My current phone cost me the equivalent of about $120.
My current computer on the other hand, when I bought it anyway, cost something closer to $400 or $500 IIRC, and it's lasted about 5 years so far. I've been through about three phones in the same amount of time.
Granted, they've not been iPhones or Blackberries, but they're running Symbian so technically they do count as smartphones. My point stands, though, I go through phones much faster than PCs, so just to account for me over the last 5 years, manufacturers have had to ship 0.667 units of phones annually but only 0.2 units of PCs. I still use my PC more though.
Agreed. The other thing to consider here is that while someone might buy a new cellphone every year or two, or possibly more frequently if you're in the habit of breaking or losing it, a PC tends to be a bigger investment, possibly lasting up to 5 years, so naturally the number of units shipped per year would be lower.
Perhaps I might just point out, that this is a common way of delivering articles on the Top Gear website. With these, the point is the pictures, with a little bit of text to provide a bit of a description.
The ad-money probably doesn't hurt either, though.
While I agree, using rhino horn for "idiotic herbal remedies" is completely inexcusable, it's not actually used as an aphrodisiac, but as a remedy for fever. I can't remember my reference for that, apologies, but it's a common misconception.
It would, artificially removing a mental ability is dumbing down. You are a wetware, aren't you?
Punch me, I bleed... I'd have thought my responses were intelligent enough that it would be realised that I'm not actually Suzette or Eliza posting on/.
I'll concede that point, I suppose. Still, I stand by my point, mathematical calculation isn't the purpose of a chatbot, so it would be unnecessary to build it in. If you wanted to perform calculations, things like MATLAB are there already.
The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to demonstrate intelligence. It proceeds as follows: a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which tries to appear human. All participants are placed in isolated locations. If the judge cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test
Quite a large part of this is how you define "intelligence". So for a chatbot not to have the ability to factorise large numbers (or in fact do any intense mathematical calculations) quickly doesn't necessarily mean it would be dumbed down. Humans who are considered intelligent can't do that. Some idiot savants can, but they're not considered intelligent in most normal senses.
"Intelligence" in this sense I'd take it to mean the ability to understand the concepts in the conversation, respond appropriately and creatively, that sort of thing. Obviously these chatbots in question just show the beginnings of being able to do this.
If your decision not to give them any money is based on their decision not to allow certain classes of software then your decision wouldn't be arbitrary.
A chatbot can be trained to factorize in a few minutes, most humans don't understand it at all and those few humans who do understand it, are awfully slow.
The whole idea behind the chatbot is to pretend to be human. Teaching it to factorise quickly would be counterproductive.
Valid. That would depend largely on the software, though. Irrespective of the computer's ability to perform the calculation, it would need to be programmed to do so. The bot could just as easily be trained to recognise maths problems and say something like "Why are you asking questions like that? I'm not good at/I don't want to talk about maths." Like a human might.
Just as an aside, factoring numbers is supposed to be the thing that quantum computers would be good at, conventional computers will have sub-optimal speeds there.
That said, that number wasn't too big, so a conventional computer should handle just fine. It would depend on whether the software included any maths handling capability. Suzette would probably just respond "I wish I knew" as has been brought up earlier.
I managed to get a few lines of conversation but then it stopped. I was quite impressed with what I was given though. Excellent achievement, much better than ELIZA from some time ago...
I don't know, I'm only a second-year EE student and I understood what the blurb at the top of the page said... I haven't read the entire article, but I understood where it's going. If said discovery is true then it's a very interesting discovery indeed. As a poster earlier said, the method of solving systems (in this case referring to systems of linear equations - in this case I'm guessing fairly large ones) would in theory allow simulations etc. that would take hours or days to be done in minutes or seconds, on average.
If you want to understand more about what the article is talking about, a course or book in Linear Algebra would probably do you well. I'm guessing the part about the computational complexity of the method would be understood by most who frequent slashdot.
Um. Dude. There are no interstate highways in England. The motorways barely have a couple of metres in the middle and there's usually a concrete barrier in that area.
By Springbok the AC meant part of the Springbok Rugby team, the country's national team. He's mistaken though, I think, the player in question, if we're thinking of the same event, is a prop for the Blue Bulls, which is Pretoria's local team, not the Springboks.
That's a very good question. I'd go with no. There isn't as established a legal system here as in the States or other places, and the cops are used to getting away with pretty much anything they want. Citizens who attempt to take them to task for their misconduct and abuse of their power never get anywhere.
Disagreeing with the ruling party also gets you into trouble, branded a "racist" (came up elsewhere in thread as well), etc. All in all, not much fun.
I agree with you there, I'm South African, and the time I spent in the UK it seemed like paradise on the roads. Except on motorways, in the UK there isn't really opportunity to go fast, because the roads are narrow and twisty, and I love driving on that sort of roads, so I was more than happy to stick to 30mph. It's the long, straight, boring roads here that are a temptation to speed.
Here in South Africa, pretty much everything that the powers-that-be don't like is labelled "racism". The race card has become the national joke. In essence, every time someone suggests that some system or department or whatever is ineffective, that person is branded as a racist.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, if you want to play that game...
My current phone cost me the equivalent of about $120.
My current computer on the other hand, when I bought it anyway, cost something closer to $400 or $500 IIRC, and it's lasted about 5 years so far. I've been through about three phones in the same amount of time.
Granted, they've not been iPhones or Blackberries, but they're running Symbian so technically they do count as smartphones. My point stands, though, I go through phones much faster than PCs, so just to account for me over the last 5 years, manufacturers have had to ship 0.667 units of phones annually but only 0.2 units of PCs. I still use my PC more though.
