I've heard it used concerning British scientists during WWII -- the folks who invented radar, decoded the German's enigma machine, designed the Spitfire. It was a term of endearment, I think.
Taiwan. It's not just about economics, but also politics, pride, and history.
Taiwan has an impressive microelectronics industry that serves the world. China sees Taiwan as an enemy which flourishes under Western protection near the Chinese mainland. By developing their own microprocessors, the Chinese can stop buying Taiwanese products and undercut their enemy's export market at the same time.
Look under the hood of your computer and you'll find a lot of parts that came from Taiwan. If a boatload of processors arrived in the USA with the label "Made by Bin Laden Inc." what would George Bush do?
There are at least three major population databases of EEG responses developed since 1977, and I assume that the same effort is underway for fMRI. However, averaging doesn't predict an individual's response (which is partly your point, I think), and this was the theme of my Master's thesis. So in a way I am agreeing with you.
But you don't *need* a database of averages because the individual serves as their own control. Imagine that you present a person with stimuli that he/she acknowledges is pleasant or repulsive, and see what parts of their brain light up over time.
Then present your test stimulus, such as an advertising slogan and compare the result.
I doubt that this is a very cost effective way to get marketing data, and considering all the people who can't get a proper diagnosis of their medical problems, it may be unethical to use up time on fancy fMRI machines just to gain another 0.6% of market share for some old brand of sweet carbonated cola.
P.S. This branch of neuroscience is just the tip of the iceberg. Presumably you could use similar self-comparison protocols to indentify if a person's brain is positively or negatively emotive toward a picture of Osama Bin Laden. There are specific pathways in the brain that process different kinds of recognition. The technology to visualize these processes is only going to get more refined, which is food for thought.
But seriously folks, lets have some studies that indicate emotive components can be accurately predicted from functional magnetic resonance imaging before we start foisting this crap on the unsuspecting public
Okay, how about a sample of some studies using fMRI or EEG -- these studies are not proof, but are "evidence", and there are dozens more: Posterior cingulate cortex activation by emotional words: fMRI evidence from a valence task, R.J. Maddock (University of California, Davis), Hum Brain Mapp 2003 Jan;18(1):30-41 Neural response to emotional faces with and without awareness: event-related fMRI...,Vuilleumier P (Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College, London), Neuropsychologia 2002;40(12):2156-66 Modulation of amygdalar activity by the conscious regulation of negative emotion., Schaefer SM et al. (Center for Cog. Neuroscience, U. Penn.), J Cogn Neurosci 2002 Aug 15;14(6):913-21 Neural processing of emotional faces requires attention., Pessoa L. et al (Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, NIMH), Proc Natl Acad Sci, 2002 Aug 20;99(17):11458-63 Functional networks in emotional moral and nonmoral social judgments., Moll J. et al (Neuroimaging and Behavioral Neurology Group, Hospitals D'Or and LABS, Rio de Janeiro), Neuroimage 2002 Jul;16(3 Pt 1):696-703 Brain circuits involved in emotional learning in antisocial behavior and social phobia in humans., Veit R. et al (Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, University of Tubingen), Neurosci Lett 2002 Aug 16;328(3):233-6 Prefrontal brain electrical asymmetry predicts the evaluation of affective stimuli., Sutton SK, Davidson RJ., Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Neuropsychologia 2000;38(13):1723-33
Heck, a mosquito with a brain the size of a pin head can escape from my swatting hand. Bzzzz bzzz all night long.
As far as I can tell, my hand is connected to my huge, monstrous, human brain for all the good that does for me. Ya gotta love biology for its sense of humor.
When they can get computers to fly around my room, survive, mate, and suck my blood -- why, then I'll be impressed (or afraid, very...).
