"Cool! Hopefully, this'll be big enough to put Duke Nukem Forever on it! Oh, oh! And it'll have enough space for all those Phantom Console games I'll be downloading."
Seriously, though. Sometimes I wish researchers would just go voltron* with manufacturers and get the product out and surprise the crap out of all of us apathetic slashdotters awaiting our be-all-end-all data storage medium, as well as flying cars, hoverboards and the whole gamut of consumer electronics novelties that only have seven years left until they are supposed to have already been in use.
*yes, this is the first time the phrase "go voltron" being defined as a synonym for "team up" has appeared in print.
I'm wondering more about the development of a human-level consciousness and whether or not this can develop with or without being situated in an environment. I realize I might have over-generalized stating that there is a lack of consideration for embodiment in artificial intelligence research, but anecdotally this statement feels right, so I made it.
Also, I'm sure the desire for you to put me down is strong, but I don't think my philosophical musings lack substance. In fact, whether or not they are substantial isn't even the question here. I'm looking for an answer and so I asked a question. Soccer-robots are not conscious as I define conscious entities, so you've made a bit of a false analogy. And one researcher making a statement, no matter how important he or she is, does not make the entire field come over to their side.
Anyhow, with that said, nice pics on your site. Capri Island place looks pretty cool. BTW, the F-15 collison video isn't working, but it's not linked from your site... Too bad, I was looking forward to watching it!:)
As an undergraduate philosophy student interested in the theoretical implications of A.I., could you tell me what your thoughts are on the validity of the assumption that artificial intelligence is possible separate from the notion of embodiment? I think the lack of consideration given embodiment is one reason why artificial intelligence researchers have come up empty-handed so far in their quest to synthesize a conscious, self-reflective entity.
To ask the question more succinctly, do you think a mind needs a body and possibly and environment to interact with in order to be conscious, or can a mind exist and know itself independent of an external context?
1. Fabric paint is a pain in the ass to deal with, and must be applied with a heavy hand if sharp edges on lines are desired. It would have probably helped if I...
...........
5. If posting to link myself in a tighter-than-skin-tight bodysuit to slashdot, think really hard about whether or not I'm ok with having my just-about-naked-self being seen and potentially mocked by hundreds of thousands of people.
No, obviously not when you get right down to it. Just like we can't trust closed-source e-voting software with it comes to our republic (the U.S.:), we can't trust close-source vendors whose systems power our infrastructure...that, without, the world would cease to function as it does today.
But what can anyone do? Are there any open-source makers of networking hardware?
Well, this costs as much as some new cheaper cars. It also, arguably, looks cooler than the Segway and travels underwater without the usual scuba gear / complicated breathing apparatuses. if i was rich, bored and wanted to have underwater paintball fights / play submarine bumper-tag, i'd buy one!
[sean connery] Sho Q, what do you have for me thish time? [/connery]
Thanks for that brief history of musical innovation:)
My 2 cents was mainly focused on the larger issue of innovation and how it's difficult to get the desire to innovate, or change or do anything different without constraints. Perpetual copyrights (perpetual, for the sake of dicussion:) do little to encourage so-called content producers to make more content, when they can just grow fatter off of already established streams of revenue.
This behavior is ultimately dangerous for them, though, as you pointed out with your example of Norah Jones. Eventually people will get tired of the same-old distribution systems, same-old musicians, etc, etc. They'll move on (in NJ's case, they have), leaving the industry stalwarts in the dust.
Thanks again for the type-up, very nice and very informative. I hope you get modded up!
A look at the Billboard Top 200 is an easy way to figure out, at least on an anecdotal level, that popular music sucks right now. For the most part, it's the same old artists, singing the same old things within their same old already-established genres. It's the same problem with the video game industry that everyone always complains about -- it's a lot easier to go with established acts (or artists or licenses) than to risk capital on something new that has the potential to either suck or be incredible.
This general trend of homogeneity has really been brought to bear over the last decade, from what I can tell. Companies really like sustained sources of revenue...ok, yeah, that's a given and has been since the beginning. Companies need it to survive and to grow. But isn't it good to create some nice challenges so that the companies can grow?
