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Interviews: Ask Stephen Wolfram a Question
Stephen Wolfram's accomplishments and contributions to science and computing are numerous. He earned a PhD in particle physics from Caltech at 20, and has been cited by over 30,000 research publications. Wolfram is the the author of A New Kind of Science, creator of Mathematica, the creator of Wolfram Alpha, and the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research. He developed Wolfram Language, a general multi-paradigm programming language, in 2014. Stephen has graciously agreed to answer any questions you may have for him. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
I am concerned that we have not, nor will reach the the high level programming language and data presentation formats necessary to accomodate the advances in HMI (e.g direct cortex interfaces et al) that will be available soon. That we are still thinking keyboards and screens. What are your thoughts on this and the ramifications on code language, OS and presentation?
As you probably know, the most recent paper on Orch-OR as a proposed mechanism for consciousness may have a role for cellular automata in the underlying mechanism.
As you've advocated and made a compelling case for these systems, what are your thoughts on this?
..don't panic
You have dedicated a large slice of your time to investigating CA properties and trajectories. So has my friend John Horton Conway who dedicated a slice of his life to Life. However, in your case you seem to have held the belief that CAs in some fundamental way underpin our physical reality. Do you still hold this belief, and if so, could you expand a bit on the current state of your opinions on this matter?
Edmund Ronald.
I know this will hit my karma, but here goes..
I'd ask Wolfram: Why do you say Alpha is so great. I understand it's hard. So then be clear about what it's good at. Why do you represent as if it's some all knowing AI when it goes to crap for any question that any self respecting SciFi fan would ask first?
It does really, really well with the examples that Wolfram uses in his introductory video. I get great results when I ask a stock market question, sure. I also get great stock market analysis results from Yahoo, Google, and e*Trade. In response to every other question I ask it I get crap. It typically has little data on my areas of interest, so it seems to dumb down the parse on my question to make a search *for* crap. So then it returns crap. Charted in one or two ways.
I want to ask things that would help me pilot a space ship, or at least help me understand NASA's proposals to the U.S. Congress. For instance, "How do I plot a course from earth to Uranus?" I just this moment typed that in, and guess what - complete crap. It returned a plot of x^2, and nary a mention of gravity or planets or time anything else. How did it manage to parse a question about a course from Earth to Uranus and decide x^2 was the best item to present?
Look what it says about its parse of my question: "Using closest Wolfram|Alpha interpretation: how do I plot a". What? "How do I plot a"? I did type a subject, folks! It didn't even try to get to the planets, orbits, gravity, anything. IT DIDN'T EVEN TRY! I see that if there are no knowledge frames in the system pertaining to my query, it seems likely to chop down the input. I'm learning more about how Alpha is implemented than I am learning about my query!!
Can't it at least show any historical paths that spacecraft have used between the planets? Can't it even show the planets? Can't it even cite procedural texts on how to do it? Can't it mention some of the factors that must be considered? I would like the result from an all-knowing AI to be an applet that shows a spaghetti line stretching out among the bodies of the solar system, and I would like to be able to adjust the launch date and see the planets move and see what happens to the spaghetti line.
BTW, that little Game of Life CA that displays while I'm waiting for my answer. Ha ha. I guess that's so cool. I confess, it does make me feel that some really thoughtful process is going on, just what marketing wants. For all that, what comes back - crap. Just makes it all the more disappointing.
Wolfram Research is known around town (Champaign-Urbana) as a pretty unpleasant work environment. (See some of the comments here.) Why do you run a business this way? Is this on purpose, or is it possibly that your management skills aren't as good as your math skills?
Posting anonymously because C-U is a pretty small town.....
In his younger years, Penrose was brilliant and made great contributions to mathematical physics. But virtually every serious physicist looks down on Orch-OR, and the only reason you don't hear the word "crackpot" being thrown around too much. His arguments for even needing such a proposal were discredited a good way back before he even hooked up with Hameroff, when he wrote Emperor's New Mind and Shadows of the Mind. A combination of wishful thinking for a non-computational basis for reality that allows human minds to escape Godelian limits, and, I dare say, senility, is what's really going on here. Quantum mechanics and quantum field theory are computable theories, and adding in thermodynamics gives you even stronger results (Bekenstein bound); virtually everyone but Penrose/Hameroff accepts that any 'final' TOE will be quantum in nature. It's sad to see Penrose giving keynote addresses with the likes of Deepak Chopra (http://www.edgemagazine.net/2014/04/consciousness-conference/), who also was one of the reviewers of Penrose/Hameroff's 2013 paper (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064513001188 scroll down for Chopra). Are you fucking kidding me?
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
I agree here. This fellow looks like he is good at self-aggrandizement to gather shekels shucking ultra expensive software. I don't like this giant list of pedigree either. Solve problems or help others solve problems. To be fair, mathematica helps others solve problems BUT:
The licensing model is extortionary, its rental software, and it even tries to limit the users by how many API calls are made per month.
Also as others have pointed out because it is black box software its not really auditable.
I find a man who has made as much money as him being as greedy and self aggrandizing as he is today to be petty and money-lusting.
His book is roundly and rightfully savaged in reviews, check them out on Amazon. I will not be linking to it as this guy doesnt need more money pouring in.
I have a startup where our algorithms guy pays the mathematica fine every year. But lets be clear, algorithms guy does 99.9% of the work here and a good part of that is perspiration.
Wolfram just cashes checks - so with all due respect, lets not put this guy on a pedestal.
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
In Carl Sagan's book Contact, Dr. Ellie Arroway mathematically proved that Pi, calculated out to some huge number, had a series of 1 and 0 that when arranged in a raster, formed a circle, supposedly showing that the universe was not an accident.
While this is obviously fiction, is there any Mathematical equation, theorem, or any other aspect of Math that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up or otherwise cause you to wonder?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.