Agreed. The other thing to consider here is that while someone might buy a new cellphone every year or two, or possibly more frequently if you're in the habit of breaking or losing it, a PC tends to be a bigger investment, possibly lasting up to 5 years, so naturally the number of units shipped per year would be lower.
This is modded "Insightful"?
Come on, Mods. And commenters for that matter. As has been said, this is an Alpha 1 release, as a preview for developers, not desktop users.
Perhaps I might just point out, that this is a common way of delivering articles on the Top Gear website. With these, the point is the pictures, with a little bit of text to provide a bit of a description.
The ad-money probably doesn't hurt either, though.
While I agree, using rhino horn for "idiotic herbal remedies" is completely inexcusable, it's not actually used as an aphrodisiac, but as a remedy for fever. I can't remember my reference for that, apologies, but it's a common misconception.
It would, artificially removing a mental ability is dumbing down. You are a wetware, aren't you?
Punch me, I bleed... I'd have thought my responses were intelligent enough that it would be realised that I'm not actually Suzette or Eliza posting on /.
I'll concede that point, I suppose. Still, I stand by my point, mathematical calculation isn't the purpose of a chatbot, so it would be unnecessary to build it in. If you wanted to perform calculations, things like MATLAB are there already.
From the wikipedia article:
The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to demonstrate intelligence. It proceeds as follows: a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which tries to appear human. All participants are placed in isolated locations. If the judge cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test
Quite a large part of this is how you define "intelligence". So for a chatbot not to have the ability to factorise large numbers (or in fact do any intense mathematical calculations) quickly doesn't necessarily mean it would be dumbed down. Humans who are considered intelligent can't do that. Some idiot savants can, but they're not considered intelligent in most normal senses.
"Intelligence" in this sense I'd take it to mean the ability to understand the concepts in the conversation, respond appropriately and creatively, that sort of thing. Obviously these chatbots in question just show the beginnings of being able to do this.
If your decision not to give them any money is based on their decision not to allow certain classes of software then your decision wouldn't be arbitrary.
I completely agree with you though.
A chatbot can be trained to factorize in a few minutes, most humans don't understand it at all and those few humans who do understand it, are awfully slow.
The whole idea behind the chatbot is to pretend to be human. Teaching it to factorise quickly would be counterproductive.
Valid. That would depend largely on the software, though. Irrespective of the computer's ability to perform the calculation, it would need to be programmed to do so. The bot could just as easily be trained to recognise maths problems and say something like "Why are you asking questions like that? I'm not good at/I don't want to talk about maths." Like a human might.
Just as an aside, factoring numbers is supposed to be the thing that quantum computers would be good at, conventional computers will have sub-optimal speeds there.
That said, that number wasn't too big, so a conventional computer should handle just fine. It would depend on whether the software included any maths handling capability. Suzette would probably just respond "I wish I knew" as has been brought up earlier.
That's ELIZA you're thinking of there.
I managed to get a few lines of conversation but then it stopped. I was quite impressed with what I was given though. Excellent achievement, much better than ELIZA from some time ago...
I don't know, I'm only a second-year EE student and I understood what the blurb at the top of the page said... I haven't read the entire article, but I understood where it's going. If said discovery is true then it's a very interesting discovery indeed. As a poster earlier said, the method of solving systems (in this case referring to systems of linear equations - in this case I'm guessing fairly large ones) would in theory allow simulations etc. that would take hours or days to be done in minutes or seconds, on average.
If you want to understand more about what the article is talking about, a course or book in Linear Algebra would probably do you well. I'm guessing the part about the computational complexity of the method would be understood by most who frequent slashdot.
Clearly it hasn't been working... Oh well...
Um. Dude. There are no interstate highways in England. The motorways barely have a couple of metres in the middle and there's usually a concrete barrier in that area.
What's wrong with Java? I love it, personally, I think it's elegant.
Here in South Africa as well, most ISPs only offer capped services.
I like bittorrent though, I think it's elegant.
"librarian" is in this case, an euphemism, I think.
If you can't figure out what for, what are you doing on slashdot?
By Springbok the AC meant part of the Springbok Rugby team, the country's national team. He's mistaken though, I think, the player in question, if we're thinking of the same event, is a prop for the Blue Bulls, which is Pretoria's local team, not the Springboks.
That's a very good question. I'd go with no. There isn't as established a legal system here as in the States or other places, and the cops are used to getting away with pretty much anything they want. Citizens who attempt to take them to task for their misconduct and abuse of their power never get anywhere.
Disagreeing with the ruling party also gets you into trouble, branded a "racist" (came up elsewhere in thread as well), etc. All in all, not much fun.
I agree with you there, I'm South African, and the time I spent in the UK it seemed like paradise on the roads. Except on motorways, in the UK there isn't really opportunity to go fast, because the roads are narrow and twisty, and I love driving on that sort of roads, so I was more than happy to stick to 30mph. It's the long, straight, boring roads here that are a temptation to speed.
i'm just saying he could probably drive if he wanted to, he's just too lazy.
He's probably traumatized by all forms of motorized transport as a result of his accident, you insensitive clod!
Try following your own advice.
Here in South Africa, pretty much everything that the powers-that-be don't like is labelled "racism". The race card has become the national joke. In essence, every time someone suggests that some system or department or whatever is ineffective, that person is branded as a racist.
Welcome to South Africa, ladies and gentlemen.
Thanks... Got no mod points ATM unfortunately.
That's very quick for an electric plane. Maybe they will need batteries.