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U.S. Plan For "Thinking Machines" Repository
An anonymous reader writes "Information scientists organized by the US's NIST say they will create a "concept bank" that programmers can use to build thinking machines that reason about complex problems at the frontiers of knowledge — from advanced manufacturing to biomedicine. The agreement by ontologists — experts in word meanings and in using appropriate words to build actionable machine commands — outlines the critical functions of the Open Ontology Repository (OOR). More on the summit that produced the agreement here."
Shit, we really are going to have to start watching and learning from the terminator films now.
If computer history tells us anything, they will create more data then we can understand in a short amount of time.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Wow, this can be scary. I hope the US is investing in a primitive non-computerized emergency plan to destroy this project, in case of the uprising. There has to be strict limitations placed on this sort of system, not just 3 rules. This is one time when the lessons learned from fictional books/movies would come in handy. I'm serious too.
It's merely intended as a convenient resource for programmers.
Caveat Utilitor
What reason do you have to believe that all efforts will fail? A computer powerful enough to simulate all the cells in a brain would presumably be able to do everything a brain can do? Brains are like blank slates then take 25 years of training before they are regarded as fit for specialised jobs - a computer that was capable of forming semantic links and organising them properly would be able to give the illusion of understanding, and in fact can do a passable job in limited domains (thinking about for example medical 'knowledge base' type systems which take symptoms and work out possible causes). It is beyond our current understanding to build a proper thinking computer, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't work towards it. If we did it properly then we really would be able to build computers that could work out logical and more objective conclusions for problems (given enough factual input data to allow it to make unbiased 'decisions').
Unless you want to say that there is some mystical element to brains, there is nothing precluding the eventual design and building of 'sentient' computers, surely? Beyond our own fear of what would happen if we did such a thing, as evidenced by plenty of 20th century fiction. Building sentient computers could even be regarded as a type of evolution, as they would then be able to improve upon themselves at an exponential rate..
which is totally what she said
Actually the researchers themselves aren't saying anything at all about "thinking machines" -- that was just added by the blog summary. In fact, if you had read the document describing their plans, you would have seen that it doesn't even include the words "thinking," "AI," or "intelligence." All they want to do is create an Internet-accessible database of ontologies and ways for ontology-related services to interoperate. Your smears of them as "unethical" and "parasites" are completely uncalled for.
The guys at cyc (look for wikipedia entry too) are already halfway there. Last time i checked there were already something like 5 million facts and rules in the database, and the point where new facts could be gathered automatically from the internet was very close.
Many years ago i remember the founder (Doug Lenat) saying that practical purpose intelligence could be reached at ten million facts....
we'll see within the next decade, i guess.
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history - Tom Veneziano
Not wanting to labour the point too much, but...
It's no different to a script that moves a clickable picture away from the mouse cursor once it approaches a critical distance such that you can never click on the picture (unless you're faster than the script).
A fly's compound eye is a highly sensitive movement sensor and the fly will move at anything big that moves, but if you don't move the fly doesn't see you (its brain wouldn't cope with that much information).
Flies can learn a limited amount but it's limited and I would argue a computer could well behave as a fly and perform a fly's functions. But is the fly thinking? I don't think the fly is consciously deciding anything except that repeated stimuli that 'scare' it result in temporary sensitization to any other movement.
Bacteria show similar memory behaviour but I wouldn't go so far as to call it 'thought'.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Lots of people are making posts about this vs. skynet, terminator, etc. But there are some problems with that (overly simplistic and totally misguided) comment.
There are numerous formal logic solvers, that are able to come to either the correct answer (in the case of deterministic systems, for instance) or to the answer with the highest degree of success. The difference between the two should be made clear: Say if I give the computer that:
A)All Italians are human. B)All humans are lightbulbs.What is the logical conclusion? The answer is that all Italians are lightbulbs. Of course, the premises of such an argument are false, but a computer could work out the formally correct conclusion.
The problem these people seem to be solving is that there needs to be a unified way to input such propositions, and a properly robust and advanced solver that is generic and agreed upon. Basically this is EXACTLY what is needed in order to move beyond a research stage, where each lab uses its own pet language.