I disconnected the cooling system on my computer as you suggested. Now my PC isn't working!! I'm not sure that I ever did get all the wires stuffed back in right. It was my dad's PC, and will he ever be p****d. Could you look at the photos of what we did and make a suggestion?http://www.physics.auburn.edu/~plasma/f usion/fusion_lab/cth/updates/dismantling_cat.htm
If you have a slow CPU you don't have to worry. Being an experimentalist by training, I just tested it out on a 350 MHz Pentium II. I ran the CPU for an hour under two conditions: 100% usage with F@H, and at 5% usage. There was absolutely no difference to the CPU temperature (39 C) over that time. YMMV.
I agree that natural selection might have created smart reptiles if the dinosaurs had survived. I was showing how a different story can make natural selection *seem* intelligent. Or not.
The original post implies that the extinction of dinosaurs was a failure of the imperative to survive. Hence, natural selection appears to be UNintelligent. It was stupid enough to let the dinosaurs die, after all.
But, if you believe that dinosaurs had to die out in order that mammals evolve intelligence, then natural selection seems intelligent. Extinction of the dinosaurs let mammals expand, leading to (trumpet blare) humanity. This perspective takes a longer-term view. Not that I believe this, I'm just illustrating another viewpoint.
Cynics might think that humanity evolved because natural selection really IS stupid. I'm not sure they're wrong.
Personally, I don't think the survival of any single species proves anything about the intelligence of natural selection.
Besides, if the meteor theory is correct, natural selection didn't kill the dinosaurs -- a meteor did. Natural selection, even if it is an intelligent process, does not promise to protect a species against every possible catastrophe. Even intelligent people get injured or die through no fault of their own. Intelligence does not necessarily make a you, or your species, safe from harm. S_t happens.
Intelligence, as we perceive it, is partly determined by our personal biases. To some people, natural selection is an unintelligent process and intelligence is accidental. To others, natural selection shows evidence of a non-divine intelligence (laws of physics are beautiful and intelligent, but unconscious). To others, the results of natural selection prove that a conscious omniscient intelligence is guiding fate.
Some people believe that intelligence imbues homeopathic water, religious icons, and tobacco executives. I don't, but that's my bias.
When looking for evidence of intelligence, what you already believe is probably what you'll find.
Braitenberg's work does this to people. It makes them say things like "that's not intelligence", "chance is not intelligence", process is not intelligence, etc.
I am unimpressed when people say what intelligence is not. To be saying anything about intelligence, you must also say what it is. All you can offer is that intelligence is "something different." You have said nothing.
Maybe intelligence is mostly our perception. Like opinions about art, you know it when you see it, but others may not agree with you.
You say that if natural selection were intelligent, the dinosaurs would still be alive. Well, consider a different perspective. If the dinosaurs were still alive, mammals would still be rodents hunted down by reptilian carnivores, humans would never have evolved, and there would be no "intelligent" species in existence. From that standpoint, evolution brilliantly managed the development of an intelligent species on the planet by making the dinosaurs vulnerable.
Most people think that for a behavior to be intelligent, it must come from a conscious entity. Maybe. Maybe not. Braitenberg shows that considerable intelligence in behavior is possible without a unitary consciousness.
Which brings up the topic of consciousness, but that's a topic for another day.
I heard about this book at the first conference on Artificial Life at Los Alamos in 1988. Maybe I'm out of the loop, but I don't hear Braitenberg's work discussed as much as it deserves to be. The core concept, that great complexity can arise from the interaction of simple systems, is also demonstrated by Cellular Automata, but "Vehicles" has a beauty and simplicity that makes it a classic.
I think breakthroughs in AI will probably come from people who are familiar with physiology (especially biophysics), or some new branch of mathematics. So many theoreticians from cognitive science, computer science, psychology, and psychiatry ignore physiology. I can't blame them, I suppose -- the field is unbelievably complex.
In any case, "Vehicles" should be required reading for anyone aspiring to have a degree in systems, human or otherwise (and that includes/.ers)
On hearing the program, I'm feeling cranky about two things (and I speak as someone who was interviewed by Quirks & Quarks about studies in measuring brain activity).
