Boyden warns that a very clever AI without a sense of purpose might very well 'realize the impermanence of everything, calculate that the sun will burn out in a few billion years, and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence.'
This is silly. Why would a machine without a sense of purpose or drive decide to play video games or seek entertainment or do anything except just sit there? Playing games would result from the wrong motivation ("wrong" from a certain perspective, anyway) not from the lack of any motivation.
Agreed. Unless of course intelligence entails motivation. Obviously we have to be careful with the way we use motivation here in order not to anthropomorphize it but any machine that is intelligent will need to be able to learn and to learn it will need to be motivated (even if motivation is determined by some definition of fit(test) in a genetic algorithm). Frankly I can't see calling anything intelligent that cannot learn and I don't think anything can learn without motivation (assuming of course that you believe that learning is something more than memorization and calculation). So, if motivation is required, then we need to make sure that the motivation is a "good" or at least a "not dangerous" one. For example, "accumulate as much energy as possible" could result in the mechanical equivalent of a megalomaniac and something as basic as "self-preservation" could easily go awry. Obviously finding the appropriate motivation that is general enough to produce general intelligence but restricted enough that the results aren't pathological is going to be really difficult. We humans haven't figured it out yet. We call these human motivations the "true", the "good", and the "beautiful" and we are no better now than Plato was at explaining these things. But there is no need to apply human words to this machine motivation. In any case I am not in the slightest concerned that we will be producing machines that suffer from existential angst. In that sense the example above is totally ridiculous.
P.S. I've noticed some people raising the issue of free will. I think that's a red herring. Any sufficiently self-correcting algorithm (genetic, etc) will work just fine.
Um, that's the core of the scientology "religion". You should know this.
And yes, it is indeed the fevered mumblings of a burnt-out science fiction author who has indulged in too much alcohol and too many prescription painkillers.
No we haven't. Changes to the world have been unplanned and unsystematic, which is not engineering.
False. We have been "geoengineering" the earth for thousands of years. We have clear cut forests, changed the path of waterways, terraced the sides mountains, etc. Sure, the scale is different given that the climate affects everyone, but given that we have screwed up the environment doing these things through unintended consequences what makes you think we ought to be messing with the climate?
That's like an overweight person reading an advert for "Body engineering - reduce your weight" and saying "No way, look where body engineering has got me!"
Uh, no. Not even close. It's like taking a knife away from a child before he moves on to hurting himself or other people after he has destroyed the kitchen table.
That's one way to do it. There are others but usually that requires a leader. You know, someone that can figure out what motivates people? That person then matches people to projects, unity of purpose and all that crap. Now, beyond getting the right people on the right project, it does have to be a bit organic but it can be managed. So, the reason that "team building exercises" usually suck is that they are easy and formulaic. They are not designed for people who want to lead. They are designed for people who do not want or know how to lead. They are like the fast food version of team building.
We have been doing that for the last couple hundred years with horrible effect. You know the funny thing about each of these recommendations is that they say these projects are feasible but don't talk about what could go wrong, how to fix them, and the cost of both. Ridiculous. In my mind we should of course reduce production of CO2 but we should also prepare for the inevitable fact that governments will move too slowly and we are going to need to mitigate a lot of the damage. Some of these mitigation strategies are going to take a long time to plan and we should start now.
Unless you are creating a weapon... Obviously killing someone instantly would be worthless (just use a bomb), but if they could increase the mortality rate while maintaining the contagious period, then some crazy people might find it interesting.
Western Countries still have plenty of people with lots of illogical hatred. I think that if Britain were to do this it would go a long way to further showing how backward the US is in it's own hatreds. If you tried this in the US there would actually be a huge political backlash. And an apology doesn't have to mean you are weak, an apology just has to mean you were too cruel in the past, and that the government by the people and for the people will try to do better to preserve your basic human rights.
I agree with your sentiment but to simply right off hatred as illogical is a bit naive. It depends on your calculus. As long as maintaining that hate has some advantage (social, etc..) people will embrace it. You need to change the context in which the hate provides some benefit in order to get rid of it.
I don't drive but I have seen the same behaviour by pedestrians. I just can't understand that people don't realize they could be killed by their own stupidity.
As someone who doesn't drive and has almost been runover several times when legally crossing the street by some damn idiot on his or her cell phone or texting I have no problem with this...
Gee, I wonder where all of these anti-trust concerns came from regarding Google? Gee, I wonder why Eric Schmidt and Arthur Levinson had to leave Apple's board? So, lame. And pathetic. I know some people will say that every company does this... And that's fine but it doesn't make it right. In fact it just makes MS look... lame and pathetic. Oh we can't compete let's lobby!
