlords.

Re:Well, then....

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, you are only the fourth person to post this joke. Luckily, you waited long enough to avoid being immediately modded down to -1, which is what happened to the first two.

Re:text selection--change apps.

[skinny.net]

--insert slashdot_reply.doc--

Easily fixed...choose tools, options, edit tab, bottom button in right column.

I'm not trying to sound condescending, but your problem is easily fixed. Of the more than 70 customization options available in Word on managing your document, I challenge you to find more than half of them that annoy you by default. ~All options off~ is a condition I suggest you will find much more annoying. I have unchecked and changed more than 10 default settings in Word, and many more in Excel because I know how to use the applications. You would probably like the way I have them configured, from 'do NOT check spelling as you type' to 'when selecting, do NOT select entire word' to 'do NOT provide feedback with animation.' It only takes a minute.

Customization is often at the heart of good software, imho, and you are always free to learn the products you use, or use an alternate. If your employer mandates these applications, you might be able to learn them on company time.

--insert witty_sig.doc--

Hmmmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe this...could this be the step toward a Personel Navi? Could CAPCOM be on the right track?

Re:text selection--change apps.

[Scrameustache]

Easily fixed...choose tools, options, edit tab, bottom button in right column. I'm not trying to sound condescending, but your problem is easily fixed.

I'm looking for it in explorer...I can't find it.
I do have a headache...maybe it'll be there if I look later.

Life is filled with exceptions...

[3seas]

It is the exceptions and handling them that makes us uniqure.

But then there is this.... which means...

Resistance is Futile, you will be assimilated into the "norm" and prevented from doing anything outside of the percalculated norm.

Weapons of Mass Disinformation [ slightly OT]

[ThufirHawat]

If possible, please mod up parent-if not, store one point up in some quantum optical RAM for future comments.

How is it possible that even geeks like us have got to dig desperately through the fluff and padding written by entirely illiterate 'journalists' when describing a new product, process or experiment?

Consider for a moment how many organizations try to sell us information (on or off the net) when all we need, as pointed out by parent, are facts and data, not unwarranted speculation, not popular science crap, nor monkey explanations...

Talking of AI, I estimate at 9 mths development the building of a rule-based fake journalist who will digest a press release and come up with the trash that MSN or ZDNET dish us out [hmmm... am I already too late?]. For two mths more I'll throw in fancy graphics a la Ananova(TM)...

Linux

[meadd00d]

If you look closely at the big image linked on the "new release" page, he's running Gnome on his desktop machine, and what looks like windows 2000 on his laptop.

What's really interesting to me is that I have absolutely no f**king idea what this software is supposed to be doing, other that looking at his eye (and that wasn't even explained in the text).

*f*

Intelligence - artificial or counterfeit? I forget

[djeaux]

One thing that I've never been satisfied has been appropriately addressed in AI (which I call "counterfeit intelligence" in honor of an old Journal of Improbable Results article) is forgetting.

Human beings don't "forget" by simply deleting data from memory. Sure, things that have been learned-by-rote (i.e., verbatim & arbitrary S-R associations) are deleted (forgotten) if not reinforced. But what we learn "meaningfully" by associating new input with previously-acquired knowledge, is forgotten "meaningfully" as we assimilate the new input into the mental stew of cognitive structure & lose extraneous detail.

What comes out is seldom exactly what we learned. This variability is what really constitutes a lot of "intelligence" IMO -- the ability to assimilate a lot of input & then barf back something new.

Humans ability to "reduce" memory by merging new input into existing cognitive structure conserves resources. AI just adds more RAM.

See Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View by Ausubel, Novak & Hanesian (Werbel & Peck, 1978), if for no other reason than to enjoy Ausubel's penchant for inventing technical terminology. Need convincing? How about "progressive differentiation," "integrative reconciliation," "memorial reduction," & "obliterative subsumption"?

It just had to be said ...

[rkowen]

What if we had a beowolf cluster of these things ...

If we did then they could argue with each other endlessly.

Re:text selection--change apps.

[NoOneInParticular]

Personally I don't mind changing the customization settings. Once. But with freaking windows I have to do it time and time again. When changing computers, when I'm at a different location, when upgrading office, all the time. I have to do it in Word, in Excel, in Powerpoint, in Windows itself, in whatever fucking application that has inane defaults. As I can't bring all settings easily with me such as I can do under linux (all files in the .dirs), I just have to live with the defaults as they are as I don't have the time to customize it all the time.

This sounds like a typical smart-ass program!

[ponos]

To quote from memory : "the program will detect
discrepancies in a user's thinking and alert the user".

This sound an awful lot like "Clippy" raised to the Nth
power. I am certain that MS products will be the first
to feature this Smart-Ass computer technology, whereby
the computer will constantly correct you and interrupt
your thinking with irrelevant bullshit ("are you sure
you want to do this? maybe you want to do that").

On the other hand, just like spell-checking helps
pepole (sic) write clearly, maybe this will allow the
less-than-privileged computer users to follow a
logical path of thinking (quite possibly, an eye opening
experience for some).

Sometimes I feel that AI is awfully close.

P.

Slowly but surely the UNIX crept upon the Nintendo user.

It's been said a million times before

[aztektum]

I want a computer that does what I say when I implicitly tell it to, not make a good guess. Someday someones automated house is going to sense someone setting their hand on a counter top and think its a steak and lop off some fingers.

Re:Imagine these in voting machines-sorry,offtopic

[fussman]

Whose cat/other pet walked on your keyboard and messed up your post? Don't just walk around and make a decenting reply to every post you see.

MS Clippy

[Anonymous Coward]

At Sandia National Laboratories, new "smart" machines can accurately infer your intents and help you to take better decisions or avoid mistakes

It looks like you're trying to write a letter...

wanker

[karavshin]

1. create a skimpy blog entry consisting entirely of quotes from a much longer article. 2. send article about news release to /. editor, noting that your own site coincidentally has much more information to offer 3. /. editor doesn't bother to note that your site adds absolutely nothing to the discussion and blindly posts the whole article as submitted.

mac users got it easy, again

[Anonymous Coward]

[computer:~] open -a TextEdit

Totally idiot mode, everything you *actually* need on a daily basis. If you want more, bring on the LaTeX.

Here's a better explanation & URL

[xeo_at_thermopylae]

Human factors experts at Sandia take new approach
to studying human failure in engineered systems"

Re:Sure

[Tyreth]

I'm glad you feel dedicated to your worthless cause of replying to all my posts with meaningless ramblings, you coward.

At least its a source of amusement for my friends. You are a great testimony to your kind.