First, I don't think Kurzweil has said anything that Hans Moravec ("Mind Children") and Marvin Minsky didn't say a long time ago. Minsky contemplated about machines transcending us, and Moravec long ago used Moore's law to predict when computers will be as complicated (he thinks) as human brains. Kurzweil is recycling other people's ideas.
Second, Kurzweil (like other MIT hardware guys) talks about the brain with the underlying assumption that it is just a collection of processing units (neurons) connected by simple electrical contacts (dendrites and synapses). In fact, the entire body of a neuron is chock-a-block full of calcium channels and tiny pores that are regulated by hundreds of different chemicals. Every year, new processes are discovered. Some chemicals are moved into the cell by active molecular transporters. Some chemicals may move between regions of cells by gaseous diffusion. Not only will you have to scan the connections between each neuron, but you're going to have to mimic the action of all this oozy stuff in real time using silicon.
And what about hormones and polypeptides that regulate all kinds of activities at short ranges, and also throughout the body? "Thinking" and decision-making involve lots of input from centres that excrete tiny quantities of chemicals -- all of this will have to be "scanned" (whatever that means) at a molecular level. It won't do to merely list the size and position of 100 billion neurons and their 100 trillion connections. You'll have to model the far greater number of wet chemical processes on every neuron.
In the 1940s some people thought everything would be "atomic" by 1990. Atomic rockets, atomic cars, atomic radios. Today, just substitute the word "computational" or "silicon" for atomic and you can blather about nonsense in the year 2040 without having a clue of what it means.
I think the brain's "wetness" is an integral part of it's operation, and this makes it a very dynamic and complicated thing. To simply see the brain as a collection of tiny silicon CPUs wired together is naive. It's a theoretical model straight from the 1960s or earlier, before we knew much about the brain at all. A real breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence will probably arrive slowly, and probably be stimulated by people who learned modern (i.e. post-20th century) physiology when they were young.
Hence, I think the term "an expert in computers and artificial intelligence" is an oxymoron at this time.
Slashdot Mirror
I've heard it used concerning British scientists during WWII -- the folks who invented radar, decoded the German's enigma machine, designed the Spitfire. It was a term of endearment, I think.
Taiwan. It's not just about economics, but also politics, pride, and history.
Taiwan has an impressive microelectronics industry that serves the world. China sees Taiwan as an enemy which flourishes under Western protection near the Chinese mainland. By developing their own microprocessors, the Chinese can stop buying Taiwanese products and undercut their enemy's export market at the same time.
Look under the hood of your computer and you'll find a lot of parts that came from Taiwan. If a boatload of processors arrived in the USA with the label "Made by Bin Laden Inc." what would George Bush do?
There are at least three major population databases of EEG responses developed since 1977, and I assume that the same effort is underway for fMRI. However, averaging doesn't predict an individual's response (which is partly your point, I think), and this was the theme of my Master's thesis. So in a way I am agreeing with you.
But you don't *need* a database of averages because the individual serves as their own control. Imagine that you present a person with stimuli that he/she acknowledges is pleasant or repulsive, and see what parts of their brain light up over time.
Then present your test stimulus, such as an advertising slogan and compare the result.
I doubt that this is a very cost effective way to get marketing data, and considering all the people who can't get a proper diagnosis of their medical problems, it may be unethical to use up time on fancy fMRI machines just to gain another 0.6% of market share for some old brand of sweet carbonated cola.
P.S.
This branch of neuroscience is just the tip of the iceberg. Presumably you could use similar self-comparison protocols to indentify if a person's brain is positively or negatively emotive toward a picture of Osama Bin Laden. There are specific pathways in the brain that process different kinds of recognition. The technology to visualize these processes is only going to get more refined, which is food for thought.