Challenges, like, say, the removal of perpetual copyright? If, for example, Disney couldn't keep making money off of old cartoons, wouldn't they have to seriously start making up some new stories or at least go back to the children's section at public library and read some Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson?
In the end, it's all about how we the people want corporations to act in the context of our republic (both the United States and in the larger sense of the collective of industrialized nations). Do we want to give them carte blanche to not innovate? Or do we want to help them along by pushing them a little? Folks, from what I can tell, will almost always take the road that's easiest and offers the most return for the least amount of risk or investment. Sometimes you have to guide them down that road, or at least show 'em where it starts.
>> Lucas explained rather clearly that they were going after the "30's serial" style of movie. That type of movie doesn't lend itself to modern 'good' dialog.
Heh, you KNOW it's gonna be good when he starts making excuses even before the title is released!:)
Also, when I think '30s movies, I think silent movies, even though talkies had been introduced before then. Given Anakin's acting ability, he should be much better with colorful interstitial signs explaining the scene rather than any sort of dialog coming out of his mouth.
>>I don't think Lucas realizes how movie tastes have changed since ANH originally hit theaters.
Yeah...He also doesn't realize that the composition of the audience didn't change between May 25, 1977 & May 25, 1983 so to be comprised entirely of 7-year old girls (see Ewoks). Also, someone should take it upon themselves to inform him that this non-existent demographic sea-change didn't keep on rockin' until Episode 1 came out (see: Jar-Jar).
Although the story is an exaggeration of the actual program, which does not use RFID, there is a real program called Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) being developed by the Department of Housing and Development. From my cursory glance, it seems as though it's a program to collect data on homeless in the name of cutting down crime and assisting them, rather than full-on movement tracking (think of the infrastructure costs!). Anyhow, EPIC discusses it here
"I'm sorry about obliterating all the storyline all those poor comic book writers and novelists wrote because I gave them permission. I'm so sorry. Oh, what was I thinking? Sorry.
And, since I'll have to say it later anyways, I'm sorry for "re-writing" the new Indiana Jones script. I know it's great where it is, right now, but I have to toy with it, after all, the character is my creation. So what if it never gets made?"
Do we really want to risk our young daughters eating abnormal quantities of lactoferrin and risking a higher rate of gigantomastia and breast cancer?
I think you mean gynecomastia. Women don't get it, so I'd be more concerned about our young sons looking like young daughters, more than anything else. But your point is taken. Messing with the natural way of things hasn't always worked in ways we have intended. Putting iodine in salt worked pretty well, but the creation of a rice-based pharmacy when a substantial number of people depend on rice as their sole staple does merit some cause for concern, IMHO.
thanks, i appreciate the insight, it's nice that i now have a reason behind the face-less design theme. i totally agree about hard to read faces...some folks' scariest childhood memories revolve around unblinking eyes or faces missing key components. an example would be if eastman & laird had kept the ninja turtle's pupils out of the cartoon show. they would have been way creepier and probably not done nearly as well.
fyi, when i mean "emotion" i'm not just talking about positive, so-cute-it-makes-guys-ovulate emotions, but scary, creepy emotions too. and maybe it's a question more of intensity. a de-skinned animatronic kitten with a lazy eye that glows krypton-green is less scary than a steel-lattice PCB cookie jar topped with an exaggerated primate head with a glowing green krypton eye with a grimacing i'm-gonna-eat-your-childrenface!
I don't know if this is a trend exhibited by the majority of Japanese android/robotics researchers, but from what I've seen they tend to follow a no-face design ethic that I'm most pleased with. I think it's safe to say that most people would find anthropomorphic robots that don't look 100% identical to people (there's something off with that one) very creepy.
And besides, these Japanese robots look way cooler and have this implied subservience about them, at least to me. It's a lot harder to humanize and attach (scary) emotion to something that's faceless and non-human looking, rather than something that looks like a hairy/scary-ass rendition of a planet of the apes extra.
