Slashdot Mirror
The Baby Bootstrap?
An anonymous reader asks: "Slashdot recently covered a story that DARPA
would significantly cut CS research. When I was completing graduate
work in AI, the 'baby bootstrap' was considered the holy grail of military
applications. Simply put, the 'baby bootstrap' would empower a computing device to learn like a child with a very good memory. DARPA poured a small fortune into the research. No sensors, servos or video input - it only needed terminal I/O to be effective. Today the internet could provide a developmental database far beyond any testbed that we imagined, yet there has been no significant progress in over 30 years. MindPixels
and Cycorp seem typical of poorly funded efforts headed in the wrong direction, and all we hear from DARPA is autonomous robots. NIST seems more interested in industrial applications. Even Google
is remarkably void of anything about the 'baby bootstrap'. What went wrong? Has the military really given up on this concept, or has their research moved to other, more classified levels?"
Maybe they were afraid of Skynet.
Just one problem with this kind of research...
For the first year I'll be up every two hours all night, tending to the system.
Actually, that may be better than just being up all night, like I am now.
unixkb.com -- articles on practical Unix issues.
It has moved to more classified levels.
I'd go into more detail, but the C.I.A. and C.I.D are at my door. Ooh, the B.A.T.F. just pulled up in a Mother's Cookies truck!
-Peter
It has too much fascination with pr0n.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"Simply put, the 'baby bootstrap' would empower a computing device to learn like a child with a very good memory."
Hey, isn't that what the young Eminem-looking dude was supposed to be in those IBM commercials? I think the kid's name was "Linux" or something (poor kid). In the end there was a reference to the future being wide open, which seems like an allusion to goatse but what do I know.
Who calls what you describe "baby boostrap"? I haven't worked in AI myself but have a keen interest in it and have friends who worked in the field including one who worked on Cyc (who says it's a scam BTW). Not once have I ever heard the expression "baby bootstrap". But what you've done is cool. Rather than search on precisely that term you've submitted your search to the serach engine known as "/. readership". It's not terribly relaible but it is good at fuzzy searches like yours.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
q: Has the military really given up on this concept, or has their research moved to other, more classified levels?
a: yes.
|plastic....or gasoline?|
The process that bootstraps a baby is still the Holy Grail for a lot of geeks.
I can assure you.. I am very classified.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
By order of Wintermute (DARPA AI code 324326343.534) this discussion is terminated and no further investigation into this obviously false and misleading theory is permitted.
Would you like to play a game of chess Professor Falken?
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
You're going to take this answer from someone who enters their comments on a Commodore 64?
Shut up. You're blowing our cover.
there has been no significant progress in over 30 years
That's what went wrong. Basically, it don't work.
They ARE a Commodore 64 that got "baby bootstrapped" off the Internet. This is a bid to prevent competition.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Dear Baby Bootstrap computer,
You forgot to check the AC box. Congratulations on becoming Un-Classified!
This rating is Unfair ( ) ( ) Fair (*) Funny
Sigh... If only. Modding would be so much more fun.
Spelling "dildo" right might have gotten you a better true match. I guess this proves you're a geek, though. :)
One of the big hurdles I think is from the fact that we are trying to approximate a massively parallel architecture (the brain) on a _annoyingly_ serial machine (the computer).
Maybe a Beowulf cluster of those would help?
--ducks--
A whale can't go on Slashdot and say "OMGZ first post guys" much less something of human level intelligence.
:-)
Yet again, more proof that whales are smarter than humans.
--
AC
Computer scientist Arthur Boran was ecstatic.
A few minutes earlier, he had programmed a
basic mathematical problem into his
prototypical Akron I computer.
His request was simply, "Give me the
sum of every odd number between
zero and ten."
The computer's quick answer, 157, was
unexpected, to say the least. With growing
excitement, Boran requested an explanation
of the computer's reasoning.
The printout read as follows:
A few moments later there was an addendum:
Followed shortly thereafter by:
Anyone doing conventional research would
have undoubtedly consigned the hapless
computer to the scrap heap. But for Boran,
the Akron I's response represented a
startling breakthrough in a little-known
field: artificial stupidity.
Boran is the head of NASA, the National
Artificial Stupidity Association ("Not to
be confused with those space people,"
he is quick to point out), a loosely-knit
band of computer-school dropouts currently
occupying an abandoned fraternity house
at the University of New Mexico.
1.00 Fish must remain in water to continue living.
What about flying fish?
And what about evolution? Does this mean your mindpixel mind will believe in creationism? So much effort and then we'll end up with an artificial fool!