Re:Sorry, Loebner Has Done Nothing for AI
on
Loebner Talks AI
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· Score: 2, Interesting
It would be interesting, except that any reasonable person would conclude that either 1) you were lying; or 2) you (the machine) were following a ruleset which would break after just a few more posts.
AI would be better off focusing on dogs. It's actually better off focusing on practical energy-minimization and heuristic search methods, which would be comparable in intelligence to say an amoeba. Going for human-level intelligence right now, is like getting started in math by proving the Riemann hypothesis.
Although I agree that tenure, as it exists in the university, has almost no place in a high school. In fact the very few cases where it might apply are probably worth just ignoring, in order to get rid of the concept entirely.
Amusingly, I think that brilliance in business indicates a failure in teaching a student "to do no harm", to adapt your phrase.
When I think of brilliance in math or science or even technology, when it is challenging to society (e.g. evolution, the atom bomb or even Godel's incompleteness in a limited way), it is nonetheless an inevitable truth waiting to be discovered.
Brilliance in business tends to involve removing as much money as possible, generally from those without very much.
In short, a science genius is making progress even when their products are catastrophic, and I can appreciate genetic technology while having healthy qualms of its repercussion. A business genius has as their intrinsic goal, to screw me out of as much money as possible, either directly or indirectly by marketing or interfering with competition to self-promote.
I think that you have a slightly revisionist view of tenure. The "intellectual life" used to include more than just your narrow field of research, and indeed taking a moral stand against abhorrent aspects of society was at least implied as a tenure right. (Notice that sometimes they intersect; for example the Tuskegee airmen experiment. What sense would it make to protest that in a researcher's capacity, and ignore racism elsewhere?)
Nowadays, education is industrialized and with it comes a narrowing view of tenure. I think Vernor Vinge was right; in the near-future, the research class will be replaced by neuro-engineered savants-on-demand.
Really, though, I think your observation was spot-on. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the libertarianism on slashdot is born out of (quite reasonable) spite and bitterness toward a mostly-wasted youth in the prisons that are modern schools. It's only natural that the topic of education would bring out that sentiment the most strongly.
Although I understand the sentiment, when I think of libertarian education, I think of that episode of The Simpsons, where the kids are stacked in cubicles to watch the Pepsi education channel.
Troy: Now, turn to the next problem. If you have three Pepsis and drink one, how much more refreshed are you? You, the redhead in the Chicago school system?
Girl [her face appears picture-in-picture]: Pepsi?
Did you even read my post? Yes, there is an IQ difference; it's six points on average between Asian and European (except the Ashkenazim who beat the Asians by about 10 points), and largely heritable. What prediction did I make? Look, if you're trying to predict future success in life by any realistic measure, is it better to have six more IQ points and be neglected and abused by your parents, or to lose six IQ points and have an optimal upbringing? Such a study cannot be conducted, as it would be grossly unethical. However it's completely obvious that the latter choice is preferable. One standard deviation in individual IQ is about fifteen points. On the individual level, six points is bupkis and, yes, the "magical culture fairies" can give you a whole lot more than six measly IQ points.
The influence of quants is over-rated. The big scores and big money are still in the hands of the seat-of-the-pants traders, playing a very human game. Of course they use computers, and they get summaries from quants, but it's hardly the be-all-end-all.
The smart strategy for going into Wall St., as I understand it, is to hide or play coy with your math skills. Being a "quant" is a deadend position (although it deadends well into six-figures), whereas a trader has an unbounded ceiling and although in principle there's an unbounded fall... we've noticed that the fall is usually distributed amongst other people.
Have you met a reasonable sample of second-generation Asian-American students (oh, say, more than four)? There's no way you can convince me, that culture doesn't have a whole lot to do with their strengths (and weaknesses). Eastern Europeans? They don't seem to have as consistent a trend in performance here, and again I believe largely cultural.
By the way, I believe in g (although its interpretation is a matter of subtlety) and its heritability; also its explanatory effect about performance in large populations (for example it's not a coincidence to me that nations with overall high g have overall higher per capita income). Still, it has to be balanced against other explanations which I find more predictive and significant for the individual.