The internet has very many technical shortcoming and many businesses make their living off of compensating for them. It turns out that the trade-off between fixing the technical problems and paying someone to compensate for them falls in favor of paying someone. What's the problem here? The only reason to make the technical changes is when the costs are too high (which apparently hasn't happened yet) or physical limits are reached (e.g. running out of IP v.4 addresses). I don't see a problem with this...
I think people need a refresher on the definition of flamebait. Just because I was condescending and smug doesn't mean it was flamebait. There was a point to the post beyond the insult.
Ok, let me pee on everyone's parade and burn some karma.
Simplify to this:
"Stupid people do stupid things that cause them to die sooner." Not that there aren't stupid people everywhere, but in America we still have the right to be wrong to a much greater extent than the nanny states in Europe.
So much for leaving politics out of it. Your naive libertarianism is cute. Smart people make bad decisions and bad things happen to people that don't deserve it. God forbid either of them happens to you lest your little libertarian bubble burst and you have to swallow your pride and admit you're wrong. Anyhow, I'm more libertarian than a fan of the dailyKos myself but it's obvious that nearly all of the successful people in our country had some advantage other than or in addition to intelligence. We don't live in a meritocracy. And to the extent we don't that demonstrates how much the government has yet to do.
And so? What's the problem? They have an interest in selling their test and have demonstrated that what it detects is possible and can be detected with the test. It's called proof of concept.
The judge said it all. We are entitled to Fair Use but any attempt to exercise that right is illegal. There are two ways that this can change: Congress or the Supreme Court. I have little faith in either.
Can't we ban these companies form doing that kind of business with Iran, China, UAE, etc and any business that does do business with them from doing business with Europe and the US? It's not like this stuff is trivial and they could come up with it on their own tomorrow. I guess the wild card is Russia.
Meh. That's a gross simplification. Many people in America are conditioned to believe exactly the opposite: the government screws everything up and corporations do everything right. I think most of the anger in the US comes from those who have had that little bubble burst.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like their research needs funding.
Boyden warns that a very clever AI without a sense of purpose might very well 'realize the impermanence of everything, calculate that the sun will burn out in a few billion years, and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence.'
This is silly. Why would a machine without a sense of purpose or drive decide to play video games or seek entertainment or do anything except just sit there? Playing games would result from the wrong motivation ("wrong" from a certain perspective, anyway) not from the lack of any motivation.
Agreed. Unless of course intelligence entails motivation. Obviously we have to be careful with the way we use motivation here in order not to anthropomorphize it but any machine that is intelligent will need to be able to learn and to learn it will need to be motivated (even if motivation is determined by some definition of fit(test) in a genetic algorithm). Frankly I can't see calling anything intelligent that cannot learn and I don't think anything can learn without motivation (assuming of course that you believe that learning is something more than memorization and calculation). So, if motivation is required, then we need to make sure that the motivation is a "good" or at least a "not dangerous" one. For example, "accumulate as much energy as possible" could result in the mechanical equivalent of a megalomaniac and something as basic as "self-preservation" could easily go awry. Obviously finding the appropriate motivation that is general enough to produce general intelligence but restricted enough that the results aren't pathological is going to be really difficult. We humans haven't figured it out yet. We call these human motivations the "true", the "good", and the "beautiful" and we are no better now than Plato was at explaining these things. But there is no need to apply human words to this machine motivation. In any case I am not in the slightest concerned that we will be producing machines that suffer from existential angst. In that sense the example above is totally ridiculous.
P.S. I've noticed some people raising the issue of free will. I think that's a red herring. Any sufficiently self-correcting algorithm (genetic, etc) will work just fine.
And then immediately pass a law that says Scientology is not a religion.
Um, that's the core of the scientology "religion". You should know this.
And yes, it is indeed the fevered mumblings of a burnt-out science fiction author who has indulged in too much alcohol and too many prescription painkillers.
Somebody's sarcasm meter is broken.
No we haven't. Changes to the world have been unplanned and unsystematic, which is not engineering.
False. We have been "geoengineering" the earth for thousands of years. We have clear cut forests, changed the path of waterways, terraced the sides mountains, etc. Sure, the scale is different given that the climate affects everyone, but given that we have screwed up the environment doing these things through unintended consequences what makes you think we ought to be messing with the climate?
That's like an overweight person reading an advert for "Body engineering - reduce your weight" and saying "No way, look where body engineering has got me!"
Uh, no. Not even close. It's like taking a knife away from a child before he moves on to hurting himself or other people after he has destroyed the kitchen table.
