Re: Robots, but philosophers (or, Hal-2001)

From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed Sep 27 2000 - 02:49:26 MDT


Franklin Wayne Poley wrote:
>

> How about 2001, Hal? Could it be that by 2001, someone somewhere will
> already have AI machinery to surpass human equivalency?

Not on this planet. Maybe you want to call on Ashtar High Command or
some such. :-) They've been feeding us all of this tech anyway, don't
ya know?

> In summary, here is the argument that AI now is at a stage comparable
> to the man-on-the-moon program from a 1960 perspective. In other words, we
> mostly need quantitative extensions of what we know now and the
> qualititative aspect of this project is not overwhelming. That is, we can
> now see the areas which require innovation or invention and we can
> reasonably assume that the breakthroughs will be made. The sheer magnitude
> of the project should not be a deterrent. If we know how to reach the
> objective and it is worth while to do so, so what if it costs hundreds of
> billions?

Qualitative is not overwhelming? This has to be a joke. We have no
idea what qualia even are among other "qualitative" problems of reaching
human level intelligence. We have relatively poor grasp of even higher
level issues like concept formation and usage. Lots of theory, no
satisfying fully general and full powered learning programs. No model
we are even happy about for describing what humans do with
percept-concept-more abstract concept chains. Without this you will not
get there. Or is there something already done I am unaware of? Any
pointers appreciated.

Many are pretty darn sure you cannot reach human level congnition
without at least much closer to human level computational throughput.
Please show why these people, many of them experts who very much are at
the vanguard of the quest, are wrong. If they are right, please show a
way that in 1 year (initial suggestion above) we will both get this
incredible leap in computational hardware density AND make use of it
with appropriate software based on the brand new theoretical
breakthroughs we also get in this year. While you are at it please send
me some of the same drugs you are taking so I can also enjoy this
fantasy as much as you are.

We will not spend hundreds of billions on a project that has no clear
deliverables, that depends on tons of hardware and software that experts
frankly do not know how to build and arguably cannot build without an
several orders of magnitude increase in computational density per unit
costs and several interlocking theoretical breakthroughs. This is a
ludicrous fantasy.

- samantha



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