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Company Claims Development of True AI
YF 19 AVF wrote to mention a press release on Yahoo from company GTX Global. They think they've got a good thing on their hands, going so far as to claim they've developed the first 'true' AI. From the release: "GTX Global Cognitive Robotics(TM) is an integrated software solution that mimics human behavior including a dialogue oriented knowledge database that contains static and dynamic data relating to human scenarios. The knowledge further includes translation, processing and analysis components that are responsible for processing of vocal and/or textual and/or video input, extracts emotional characteristics of the input and produces instructions on how to respond to the customer with the appropriate substantive response and emotion based on relevant information found in the knowledge base." Somehow I think there is a littler hyperbole here. In your estimation, how close are we to the real thing?
When you develop "true AI" you dont make a press release about it, you phone the military of your country of choosing and wait for men to arrive with large briefcases full of money. Let me put it this way, true AI is not annouced by /., you will read about it in Janes about 10 years after it happens.
What kinds of tests did they use that show that this is "true" AI? I see a lot of marketing bullshit and not much real data. I call shenanigans.
Real_men_don't_need_spacebars.
...will it pass the turing test? Ray Kurzweil would win his bet: http://www.longbets.org/1 early.
I think this is just a snake-oil press release.
This is a bunch of marketing gobbledygook... why is it being given attention? Nobody is going to know who these imbeciles are in a few weeks anyway.
I dont understand the fuss about AI, or various attempts at making intelligent computers. Hell, 80% of humans still arrive into society with no intelligence, and spend the rest of thier lives in a vegetative state staring at the tube. Wouldn't the effort be better spent trying to make the real thing propogate thru the majority of the population, before getting excited about the artificial variety ?
Fifteen years.
Just like always.
-Peter
I am not so sure.... BUT there is one easy way to tell... Put it to the Turing test. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test. If it passes that, then I will willing to call it the first AI...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Me: So if you look at who's running what, you get some idea of where they cluster. A bit like looking at someone's zipcode, SAT scores, etc. to figure out how much money they make.
"No. You're making a judgement about an individual without knowing them at all."
I don't need to know you in order to make inferences about you.
I just need to know things are correlated with other things I know about you. E.g. if you read Slashdot, you are probably a white male between the ages of 18-35. The odds that you are a black woman over 50 are very, very low.
In my case, I've researched what webservers technically competent companies run. Besides Microsoft and Godaddy, I can't think of one that does. I can think of tons of technically savvy companies that run Apache and Linux/*BSD, and a few that run Solaris. On the other hand, there are a lot of technically un-savvy companies that use Windows.
If something looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, and I say it is a duck, are you really going to argue that I'm prejudging the thing that looks, walks and quacks like a duck?
Because that's what's going on here.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
This is a press release, uncommented, unresearched. Anyone can claim anything, and will, if it gets them some free publicity. This is not news by any measure, it's pure hype. I have noticed that the Slashdot editors tend to have problems telling the difference.
The I part means knowing what to mimic.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
...until I see the story.
Turing Test Passed
The passing agent, 'Machisimo,' was quoted as saying "It was easy really, I just needed to imagine what it would be like thinking in slo-mo." Joking aside, Machisimo has stated that he is filing a request with the ACLU and the UN asking their respective bodies to investigate whether the test contains a bias towards non-gray matter thought matrix based lifeforms.
In other news the new digital overlords have proposed the Binary Test, which they say will be designed to determine a non-positronic matrix system's ability to legimately perform tasks as well as a P.M.S.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
In your estimation, how close are we to the real thing?
We are climbing trees to try to reach the moon.
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
AI's not that simple, $10 says they have some obfusicated expert system going on.
I often tell young programmers to remember: everything's flim-flammery. You can use absractions that make it seem like you are dealing with, for example, a "window", but you shouldn't lose sight of the fact that what you are dealing with somewhat arbitrary data structures that are designed to create a certain effect in a certain context. Your job is not to create anything that is true, but to achieve certain effects. If you do it efficiently, you end up with a toolkit for achieving whole classes of effects.
I seems to me that the claim of "true AI" is an inherently empty one, because if we knew what "true AI" actually is we'd be more than half-way there. Consequently I would regard any such claim as somewhat suspect. If you think about the Turing test, while it is profound, it is a form a casuistry; it is a tool for making it possible for us to come to agreements on things we don't know how to define.
Consequently, I'd automatically regard any claim of "true AI" to be either naive or dishonest -- or perhaps marketing speak. What they might conceivably have achieved is a toolkit that allows them to solve a large number of apparently loosely related problems with relatively little effort. Underneath they may take some particular mechanism like an expert system, and make it do all kinds of contortionist gymnastics, as you say. But that I don't regard that as dishonest. That's what programmers do, at least the good ones.
