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The Baby Bootstrap?

Posted by Cliff on from the skynet-anyone dept.

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?"

8 of 435 comments (clear)

  1. A Hot, Base64 Encoded Image by repruhsent · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    http://slashdot.org/~repruhsent/journal/102989

  2. Well, that's because... by inertia187 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Has the military really given up on this concept, or has their research moved to other, more classified levels?

    Actually, since the project is 30 years old now, you can't find anything on baby bootstrap" anymore because you should have searched on something like "unshaven slob who watches SpongeBob all day bootstrap".

    --
    A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
    1. Re:Well, that's because... by Max+Threshold · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Quick, somebody put up a goatse mirror with that phrase in it.

  3. Sin City ruled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Movie of the Year. Mickey Rourke better get an Academy Award, or the Academy will have exposed themselves as the frauds they are.

  4. First post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    First post!

  5. D.A.R.Y.L by jdigriz · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Yeah, I saw that movie, back when it was called D.A.R.Y.L. The kid stole an SR-71 and ejected from it. W00t.

  6. What went wrong? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    The sonofabitch became President. Twice.

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  7. -1 KARMA WHORE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Nice karma whore. Shouldn't you be off stalking people's posts as AC like you usually do? Be sure to start a fifth account now that you've been exposed.