Self citation I know!
The question in it self may be lame if you are unaware that:
The cognitive sciences have unveiled a lot about the emotional system, which, in humans, is inherent from the evolutionary lower specieses such as flies, worms, snails, rats, cats, dogs, primates (including humans). Fear conditioning has been reported on all these (and many more) specieses. Yes, we seem to share the same neurological curcuits as those animals in our emotional system.
The functionality of the mechanisms behind emotions and behavior are now that well understood, that scientists are able to constuct computational models of the relevant areas of the brain.
The most relevant areas of the brain implementing the emotional system are amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex (or ventromedial prefrontal lobe) depending on a general view on animals or humans respectively.
It won't be long until computational model based on these findings make their way into applied AI. So the question is wheather agents that are implememted with these models will have emotions/feelings or not?
We all know about the Turing test, which suposedly (in numorous editions) are meant to tell wheather a computer program is intelligent or not. What about feelings or at least emotions? Do You have any criterions that distinguishes non-emotional/non-feeling computer software from emotional/feeling computer software?
Yes, manufacturing, maintaining and selling cars is expensive. That is three issues. But you forgot to add the developing of new cars.
We (the consumers) demand cars with ever more advanced technologies installed. Those technologies don't just appear out of the air - they are developed just like any software are developed. Development costs! The car companies have to gain profit for this development overhead - and the scheduled maintinance checks seem right on target for that.
This is so untrue! When new cars are sent on the market today, they are usually required a maintinace check every so often. If you, as an owner of the car, don't meet those demands, you can forget about reselling your car for a reasonable price. Today cars have a sort of jounal, almost like humans. If I were to buy a 2001 Mercedes I'd demand that the car had been properly checked in an authorized repairshop/dealer when the factory required it. If it had been stuffed with unauthorized parts I wouldn't buy it. I believe that, due to these policies from the car companies, the maintinance expences has increased in the recent years.
No, what I mean is that it is nice to be able to use the code you have already written in C. It is not uncommon that current versions of applications are based on C-code that was written 10+ years ago. If that code works you wouldn't rewrite it using D. It could easily pay off to to switch to a programming language which both lets you reuse that old code with a minimum of work and lets you produce new code faster on top of it.
If D wasn't compatible with your old C-code at all, switching to it wouldn't be an option.
Yup! Medical companies are developing drugs if they can sell them and make money on them. It's really that simple. If they couldn't profit from a drug they wouldn't develop.
If some company came about a possible drug which *might* be able to cure AIDS they would have to take into account the cost of refining and testing the drug. If the cure worked, the whole world would probably demand that the company gave it away for free to the countries who have the most cases of AIDS. Those same countries are not able to pay the price that would normally be charged in Europe or the US. The company would get into trouble either way: they give the drug for free and go bankrupt, or they don't give it away and will have the whole world on their backs forever.
So the company may decide that it is not profitable to develop the drug even though it might be possible.
The same goes for cures for malaria.
The current global capitalistic system won't save the world. Unfortunately there may be no other good alternatives.
At some point Elena writes:
"who can count how many people died of radiation? no one, even approximately. Some tell that 400.000 dead,soyuzchernobyl report of 300.000 people that died since 1986 and this is not over, in 30 years people will still die"
This is probably not realistic. In 2002 the UN published a repport, which described the effects of the accident.
You can find it here:
Here I quote some of the passages, which describes the worst consequences of the accident:
1.26
"Morbidity in the affected areas continues to reflect the pattern in other parts of the Former Soviet Union".
1.28
"No reliable evidence has emerged of an increase in leukemias, which had been predicted to result from the accident. Howerver, som two thousand cases of thyriod cancer have so far been diagnosed among young people exposed to radioactive iodine in April and May 1986. According to conservative extimates, this figure is likely to rise to 8-10.000 over the coming years. While thyroid cancer can be treated, all of these people will need continuing medical attention".
4.15 Box 4.2
"The most prominent deterministic effect following the Chernobyl accident was the death of 28 highly exposed individuals from acute radiation sickness within 4 months of exposure. (In addition, up to the end of 1998 eleven others have died)."
----
So in 1998 39 peoble had died because of the accident, and 2000 cases of thyriod cancer had been diagnosed. This type of cancer is treatable, but some of these cases may die because of the missing opportunities for treatment in the area.
Although the death of 39 people (and probably some more since 1998) certainly is a tragedy it is not comparable to the 3-400.000 Elena mentions.
Slashdot Mirror
I have an account on spymac but it hasn't been stable since i signed in. Half the times if tried to log in I was met by some server error.
It's fine to provide 1G of space, but if users can't access their mail on demand, it's not an option.
They tried to be first movers, but they couldn't handle it - therefore they die.