But seriously folks, lets have some studies that indicate emotive components can be accurately predicted from functional magnetic resonance imaging before we start foisting this crap on the unsuspecting public
Okay, how about a sample of some studies using fMRI or EEG -- these studies are not proof, but are "evidence", and there are dozens more:
Posterior cingulate cortex activation by emotional words: fMRI evidence from a valence task, R.J. Maddock (University of California, Davis), Hum Brain Mapp 2003 Jan;18(1):30-41
Neural response to emotional faces with and without awareness: event-related fMRI...,Vuilleumier P (Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College, London), Neuropsychologia 2002;40(12):2156-66
Modulation of amygdalar activity by the conscious regulation of negative emotion., Schaefer SM et al. (Center for Cog. Neuroscience, U. Penn.), J Cogn Neurosci 2002 Aug 15;14(6):913-21
Neural processing of emotional faces requires attention., Pessoa L. et al (Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, NIMH), Proc Natl Acad Sci, 2002 Aug 20;99(17):11458-63
Functional networks in emotional moral and nonmoral social judgments., Moll J. et al (Neuroimaging and Behavioral Neurology Group, Hospitals D'Or and LABS, Rio de Janeiro), Neuroimage 2002 Jul;16(3 Pt 1):696-703
Brain circuits involved in emotional learning in antisocial behavior and social phobia in humans., Veit R. et al (Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, University of Tubingen), Neurosci Lett 2002 Aug 16;328(3):233-6
Prefrontal brain electrical asymmetry predicts the evaluation of affective stimuli., Sutton SK, Davidson RJ., Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Neuropsychologia 2000;38(13):1723-33
Heck, a mosquito with a brain the size of a pin head can escape from my swatting hand. Bzzzz bzzz all night long.
As far as I can tell, my hand is connected to my huge, monstrous, human brain for all the good that does for me. Ya gotta love biology for its sense of humor.
When they can get computers to fly around my room, survive, mate, and suck my blood -- why, then I'll be impressed (or afraid, very...).
I disconnected the cooling system on my computer as you suggested. Now my PC isn't working!! I'm not sure that I ever did get all the wires stuffed back in right. It was my dad's PC, and will he ever be p****d. Could you look at the photos of what we did and make a suggestion?http://www.physics.auburn.edu/~plasma/f usion/fusion_lab/cth/updates/dismantling_cat.htm
Regarding extra heat....
If you have a slow CPU you don't have to worry. Being an experimentalist by training, I just tested it out on a 350 MHz Pentium II. I ran the CPU for an hour under two conditions: 100% usage with F@H, and at 5% usage. There was absolutely no difference to the CPU temperature (39 C) over that time. YMMV.
I agree that natural selection might have created smart reptiles if the dinosaurs had survived. I was showing how a different story can make natural selection *seem* intelligent. Or not.
The original post implies that the extinction of dinosaurs was a failure of the imperative to survive. Hence, natural selection appears to be UNintelligent. It was stupid enough to let the dinosaurs die, after all.
But, if you believe that dinosaurs had to die out in order that mammals evolve intelligence, then natural selection seems intelligent. Extinction of the dinosaurs let mammals expand, leading to (trumpet blare) humanity. This perspective takes a longer-term view. Not that I believe this, I'm just illustrating another viewpoint.
Cynics might think that humanity evolved because natural selection really IS stupid. I'm not sure they're wrong.
Personally, I don't think the survival of any single species proves anything about the intelligence of natural selection.
Besides, if the meteor theory is correct, natural selection didn't kill the dinosaurs -- a meteor did. Natural selection, even if it is an intelligent process, does not promise to protect a species against every possible catastrophe. Even intelligent people get injured or die through no fault of their own. Intelligence does not necessarily make a you, or your species, safe from harm. S_t happens.
Intelligence, as we perceive it, is partly determined by our personal biases. To some people, natural selection is an unintelligent process and intelligence is accidental. To others, natural selection shows evidence of a non-divine intelligence (laws of physics are beautiful and intelligent, but unconscious). To others, the results of natural selection prove that a conscious omniscient intelligence is guiding fate.
Some people believe that intelligence imbues homeopathic water, religious icons, and tobacco executives. I don't, but that's my bias.