At least you pay in USD for USDTV, right? Makes it simple! Instead of those other TV-over-UHF people that make you pay in Euros for USDTV or CAD for USDTV.
One reason I submitted this Ask Slashdot was because my ass has been saved by video game skuh-zills in the past.
Right after I got my license a few years after age 16, I had a truck and too much testosterone. I was driving down this long, paved road out in the middle of nowhere when all of a sudden I see the stop sign someways off. Now, I'm going about 80mph on what is little more than a long driveway. I hit the brakes and they lock up. All of a sudden I felt like I left my body and did some weird shit with the steering wheel and the stick-shift. All I can remember is something about Daytona USA. When I regained conscious control, I'm about four-feet away from a telephone pole near my door, in the gravel with a car just 10 feet away from my front bumper, probably wondering what the heck is going on.
I suppose this means I did the mother-of-all powerslides without flipping my truck or ending up smashed and possibly killed.
There are other stories too... But yeah, I believe that at least some video game skills transfer to real life, especially sega race car skills:)
Hey man! Don't diss the Slime Pit! That single toy is responsible for every fetishitic impulse in the United States since 1985!:)
Also, I think the device (that the article speaks of) is marvelous but there are many other issues like it probably ushering in the end of the last well-paying joe jobs left in the US. after the construction industry is mostly gone due to this machine's more adept descendents, what then? federally mandated burger-flipper jobs...er, crap, robots will be doing that...federally mandated high paying service jobs....damn, RFID blew that one outta the water...crap.
I suppose the moral of this story is: GO TO GRAD SCHOOL.
Slashdot Mirror
Check out my latest journal entry for a story.
You forgot:
"Cool! Hopefully, this'll be big enough to put Duke Nukem Forever on it! Oh, oh! And it'll have enough space for all those Phantom Console games I'll be downloading."
Seriously, though. Sometimes I wish researchers would just go voltron* with manufacturers and get the product out and surprise the crap out of all of us apathetic slashdotters awaiting our be-all-end-all data storage medium, as well as flying cars, hoverboards and the whole gamut of consumer electronics novelties that only have seven years left until they are supposed to have already been in use.
*yes, this is the first time the phrase "go voltron" being defined as a synonym for "team up" has appeared in print.
my bad! where were you when i was writing my post?:) apology noted in child post to grandparent. thanks!
I'm wondering more about the development of a human-level consciousness and whether or not this can develop with or without being situated in an environment. I realize I might have over-generalized stating that there is a lack of consideration for embodiment in artificial intelligence research, but anecdotally this statement feels right, so I made it.
Also, I'm sure the desire for you to put me down is strong, but I don't think my philosophical musings lack substance. In fact, whether or not they are substantial isn't even the question here. I'm looking for an answer and so I asked a question. Soccer-robots are not conscious as I define conscious entities, so you've made a bit of a false analogy. And one researcher making a statement, no matter how important he or she is, does not make the entire field come over to their side.
Anyhow, with that said, nice pics on your site. Capri Island place looks pretty cool. BTW, the F-15 collison video isn't working, but it's not linked from your site... Too bad, I was looking forward to watching it!:)
I meant that I'm an undergraduate philosophy student. Apologies to Dr. Pransky!
Dr. Joanne Pransky,
As an undergraduate philosophy student interested in the theoretical implications of A.I., could you tell me what your thoughts are on the validity of the assumption that artificial intelligence is possible separate from the notion of embodiment? I think the lack of consideration given embodiment is one reason why artificial intelligence researchers have come up empty-handed so far in their quest to synthesize a conscious, self-reflective entity.
To ask the question more succinctly, do you think a mind needs a body and possibly and environment to interact with in order to be conscious, or can a mind exist and know itself independent of an external context?
Lessons learned
...........
1. Fabric paint is a pain in the ass to deal with, and must be applied with a heavy hand if sharp edges on lines are desired. It would have probably helped if I...