Self citation I know! The question in it self may be lame if you are unaware that:
The cognitive sciences have unveiled a lot about the emotional system, which, in humans, is inherent from the evolutionary lower specieses such as flies, worms, snails, rats, cats, dogs, primates (including humans). Fear conditioning has been reported on all these (and many more) specieses. Yes, we seem to share the same neurological curcuits as those animals in our emotional system.
The functionality of the mechanisms behind emotions and behavior are now that well understood, that scientists are able to constuct computational models of the relevant areas of the brain. The most relevant areas of the brain implementing the emotional system are amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex (or ventromedial prefrontal lobe) depending on a general view on animals or humans respectively. It won't be long until computational model based on these findings make their way into applied AI. So the question is wheather agents that are implememted with these models will have emotions/feelings or not?
We all know about the Turing test, which suposedly (in numorous editions) are meant to tell wheather a computer program is intelligent or not. What about feelings or at least emotions? Do You have any criterions that distinguishes non-emotional/non-feeling computer software from emotional/feeling computer software?
Yes, manufacturing, maintaining and selling cars is expensive. That is three issues. But you forgot to add the developing of new cars.
We (the consumers) demand cars with ever more advanced technologies installed. Those technologies don't just appear out of the air - they are developed just like any software are developed. Development costs! The car companies have to gain profit for this development overhead - and the scheduled maintinance checks seem right on target for that.
This is so untrue! When new cars are sent on the market today, they are usually required a maintinace check every so often. If you, as an owner of the car, don't meet those demands, you can forget about reselling your car for a reasonable price. Today cars have a sort of jounal, almost like humans. If I were to buy a 2001 Mercedes I'd demand that the car had been properly checked in an authorized repairshop/dealer when the factory required it. If it had been stuffed with unauthorized parts I wouldn't buy it. I believe that, due to these policies from the car companies, the maintinance expences has increased in the recent years.
Exactly! And add to that:
They want you to go to their repairshops for the "required" maintinance checks every 30.000 km or so.
If you don't: forget about reselling your car for a reasonable price.
If you do: pay up!
No, what I mean is that it is nice to be able to use the code you have already written in C. It is not uncommon that current versions of applications are based on C-code that was written 10+ years ago. If that code works you wouldn't rewrite it using D. It could easily pay off to to switch to a programming language which both lets you reuse that old code with a minimum of work and lets you produce new code faster on top of it.
If D wasn't compatible with your old C-code at all, switching to it wouldn't be an option.
You won't rewrite all your code just because you switch to another language. Reusing existing code is good.
Yup! Medical companies are developing drugs if they can sell them and make money on them. It's really that simple. If they couldn't profit from a drug they wouldn't develop.
If some company came about a possible drug which *might* be able to cure AIDS they would have to take into account the cost of refining and testing the drug. If the cure worked, the whole world would probably demand that the company gave it away for free to the countries who have the most cases of AIDS. Those same countries are not able to pay the price that would normally be charged in Europe or the US. The company would get into trouble either way: they give the drug for free and go bankrupt, or they don't give it away and will have the whole world on their backs forever.
So the company may decide that it is not profitable to develop the drug even though it might be possible.
The same goes for cures for malaria.
The current global capitalistic system won't save the world. Unfortunately there may be no other good alternatives.
At some point Elena writes:
f
"who can count how many people died of radiation? no one, even approximately. Some tell that 400.000 dead,soyuzchernobyl report of 300.000 people that died since 1986 and this is not over, in 30 years people will still die"
This is probably not realistic. In 2002 the UN published a repport, which described the effects of the accident.
You can find it here:
http://www.undp.org/dpa/publications/chernobyl.pd
Here I quote some of the passages, which describes the worst consequences of the accident:
1.26 "Morbidity in the affected areas continues to reflect the pattern in other parts of the Former Soviet Union".
1.28 "No reliable evidence has emerged of an increase in leukemias, which had been predicted to result from the accident. Howerver, som two thousand cases of thyriod cancer have so far been diagnosed among young people exposed to radioactive iodine in April and May 1986. According to conservative extimates, this figure is likely to rise to 8-10.000 over the coming years. While thyroid cancer can be treated, all of these people will need continuing medical attention".
4.15 Box 4.2
"The most prominent deterministic effect following the Chernobyl accident was the death of 28 highly exposed individuals from acute radiation sickness within 4 months of exposure. (In addition, up to the end of 1998 eleven others have died)."
----
So in 1998 39 peoble had died because of the accident, and 2000 cases of thyriod cancer had been diagnosed. This type of cancer is treatable, but some of these cases may die because of the missing opportunities for treatment in the area.
Although the death of 39 people (and probably some more since 1998) certainly is a tragedy it is not comparable to the 3-400.000 Elena mentions.