I mentioned determinism, because the example I gave contained the solution in the premises. What if I said, "My chest hurts. What is the most likely cause of my pain?" An expert system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_system) can take a probability function and return that the most likely cause is... (whatever, I'm not a doctor!). But what if I had multiple systems? The logic becomes more fuzzy! So there needs to be an efficient way to implement it, AND draw worthwhile conclusions. Such conclusions can be wrong, but they are the best guess (the difference between omniscient and rational, or bounded rational).
None of these things are relating to some kind of 'skynet' intelligence.
IF you DID want to get skynet like intelligence, having a useful logic system (like what is planned here) would be the first step, and would allow you to do things like planning, for instance. If I told a robot, "Careful about crossing the street." it would be too costly to try to train it to replicate human thought exactly. But it records and understands language well (at this point), so what can we extract from that language?
Essentially, this is from the school of thought that we need to play to computer's strengths when thinking about designing human like intelligence, rather than replicating the human thought processes from the ground up (which will happen eventually, either through artificial neurons, or through simulation of increasingly large batches of neurons). On the other hand, if such simulations lead to the conclusion that human level consciousness requires more than the model we have, it will lead to a revolution in neuroscience, because we will require a more complex model.
I really can't wait to get more into this, and really hope it isn't just bluster.
Also:
'Thinking Machines' title is inflammatory and incorrect, if we use the traditional human as the gauge for the term 'thought'. It is a highly formalized and rigorous machine interpretation of human thought that is taking place, and it will not breed human level intelligence.
Putting tags on your del.icio.us links doesn't make you an ontologist any more than using object oriented methodologies makes you a platonist. I think the correct label for those who misappropriate terminology from other domains (for no other seeming reason than to make them sound clever) is "wanker". Hell, call yourselves "wankologists" for all I care, just don't steal from other domains because "tagger" sounds so lame.
I called my cable company the other day and got an automated response that asked questions and responded, not only with words and instructions but also with a modem reset. The computer system could ask questions, determine responses and perform actions. Yes, it was limited, but decades past it would have been considered awe inspiring and doubtless would have been dubbed both a successful artificial intelligence and thinking machine.
What then is the proper definition of a thinking machine? We already have computers that can follow complex logic paths to arrive at unexpected results (bugs?) and offer solutions we would not have foreseen on our own. Similar in result to having a conversation with an expert in an unfamiliar field.
As machines, both hardware and software become more complex and capable, we are already raising the bar for what we consider an artificial intelligence. Doubtless we will continue to do so for quite some time, but when you can talk with a machine built on the ability to work with volumes of processable knowledge such as is being compiled in the OOR, how will we raise the bar?
Historically, humanity has considered people that they considered unlike themselves to be less than fully human. As the majority of our species progresses toward a more inclusive standard, our language and perception is becoming inadequate to differentiate a human from a very advanced machine. Already most of us consider the issues of race, language, geology, age and affiliation to be irrelevant to defining what makes someone human. Biology is even a wavering standard since we consider people with prosthetics to be people with human rights and human bodies with the inability to think (vegetables) to have none. We are left with the ability to think and biology as the standard, but the definition of thinking is somewhat hazy to say the least.
I think therefore I am, but what does it mean to say "I think" and how do you define thinking without biology in an external entity?
Back in my day when we chiseled our bits into stone and sent them by mule train from village to village...
That's the frightening part.
Next time you find a bidirectional trail of ants in your home, try this little experiment:
1) Monitor a 6-inch square. For the next 5 minutes, kill every ant entering that square. Use the same piece of paper towel and smear their guts a bit when you squish 'em.
2) After 5 minutes, stop killing ants. Just watch individual ants for the next 30 minutes.
3) Go to sleep. Look around the house 24-72 hours later. You'll find a completely different ant trail.
"A human is smart. A mob of humans is dumb."
- Men in Black
Ants don't work like that.
"An ant is stupid. A colony of ants is smart."
Ants taught me what the word alien meant.