Michael Sipser is one of the most friendly mathematicians/theoretical computer scientists I've ever met. I am sure he is helping MIT's math department greatly, and maybe even the US and world.
A long long time ago, after my funding fell through (long story), I unofficially attended a semester at MIT taking a few math and computer science classes. I cleared it with all involved, and no one really minded my sitting in, although a few people just tolerated me.
Even though I was almost totally unofficial, Sipser took the time to meet with me and talk about my taking the class in depth. He even wound up writing me letters of recommendation for research programs and grad schools, and followed through about them! Although I "earned" the letters (I'm not bragging by any means - it was a real class, but not an excruciating one; I'm just saying that it wasn't soft-hearted charity), I didn't realize at the time just how far beyond-the-call-of-duty this kind of support was, and how fortunate I was to get that opportunity.
If you're an MIT student, take Sipser's complexity class - it's awesome. If you're not an MIT student... take Sipser's complexity class - it's awesome!;-)
It might not be a surprise then, that he has an incredibly well-written (although typo-laden) and accessible intro book on complexity theory, the standard for beginning undergrads, in addition to his papers. He really cares about his subject, and further, the teaching of that subject.
Neither here nor there, but why are "strip, body cavity (!!) [and] involuntary x-ray" searches apparently OK across-the-board whereas "patdown searches" are only in some jurisdictions?!
Bollocks. There is so much talent in academia (and so few positions), that you don't need to go to a "best" school anymore to find good talent (*). A motivated student, as you say "there for a real reason", is just as well off going to a (good and well-chosen) state school as an Ivy, at least if their goal is to enter a Ph.D. program. As far as actual intellectual enrichment goes, it is possibly better in some cases.
The real benefit of the so-called "best" schools is for two groups: the mediocre researchers who need a "nudge" and social web for doing research instead of having independent zeal; and for those going into business, where name-dropping and, to some extent, grades (the ones for which over half the students at the "best" schools cheat their asses off) matter a lot more than any real intellectual credential.
I went to a state school, albeit an unusual one, for undergrad. I had an amazing advisor, did independent research, published a few toy papers, showed I was serious. I am now a TA at an Ivy. The undergraduates here are overall notable only for their arrogance and their ignorance. At least I hope that the economy teaches them some harsh lessons about how non-special they actually are. Yes, doing the Ivy thing makes your life easier in many ways, and I will admit I'm bitter about that; but actually better across-the-board? No, not at all; not if you're even half-way motivated.
*: This doesn't apply to the one-in-a-million wunderkind who are ready to start working on cutting-edge stuff at 16; yes, they might really need access to the best of the best. But anyone else, no.
You have a point, and it is why I am curious about how this goes.
I had assumed that with the bailout looming, this would get dismissed with a slap on the wrist. Anything more would be, as you say, a blatant show trial.
As I understand, the archive didn't make it; just a few screenshots before the guy freaked out and asked 4chan to glom it for him, which is when/where someone changed the password and alerted Palin. (The screenshots are also supposedly what made it possibly to backtrack him through his weak-sauce anonymizer.)
In short, epic fail for Palin and this cracker schmuck. But a quarter million $ and 3 years? Not going to happen. This kind of thing happens hundreds of times a week, if not day. How many times a day in the US, does someone steal a piece of physical mail (a Federal crime)? Probably in the thousands.
The government has been known to nationalize whatever patents it wants, if it's too much bother to license them. It's then presumably free to re-license them to whomever it pleases.
I dualboot, but I'm not a schmuck who installs every single mod under the sun to gain 5% performance at the cost of system stability. My only mods have been to remove the manufacturer's "utilities" from startup. Thus, WinXP Pro (legit) has been running fine for over a year, and I see no reason this won't continue. I tried Vista (on another computer) but it crashed twice in a row, right out of the box, so that went in the trash. Maybe it's better now.
I don't install DRMed/rootkit games either, but if anything this bonus-system should replace (at least the worst of) game DRM. Maybe the only weird thing I'm doing is holding off on SP3 a while; I've heard it's not very compatible with some software.