5. If posting to link myself in a tighter-than-skin-tight bodysuit to slashdot, think really hard about whether or not I'm ok with having my just-about-naked-self being seen and potentially mocked by hundreds of thousands of people.
>At least this guy didn't say it was 100% efficient.
No, he said it was 330% efficient:)
It's Squeeeeenix!:)
Erdrick's masamune? Meteomore? Ahh, the possibilities are endless!!!
No, obviously not when you get right down to it. Just like we can't trust closed-source e-voting software with it comes to our republic (the U.S.:), we can't trust close-source vendors whose systems power our infrastructure...that, without, the world would cease to function as it does today.
But what can anyone do? Are there any open-source makers of networking hardware?
Well, this costs as much as some new cheaper cars. It also, arguably, looks cooler than the Segway and travels underwater without the usual scuba gear / complicated breathing apparatuses. if i was rich, bored and wanted to have underwater paintball fights / play submarine bumper-tag, i'd buy one!
[sean connery] Sho Q, what do you have for me thish time? [/connery]
Thanks for that brief history of musical innovation:)
My 2 cents was mainly focused on the larger issue of innovation and how it's difficult to get the desire to innovate, or change or do anything different without constraints. Perpetual copyrights (perpetual, for the sake of dicussion:) do little to encourage so-called content producers to make more content, when they can just grow fatter off of already established streams of revenue.
This behavior is ultimately dangerous for them, though, as you pointed out with your example of Norah Jones. Eventually people will get tired of the same-old distribution systems, same-old musicians, etc, etc. They'll move on (in NJ's case, they have), leaving the industry stalwarts in the dust.
Thanks again for the type-up, very nice and very informative. I hope you get modded up!
A look at the Billboard Top 200 is an easy way to figure out, at least on an anecdotal level, that popular music sucks right now. For the most part, it's the same old artists, singing the same old things within their same old already-established genres. It's the same problem with the video game industry that everyone always complains about -- it's a lot easier to go with established acts (or artists or licenses) than to risk capital on something new that has the potential to either suck or be incredible.
This general trend of homogeneity has really been brought to bear over the last decade, from what I can tell. Companies really like sustained sources of revenue...ok, yeah, that's a given and has been since the beginning. Companies need it to survive and to grow. But isn't it good to create some nice challenges so that the companies can grow?
Challenges, like, say, the removal of perpetual copyright? If, for example, Disney couldn't keep making money off of old cartoons, wouldn't they have to seriously start making up some new stories or at least go back to the children's section at public library and read some Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson?
In the end, it's all about how we the people want corporations to act in the context of our republic (both the United States and in the larger sense of the collective of industrialized nations). Do we want to give them carte blanche to not innovate? Or do we want to help them along by pushing them a little? Folks, from what I can tell, will almost always take the road that's easiest and offers the most return for the least amount of risk or investment. Sometimes you have to guide them down that road, or at least show 'em where it starts.
My 2 cents, anyhow...
>>...will this mean these jobs are headed to India too?
Not jobs, just websites:)
>> Lucas explained rather clearly that they were going after the "30's serial" style of movie. That type of movie doesn't lend itself to modern 'good' dialog.
Heh, you KNOW it's gonna be good when he starts making excuses even before the title is released!:)
Also, when I think '30s movies, I think silent movies, even though talkies had been introduced before then. Given Anakin's acting ability, he should be much better with colorful interstitial signs explaining the scene rather than any sort of dialog coming out of his mouth.
>>I don't think Lucas realizes how movie tastes have changed since ANH originally hit theaters.
Yeah...He also doesn't realize that the composition of the audience didn't change between May 25, 1977 & May 25, 1983 so to be comprised entirely of 7-year old girls (see Ewoks). Also, someone should take it upon themselves to inform him that this non-existent demographic sea-change didn't keep on rockin' until Episode 1 came out (see: Jar-Jar).
