Team Aims To Create Pure Evil AI

puroresu writes "Scientific American reports on the efforts of Selmer Bringsjord and his team at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who have been attempting to develop an AI possessed of an interesting character trait: pure evil. From the article, 'He and his research team began developing their computer representation of evil by posing a series of questions beginning with the basics: name, age, sex, etc., and progressing to inquiries about this fictional person's beliefs and motivations. This exercise resulted in "E," a computer character first created in 2005 to meet the criteria of Bringsjord's working definition of evil. Whereas the original E was simply a program designed to respond to questions in a manner consistent with Bringsjord's definition, the researchers have since given E a physical identity: It's a relatively young, white man with short black hair and dark stubble on his face.'"

Comments

Re:How do you define evil?

[Monkeedude1212]

Not necessarily though, I mean don't get me wrong, I think Child molestation is a bad thing, but sometimes the people are so messed up inside that they KNOW its wrong and they can't stop doing it, like how some people can't stop smoking cigarettes.

Having known someone who was into that kind of thing, he told me that he really hated who he was and that it felt a little bit like a bipolar thing that he couldn't help. Was what he doing wrong? Absolutely, and he knew it.

Did he feel he was doing more good then causing harm? No. He turned himself in.

I posted because when I read it I thought "How does one create pure evil when evil is a frame of reference?" So I went to RTFA and just thought that Bringsjord's definition of evil was not exactly what -I- would picture pure evil. I imagined pure evil as that maniac who wants to control the world for his own benefit, at the cost of anyone elses lives or pleasures. My closing comment was that Bingsford's definition of pure evil exists QUITE COMMONLY in the world today.

Re:At what point...

[XxtraLarGe]

If you think about it, white male is the only possibility for them to avoid accusations of racism or sexism.