The chances are pretty high that by the time your computer crashes, the items will all be packaged into a bargain-priced Game of the Year edition or whatever, or even a free download. If not, you can probably get customer service to help you out once or twice if you have the serial #.
For an mmorpg, your inventory is stored on a remote server anyway, so...
OK, thanks for the info. I was under the impression that the charred oak chips were just as effective as barrels but more controllable, thus a superior technology. Since I'm no expert on Australian wine I'll take it that that's not the case.
I remember that. Doing it by hand, or with the open-source tool (I think it was called Xconfigurator) was scary and full of warnings like "This may damage your hardware". So scary, that there was a commercial non-free software, which did nothing but configure X "more safely". I remember one friend of mine was excited when it came out, because there was finally warez for linux.:P
This is from boingboing, which linked to pictures of the entire house. It was so much worse than this, especially the bathroom, that I don't want to link to it.
Republicans and Democrats alike have made critical mistakes in our education policy. However, what you correctly call new new math, I believe is the fault of an educator-elite which happens to lean left, possibly because they are egalitarian-to-a-fault, or more likely have just "drunk the kool-aid" and are caught in a dogmatic program.
I have trouble connecting this to the Democratic party in a strong sense, just like I have trouble believing that the Republicans made Enron happen. Rather, they are each generally unwanted outcomes of social experiments. (Some people would defend fuzzy egalitarian math, just like some people defend Enron as having been the right thing to happen. I disagree with both, as do many of my liberal or conservative friends.)
Oh yeah, and as a grad student in a quantitative field, I've found that those "guess and check methods" never go away - they are just now called "analytic arguments". The problem is, that education tries to teach the intuition which is hard-or-impossible, so they just pretend to do it, while letting the motivated/talented rot.
Slashdot Mirror
It would be interesting, except that any reasonable person would conclude that either 1) you were lying; or 2) you (the machine) were following a ruleset which would break after just a few more posts.
AI would be better off focusing on dogs. It's actually better off focusing on practical energy-minimization and heuristic search methods, which would be comparable in intelligence to say an amoeba. Going for human-level intelligence right now, is like getting started in math by proving the Riemann hypothesis.
Although I agree that tenure, as it exists in the university, has almost no place in a high school. In fact the very few cases where it might apply are probably worth just ignoring, in order to get rid of the concept entirely.
Amusingly, I think that brilliance in business indicates a failure in teaching a student "to do no harm", to adapt your phrase.
When I think of brilliance in math or science or even technology, when it is challenging to society (e.g. evolution, the atom bomb or even Godel's incompleteness in a limited way), it is nonetheless an inevitable truth waiting to be discovered.
Brilliance in business tends to involve removing as much money as possible, generally from those without very much.
In short, a science genius is making progress even when their products are catastrophic, and I can appreciate genetic technology while having healthy qualms of its repercussion. A business genius has as their intrinsic goal, to screw me out of as much money as possible, either directly or indirectly by marketing or interfering with competition to self-promote.
I think that you have a slightly revisionist view of tenure. The "intellectual life" used to include more than just your narrow field of research, and indeed taking a moral stand against abhorrent aspects of society was at least implied as a tenure right. (Notice that sometimes they intersect; for example the Tuskegee airmen experiment. What sense would it make to protest that in a researcher's capacity, and ignore racism elsewhere?)
Nowadays, education is industrialized and with it comes a narrowing view of tenure. I think Vernor Vinge was right; in the near-future, the research class will be replaced by neuro-engineered savants-on-demand.
(bows)
Really, though, I think your observation was spot-on. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the libertarianism on slashdot is born out of (quite reasonable) spite and bitterness toward a mostly-wasted youth in the prisons that are modern schools. It's only natural that the topic of education would bring out that sentiment the most strongly.
Although I understand the sentiment, when I think of libertarian education, I think of that episode of The Simpsons, where the kids are stacked in cubicles to watch the Pepsi education channel.
Troy: Now, turn to the next problem. If you have three Pepsis and drink one, how much more refreshed are you? You, the redhead in the Chicago school system?