When looking for evidence of intelligence, what you already believe is probably what you'll find.
Braitenberg's work does this to people. It makes them say things like "that's not intelligence", "chance is not intelligence", process is not intelligence, etc.
I am unimpressed when people say what intelligence is not. To be saying anything about intelligence, you must also say what it is. All you can offer is that intelligence is "something different." You have said nothing.
Maybe intelligence is mostly our perception. Like opinions about art, you know it when you see it, but others may not agree with you.
You say that if natural selection were intelligent, the dinosaurs would still be alive. Well, consider a different perspective. If the dinosaurs were still alive, mammals would still be rodents hunted down by reptilian carnivores, humans would never have evolved, and there would be no "intelligent" species in existence. From that standpoint, evolution brilliantly managed the development of an intelligent species on the planet by making the dinosaurs vulnerable.
Most people think that for a behavior to be intelligent, it must come from a conscious entity. Maybe. Maybe not. Braitenberg shows that considerable intelligence in behavior is possible without a unitary consciousness.
Which brings up the topic of consciousness, but that's a topic for another day.
I heard about this book at the first conference on Artificial Life at Los Alamos in 1988. Maybe I'm out of the loop, but I don't hear Braitenberg's work discussed as much as it deserves to be. The core concept, that great complexity can arise from the interaction of simple systems, is also demonstrated by Cellular Automata, but "Vehicles" has a beauty and simplicity that makes it a classic.
/.ers)
I think breakthroughs in AI will probably come from people who are familiar with physiology (especially biophysics), or some new branch of mathematics. So many theoreticians from cognitive science, computer science, psychology, and psychiatry ignore physiology. I can't blame them, I suppose -- the field is unbelievably complex.
In any case, "Vehicles" should be required reading for anyone aspiring to have a degree in systems, human or otherwise (and that includes
On hearing the program, I'm feeling cranky about two things (and I speak as someone who was interviewed by Quirks & Quarks about studies in measuring brain activity).
First, I don't think Kurzweil has said anything that Hans Moravec ("Mind Children") and Marvin Minsky didn't say a long time ago. Minsky contemplated about machines transcending us, and Moravec long ago used Moore's law to predict when computers will be as complicated (he thinks) as human brains. Kurzweil is recycling other people's ideas.
Second, Kurzweil (like other MIT hardware guys) talks about the brain with the underlying assumption that it is just a collection of processing units (neurons) connected by simple electrical contacts (dendrites and synapses). In fact, the entire body of a neuron is chock-a-block full of calcium channels and tiny pores that are regulated by hundreds of different chemicals. Every year, new processes are discovered. Some chemicals are moved into the cell by active molecular transporters. Some chemicals may move between regions of cells by gaseous diffusion. Not only will you have to scan the connections between each neuron, but you're going to have to mimic the action of all this oozy stuff in real time using silicon.
And what about hormones and polypeptides that regulate all kinds of activities at short ranges, and also throughout the body? "Thinking" and decision-making involve lots of input from centres that excrete tiny quantities of chemicals -- all of this will have to be "scanned" (whatever that means) at a molecular level. It won't do to merely list the size and position of 100 billion neurons and their 100 trillion connections. You'll have to model the far greater number of wet chemical processes on every neuron.
In the 1940s some people thought everything would be "atomic" by 1990. Atomic rockets, atomic cars, atomic radios. Today, just substitute the word "computational" or "silicon" for atomic and you can blather about nonsense in the year 2040 without having a clue of what it means.
I think the brain's "wetness" is an integral part of it's operation, and this makes it a very dynamic and complicated thing. To simply see the brain as a collection of tiny silicon CPUs wired together is naive. It's a theoretical model straight from the 1960s or earlier, before we knew much about the brain at all. A real breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence will probably arrive slowly, and probably be stimulated by people who learned modern (i.e. post-20th century) physiology when they were young.
Hence, I think the term "an expert in computers and artificial intelligence" is an oxymoron at this time.