Although the story is an exaggeration of the actual program, which does not use RFID, there is a real program called Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) being developed by the Department of Housing and Development. From my cursory glance, it seems as though it's a program to collect data on homeless in the name of cutting down crime and assisting them, rather than full-on movement tracking (think of the infrastructure costs!). Anyhow, EPIC discusses it here
"I'm sorry about obliterating all the storyline all those poor comic book writers and novelists wrote because I gave them permission. I'm so sorry. Oh, what was I thinking? Sorry.
And, since I'll have to say it later anyways, I'm sorry for "re-writing" the new Indiana Jones script. I know it's great where it is, right now, but I have to toy with it, after all, the character is my creation. So what if it never gets made?"
Do we really want to risk our young daughters eating abnormal quantities of lactoferrin and risking a higher rate of gigantomastia and breast cancer?
I think you mean gynecomastia. Women don't get it, so I'd be more concerned about our young sons looking like young daughters, more than anything else. But your point is taken. Messing with the natural way of things hasn't always worked in ways we have intended. Putting iodine in salt worked pretty well, but the creation of a rice-based pharmacy when a substantial number of people depend on rice as their sole staple does merit some cause for concern, IMHO.
Where women glow and SCO plunders?
thanks, i appreciate the insight, it's nice that i now have a reason behind the face-less design theme. i totally agree about hard to read faces...some folks' scariest childhood memories revolve around unblinking eyes or faces missing key components. an example would be if eastman & laird had kept the ninja turtle's pupils out of the cartoon show. they would have been way creepier and probably not done nearly as well.
fyi, when i mean "emotion" i'm not just talking about positive, so-cute-it-makes-guys-ovulate emotions, but scary, creepy emotions too. and maybe it's a question more of intensity. a de-skinned animatronic kitten with a lazy eye that glows krypton-green is less scary than a steel-lattice PCB cookie jar topped with an exaggerated primate head with a glowing green krypton eye with a grimacing i'm-gonna-eat-your-children face!
I don't know if this is a trend exhibited by the majority of Japanese android/robotics researchers, but from what I've seen they tend to follow a no-face design ethic that I'm most pleased with. I think it's safe to say that most people would find anthropomorphic robots that don't look 100% identical to people (there's something off with that one) very creepy.
And besides, these Japanese robots look way cooler and have this implied subservience about them, at least to me. It's a lot harder to humanize and attach (scary) emotion to something that's faceless and non-human looking, rather than something that looks like a hairy/scary-ass rendition of a planet of the apes extra.
At least you pay in USD for USDTV, right? Makes it simple! Instead of those other TV-over-UHF people that make you pay in Euros for USDTV or CAD for USDTV.
*DUCKS* C'mon, it's finals! +1 bad joke?:)
One reason I submitted this Ask Slashdot was because my ass has been saved by video game skuh-zills in the past.
Right after I got my license a few years after age 16, I had a truck and too much testosterone. I was driving down this long, paved road out in the middle of nowhere when all of a sudden I see the stop sign someways off. Now, I'm going about 80mph on what is little more than a long driveway. I hit the brakes and they lock up. All of a sudden I felt like I left my body and did some weird shit with the steering wheel and the stick-shift. All I can remember is something about Daytona USA. When I regained conscious control, I'm about four-feet away from a telephone pole near my door, in the gravel with a car just 10 feet away from my front bumper, probably wondering what the heck is going on.
I suppose this means I did the mother-of-all powerslides without flipping my truck or ending up smashed and possibly killed.
There are other stories too... But yeah, I believe that at least some video game skills transfer to real life, especially sega race car skills:)
Give the federal agency more MP3s!!! And the Justice Department can finally get quick access to pr0n so they can research it to help ban it!
Hey man! Don't diss the Slime Pit! That single toy is responsible for every fetishitic impulse in the United States since 1985!:)
Also, I think the device (that the article speaks of) is marvelous but there are many other issues like it probably ushering in the end of the last well-paying joe jobs left in the US. after the construction industry is mostly gone due to this machine's more adept descendents, what then? federally mandated burger-flipper jobs...er, crap, robots will be doing that...federally mandated high paying service jobs....damn, RFID blew that one outta the water...crap.
I suppose the moral of this story is: GO TO GRAD SCHOOL.