Girl [her face appears picture-in-picture]: Pepsi?
Troy: Partial credit!
Did you even read my post? Yes, there is an IQ difference; it's six points on average between Asian and European (except the Ashkenazim who beat the Asians by about 10 points), and largely heritable. What prediction did I make? Look, if you're trying to predict future success in life by any realistic measure, is it better to have six more IQ points and be neglected and abused by your parents, or to lose six IQ points and have an optimal upbringing? Such a study cannot be conducted, as it would be grossly unethical. However it's completely obvious that the latter choice is preferable. One standard deviation in individual IQ is about fifteen points. On the individual level, six points is bupkis and, yes, the "magical culture fairies" can give you a whole lot more than six measly IQ points.
The influence of quants is over-rated. The big scores and big money are still in the hands of the seat-of-the-pants traders, playing a very human game. Of course they use computers, and they get summaries from quants, but it's hardly the be-all-end-all.
The smart strategy for going into Wall St., as I understand it, is to hide or play coy with your math skills. Being a "quant" is a deadend position (although it deadends well into six-figures), whereas a trader has an unbounded ceiling and although in principle there's an unbounded fall... we've noticed that the fall is usually distributed amongst other people.
Bonus and triple points just for a citation?! There you go again, your liberals and your feel-good reward systems...
Ugh... I also think google should have hosted the website... Slashdot is borrowing a lot of bandwidth power from someone without much to spare.
Have you met a reasonable sample of second-generation Asian-American students (oh, say, more than four)? There's no way you can convince me, that culture doesn't have a whole lot to do with their strengths (and weaknesses). Eastern Europeans? They don't seem to have as consistent a trend in performance here, and again I believe largely cultural.
By the way, I believe in g (although its interpretation is a matter of subtlety) and its heritability; also its explanatory effect about performance in large populations (for example it's not a coincidence to me that nations with overall high g have overall higher per capita income). Still, it has to be balanced against other explanations which I find more predictive and significant for the individual.
Michael Sipser is one of the most friendly mathematicians/theoretical computer scientists I've ever met. I am sure he is helping MIT's math department greatly, and maybe even the US and world.
A long long time ago, after my funding fell through (long story), I unofficially attended a semester at MIT taking a few math and computer science classes. I cleared it with all involved, and no one really minded my sitting in, although a few people just tolerated me.
Even though I was almost totally unofficial, Sipser took the time to meet with me and talk about my taking the class in depth. He even wound up writing me letters of recommendation for research programs and grad schools, and followed through about them! Although I "earned" the letters (I'm not bragging by any means - it was a real class, but not an excruciating one; I'm just saying that it wasn't soft-hearted charity), I didn't realize at the time just how far beyond-the-call-of-duty this kind of support was, and how fortunate I was to get that opportunity.
If you're an MIT student, take Sipser's complexity class - it's awesome. If you're not an MIT student ... take Sipser's complexity class - it's awesome! ;-)
It might not be a surprise then, that he has an incredibly well-written (although typo-laden) and accessible intro book on complexity theory, the standard for beginning undergrads, in addition to his papers. He really cares about his subject, and further, the teaching of that subject.
Neither here nor there, but why are "strip, body cavity (!!) [and] involuntary x-ray" searches apparently OK across-the-board whereas "patdown searches" are only in some jurisdictions?!
Bollocks. There is so much talent in academia (and so few positions), that you don't need to go to a "best" school anymore to find good talent (*). A motivated student, as you say "there for a real reason", is just as well off going to a (good and well-chosen) state school as an Ivy, at least if their goal is to enter a Ph.D. program. As far as actual intellectual enrichment goes, it is possibly better in some cases.
The real benefit of the so-called "best" schools is for two groups: the mediocre researchers who need a "nudge" and social web for doing research instead of having independent zeal; and for those going into business, where name-dropping and, to some extent, grades (the ones for which over half the students at the "best" schools cheat their asses off) matter a lot more than any real intellectual credential.