However, I doubt they've done even that much.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
No, This is marketing goobledeygok:
Overheard in high level meeting of Big Consumer Tech Corp:
Marketing: So what's the dealio with this new AI thingy I heard about?
IT: It's just a bunch of hot air. That "AI" isn't really all that capable. They claim it can pick up on the emotional state of people on the phone and switch their response script accordingly. No real intelligence involved there of either the real or artificial kind
Customer Relations: Hey! Pull your head out of your Beowulf cluster. Let me provide you with a few numbers on our customer satisfaction ratings with regards to our call centers...
(several snore inducing minutes later)
CEO: Enough already! IT, go get us a couple of gross of those Dual Pentagram Servers you have been salivating over. Install 20 copies of these Virtual Call Center employees on each one. We will set up the "server ranchette" in our North Austin offices. HR, get some H1-Bs for the network administration staff in Bangladore.
Later that week in a press release:
"Big Consumer Tech Corp is pleased to announce that in these times of increased outsourcing of American jobs we at BCTC are shutting down our call centers in Bangladore. The services provided by 6000 employees in India will now be provided here in America."
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
"But true AI would allow that pilot program to feel "tired," or be allowed to make mistakes. Is this what we want??"
Bzzt! Wrongo. You just conflated having a stressed out organic body with intelligence. As for mistakes, they exist in humans and computers, so that's a push.
People conflate other things all the time too. Like being able to imagine a computer taking over the "world's computers" with the actual possibility. We have that now with viruses and we haven't had 100% infection, much less permanent capture, yet. A computer-based AI would face the same likelyhood of success.
I think you're mixing up two things into one category.
... things like puberty, mood swings, etc.
The strain of being overworked is a physical trait - there is no reason why a computer would have to be subject to that in order to achive true "AI"
I also think you're mixing in chemical balances in the human mind
Just imagine yourself if you were able to be removed from your physical body. You wouldn't have urges to mate, eat, wouldn't get up on the wrong side of the bed, etc. You'd still have intelligence, but your motives would be different and you wouldn't be subject to so much outside interference.
SearchIRC - Now with live chat directory!
Isn't that what WE do?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
...from the press release: ...nuff said.
"This press release includes "safe harbor" language pursuant to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended, indicating that certain statements about the Company's business contained in the press releases are "forward-looking" rather than "historic."
It takes just a moment and an action to destroy. It takes some time and thought to create.
No it is different. When I went through boot camp, they punished the whole squad for the decisions of a handful. (For some stupid reason they decided to cut their own hair)
It makes your comrades in arms potentially a threat against you. I was beginning to register all of them as enemies. The military brainwashing affects me, but not in the way intended.
My brother, on the other hand, is highly resistant against the military brainwashing.
I am of the opinion that AI will never achieve true intelligence. Consider the "definitions" we have of AI. Basically, if it emulates a human, then it's AI. Well sometimes ELIZA on AOL makes more sense than the president, but does that make me think ELIZA is intelligent and Bush isn't? No way! ELIZA is coded to respond to certain things. If you type in some sort of complex sentence, ELIZA will respond that "I didn't understand that last part." Human intelligence isn't programmed, it's the function of our brains. When the original AI theories were developed, computers were very very very new. Alan Turing, one of the fathers of digital computers (for whom "Turing-complete" is named), was so stumped that he came up with a test as subjective and unscientific as the process outlined above. He said that if it fools people into thinking it is intelligent, then it must be intelligent. Today this seems absurd. But in the 1950's, psychology was focused on behaviorism. The brain was considered a "black box" and the only measure of people could be taken from their behavior. This was actually sort of a reaction to the psychoanalysts (such as Freud), who believed that the analysis of one's life could reveal the answers to problems. Behaviorists are best exemplified through such experiments as Pavlov's dog. This, in fact, is very much of a program. "if (time == 1700){feed(dog);}". Though behaviorism has some merits, its basic philosophy boils down to analysis only of the exterior at a certain time. Today psychology has moved far beyond behaviorism and we now even have new theories of intelligence (such as multiple intelligences, and so on). Also, psychology gave up on the whole "black box" idea, which it deemed rather stupid. Remember that in the 1950's, they also believed that weather could be easily predicted years into the future once computers of sufficient power were devised. The 1960s and its Chaos and Fractals really disproved this, but this is beyond my scope.