That's one way to do it. There are others but usually that requires a leader. You know, someone that can figure out what motivates people? That person then matches people to projects, unity of purpose and all that crap. Now, beyond getting the right people on the right project, it does have to be a bit organic but it can be managed. So, the reason that "team building exercises" usually suck is that they are easy and formulaic. They are not designed for people who want to lead. They are designed for people who do not want or know how to lead. They are like the fast food version of team building.
We have been doing that for the last couple hundred years with horrible effect. You know the funny thing about each of these recommendations is that they say these projects are feasible but don't talk about what could go wrong, how to fix them, and the cost of both. Ridiculous. In my mind we should of course reduce production of CO2 but we should also prepare for the inevitable fact that governments will move too slowly and we are going to need to mitigate a lot of the damage. Some of these mitigation strategies are going to take a long time to plan and we should start now.
Unless you are creating a weapon... Obviously killing someone instantly would be worthless (just use a bomb), but if they could increase the mortality rate while maintaining the contagious period, then some crazy people might find it interesting.
3d0 is a failed gaming console.
Western Countries still have plenty of people with lots of illogical hatred. I think that if Britain were to do this it would go a long way to further showing how backward the US is in it's own hatreds. If you tried this in the US there would actually be a huge political backlash. And an apology doesn't have to mean you are weak, an apology just has to mean you were too cruel in the past, and that the government by the people and for the people will try to do better to preserve your basic human rights.
I agree with your sentiment but to simply right off hatred as illogical is a bit naive. It depends on your calculus. As long as maintaining that hate has some advantage (social, etc..) people will embrace it. You need to change the context in which the hate provides some benefit in order to get rid of it.
I don't drive but I have seen the same behaviour by pedestrians. I just can't understand that people don't realize they could be killed by their own stupidity.
As someone who doesn't drive and has almost been runover several times when legally crossing the street by some damn idiot on his or her cell phone or texting I have no problem with this...
Gee, I wonder where all of these anti-trust concerns came from regarding Google? Gee, I wonder why Eric Schmidt and Arthur Levinson had to leave Apple's board? So, lame. And pathetic. I know some people will say that every company does this... And that's fine but it doesn't make it right. In fact it just makes MS look... lame and pathetic. Oh we can't compete let's lobby!
The internet has very many technical shortcoming and many businesses make their living off of compensating for them. It turns out that the trade-off between fixing the technical problems and paying someone to compensate for them falls in favor of paying someone. What's the problem here? The only reason to make the technical changes is when the costs are too high (which apparently hasn't happened yet) or physical limits are reached (e.g. running out of IP v.4 addresses). I don't see a problem with this...
you'd have a flashlight...
I think people need a refresher on the definition of flamebait. Just because I was condescending and smug doesn't mean it was flamebait. There was a point to the post beyond the insult.
Ok, let me pee on everyone's parade and burn some karma.
Simplify to this:
"Stupid people do stupid things that cause them to die sooner." Not that there aren't stupid people everywhere, but in America we still have the
right to be wrong to a much greater extent than the nanny states in Europe.
So much for leaving politics out of it. Your naive libertarianism is cute. Smart people make bad decisions and bad things happen to people that don't deserve it. God forbid either of them happens to you lest your little libertarian bubble burst and you have to swallow your pride and admit you're wrong. Anyhow, I'm more libertarian than a fan of the dailyKos myself but it's obvious that nearly all of the successful people in our country had some advantage other than or in addition to intelligence. We don't live in a meritocracy. And to the extent we don't that demonstrates how much the government has yet to do.
And so? What's the problem? They have an interest in selling their test and have demonstrated that what it detects is possible and can be detected with the test. It's called proof of concept.
The judge said it all. We are entitled to Fair Use but any attempt to exercise that right is illegal. There are two ways that this can change: Congress or the Supreme Court. I have little faith in either.
Can't we ban these companies form doing that kind of business with Iran, China, UAE, etc and any business that does do business with them from doing business with Europe and the US? It's not like this stuff is trivial and they could come up with it on their own tomorrow. I guess the wild card is Russia.
++
I agree 100%. I still don't understand why this charlatan gets so much press on Slashdot. Probably because it causes people like you and I to post.
Meh. That's a gross simplification. Many people in America are conditioned to believe exactly the opposite: the government screws everything up and corporations do everything right. I think most of the anger in the US comes from those who have had that little bubble burst.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. Most people in the US can barely contain their rage about the AIG bailout.
Yeah except Mac OS X already runs on ARM. Ever heard of the iPhone?
Yeah, yeah, but it was funnier to post her old pictures.