I went to a state school, albeit an unusual one, for undergrad. I had an amazing advisor, did independent research, published a few toy papers, showed I was serious. I am now a TA at an Ivy. The undergraduates here are overall notable only for their arrogance and their ignorance. At least I hope that the economy teaches them some harsh lessons about how non-special they actually are. Yes, doing the Ivy thing makes your life easier in many ways, and I will admit I'm bitter about that; but actually better across-the-board? No, not at all; not if you're even half-way motivated.
*: This doesn't apply to the one-in-a-million wunderkind who are ready to start working on cutting-edge stuff at 16; yes, they might really need access to the best of the best. But anyone else, no.
Indeed it does.
You have a point, and it is why I am curious about how this goes.
I had assumed that with the bailout looming, this would get dismissed with a slap on the wrist. Anything more would be, as you say, a blatant show trial.
I said nothing of the sort, Mr. Coward, nor did I imply it. Perhaps you have me confused with another user?
All I meant to say, is that it is just a bit annoying when someone asks for proof from a source which does not actually exist, yes?
As I understand, the archive didn't make it; just a few screenshots before the guy freaked out and asked 4chan to glom it for him, which is when/where someone changed the password and alerted Palin. (The screenshots are also supposedly what made it possibly to backtrack him through his weak-sauce anonymizer.)
In short, epic fail for Palin and this cracker schmuck. But a quarter million $ and 3 years? Not going to happen. This kind of thing happens hundreds of times a week, if not day. How many times a day in the US, does someone steal a piece of physical mail (a Federal crime)? Probably in the thousands.
You're not forced to buy it twice.
The government has been known to nationalize whatever patents it wants, if it's too much bother to license them. It's then presumably free to re-license them to whomever it pleases.
I dualboot, but I'm not a schmuck who installs every single mod under the sun to gain 5% performance at the cost of system stability. My only mods have been to remove the manufacturer's "utilities" from startup. Thus, WinXP Pro (legit) has been running fine for over a year, and I see no reason this won't continue. I tried Vista (on another computer) but it crashed twice in a row, right out of the box, so that went in the trash. Maybe it's better now.
I don't install DRMed/rootkit games either, but if anything this bonus-system should replace (at least the worst of) game DRM. Maybe the only weird thing I'm doing is holding off on SP3 a while; I've heard it's not very compatible with some software.
The chances are pretty high that by the time your computer crashes, the items will all be packaged into a bargain-priced Game of the Year edition or whatever, or even a free download. If not, you can probably get customer service to help you out once or twice if you have the serial #.
For an mmorpg, your inventory is stored on a remote server anyway, so...
OK, thanks for the info. I was under the impression that the charred oak chips were just as effective as barrels but more controllable, thus a superior technology. Since I'm no expert on Australian wine I'll take it that that's not the case.
I remember that. Doing it by hand, or with the open-source tool (I think it was called Xconfigurator) was scary and full of warnings like "This may damage your hardware". So scary, that there was a commercial non-free software, which did nothing but configure X "more safely". I remember one friend of mine was excited when it came out, because there was finally warez for linux. :P
I just held my breath and used xconfigurator.
This is from boingboing, which linked to pictures of the entire house. It was so much worse than this, especially the bathroom, that I don't want to link to it.
Republicans and Democrats alike have made critical mistakes in our education policy. However, what you correctly call new new math, I believe is the fault of an educator-elite which happens to lean left, possibly because they are egalitarian-to-a-fault, or more likely have just "drunk the kool-aid" and are caught in a dogmatic program.
I have trouble connecting this to the Democratic party in a strong sense, just like I have trouble believing that the Republicans made Enron happen. Rather, they are each generally unwanted outcomes of social experiments. (Some people would defend fuzzy egalitarian math, just like some people defend Enron as having been the right thing to happen. I disagree with both, as do many of my liberal or conservative friends.)
Oh yeah, and as a grad student in a quantitative field, I've found that those "guess and check methods" never go away - they are just now called "analytic arguments". The problem is, that education tries to teach the intuition which is hard-or-impossible, so they just pretend to do it, while letting the motivated/talented rot.