Today we no longer view psychology the same way. The brain is actually at the forefront of modern psychology. Unfortunately, the studies on the brain really focus on specific areas of the brain. No real theories* have been made about the human brain. It's just sort of like "well, if we poke this area and then ask Mr. Fox to move his arm, he won't be able to." I respect these doctors for such diligent research and experimentation, and above all the saving of many many lives. But, theory is still lacking. To truely make intelligence, we would need to understand a few aspects of intelligence. These may include prediction, understanding, association, sensory functions, and learning, among others. To these ends, "AI" is absolutely useless, and a gross misnomer. If a computer or peice of hardware were to become fully intelligent, it would need just a very simple base algorithm, with ability to build onto itself. That is how we learn: we take in new information and the brain adds the new information to itself. This is not how computers work. A computer will take the new information and overwrite the old. In fact, the information is stored simply in arbitrary aggregations of 0s and 1s. Not only this, but certain areas of computer memory are reserved for certain functions. A basic brain would have no such "allocation" built in. Computer memory has the ability to be "defragmented", but the brain has no need to do this. You see, the brain is not a "permanent storage" model like the hard drive or anything in a present-day computer. The brain take in inputs, creates memories and functions associated with the inputs, and then links them all together. Effectively, a brain is like a computer that continuously is adding to its code and relinking itself. Compilation is not necessary. In some cases, the brain actually subtracts from itself to make itself more efficient. If you look at brain inputs on MRI scans, different parts of the brain are activated by hearing and vision, but extremely similar patterns are propogated through the neurons. In fact,
Let's deconstruct this:
1. Laden with customer-oriented marketing BS. What does AI have to do with customers? Shouldn't it be purely a research thing?
2. What is "True AI"? I thought it had more to do with learning than with interacting with humans based on some database. And I have no fscking idea what emotions have to do with AI.
I think they just came up with another silly chatbot that works harder to simulate emotion but has no AI beyond what the programmers have given it.
"True AI" in my opinion would be something autonomous that has learned how to interact with the real world on its own and can make complex decisions, assimilate complex ideas, discuss complex topics (with humans or other AIs) and show other signs of intelligence. A program spewing random phrases and then winking at you, all generated by data from a database, is not anything I'd write home about.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
From TFA:
mimics human behavior including a dialogue oriented knowledge database that contains static and dynamic data relating to human scenarios
This is clearly not true AI. This is just a machine that has a lot of data on what to say to sound human. Although it will likely fool some people, it's just not the same thing. True AI would most likely learn or develop interaction like that. This can't even learn...
"73% of quotes on the Internet are made up" -Ben Franklin
I had a Turbo Pascal version of Eliza which I compiled up and hooked into my BBS as a door called "Chat with the Sysop" back in 1991-92. The database of responses was buttressed with about 50 or so responses that were more personalized towards what I would say. However, the logic was all Eliza.
The older callers who knew me were not fooled and after about 10 exchanges they'd quit the door realizing it was a joke. Those who were brand new, however, would often engage in lengthy conversations with the door. In one particular case, I watched a person spend an hour talking to Eliza trying to figure out a way to have it grant them extra time on the BBS or access to the supposed 'elite files' that were hiding there. Which weren't. But it was quite fun.
The conversations were actually relatively interesting, but Eliza has a pattern of speech that, even when the responses are slightly altered, is easily discernable. It basically keeps plugging you with questions so that it doesn't have to answer anything meaningful.
I don't think today's commercially available AI is much better than Eliza, either.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Uh... no? Where in the definition of intelligence does it say something is required to get tired? We are trying to replicate intelligence, not create robotic humans. Being fallible has nothing to do with being intelligent, it has to do with being human.
The question of whether AI can be truly self-aware is pretty debatable. For one thing, I can't be certain you're even actually self-aware. Intelligence also has nothing to do with being self-aware. Most of you arguments about AI really have nothing to do with actual AI.
My Greatest Heist - Muisc partly inspired by the unbeatable Qwantz
You back yourself up from an ill-reputable source, like wikipedia. "Look, wikipedia said it!"
You're barking up the wrong tree. People use citations for two purposes, for authority or to provide more detailed information. Sometimes it's both, somtimes it's just one or the other.
Wikipedia doesn't have much authority, but it's a great source for providing detailed information in a concise format that almost everyone will have direct access to (unlike most references where you have to take it on faith that the person has made a reasonable interpretation of the source material and you don't actually go yourself to the primary sources to digest everything there). Especially for a topic such as this where you would never find much detailed information if any at all in an encyclopedia or dictionary that has a high authority value. Nor is there much need for it in this case regardless.
For example, if you were curious about the different treatments and their success rates for treating a particular disease, you'd want high authority sources. But what high value facts are on the table in knowing more about a type of chatbot and how and where it's been used. It's just descriptive information.