From: Colin Hales (colin@versalog.com.au)
Date: Tue Aug 20 2002 - 21:26:11 MDT
Michael Wiik
> Forgive me, I don't recall the name of the guest. Someone involved in
> robotics research, perhaps specifically for assisted living companions
> for the elderly (Japan leads in such technology; shades of Roujin-Z).
> Two bombshells: (quotes may not be exact)
>
> 1) AI has been a "colossal failure". "All the computers on the planet
> connected together would not equal a single human brain".
All I see is the 'ready fire aim' trial and error method in progress. There
is a tacit assumption, fashioned in complete ignorance by the sound of it,
that because it hasn't turned up now it never will. I wonder where the light
bulb would have gone if Thomas Edison had been told of this brilliant piece
of non-logic? If it took 4000 attempts to get a light bulb, how many
attempts does it take to make an AI? (Sounds like a riddle :-) ). At attempt
3527, would it look like a collossal failure?
The other thing is, there's lot's of AI based stuff in the world already.
What there isn't a lot of is true AGI. Artificial General Intelligence. This
leads to the next statement.
>
> 2) There are "less than 10" serious AI researchers on the planet.
>
Wrong. There are thousands of AI researchers, but only a handful of AGI
researchers. The balance of 'potential' AGI researchers are actually doing
human brain/mind study, and the goal of AGI is not driving it; it is driven
by the need for understanding of human pathology (this is how you get your
$$ funding). Eg Salk Institute, Caltech. The AGI researchers? Here they are,
the Mindsmiths, from which some combination of talents the AGI may ensue, as
far as I can tell, in no particular order:
1) Peter Voss http://www.optimal.org/
2) Steve Grand http://www.cyberlife-research.com/contents.htm I think Steve
wants to build the cool AI-teddy from the movie: AI, which is a more than
the MIT bods Brooks et al are aiming at. If my daughter's reaction is
anything to go by, it will sell millions! His Lucy looks pretty sick on the
web page, but underneath there's good stuff happening.
3) Eliezer, http://www.optimal.org/
4) Yours Truly www.versalog.com.au
5) Ben Goertzel, http://www.realai.net/.
6) Hugo DeGaris. http://www.cs.usu.edu/~degaris/ currently creating quantum
computers because he's bent on an amorphous evolutionary neural net
approach, which is a massive numerical optimisation problem. He may have a
lot of fun making quantum computing instead of AGI, at least in the short
term. He's after a Kitten-level critter at the moment.
7) Louis of http://home1.gte.net/res02khr/AI/Temporal_Intelligence.htm was
an outside chance with lots of enthusiasm, although seems to have fallen off
his perch and I suspect may dissappear ($$ problems)
If anyone knows of any others, I'd like to know, please!
1), 2) 6) are the only ones actually building things at the moment. Target:
lower mammal intelligence level. Me? = #4) on paper and in prototyping,
pre-build Wolframesque playtime. 3), 5) producing paper at least, with
plans in progress. Everyone else on the planet is building AI subsets of AGI
in the form of subsumption robots and less (eg CYC). This includes the
Japanese, who seem prefer to deal with these robots than people, I think!
Maybe there will be a Tamagochi revolution! :-) I hear them dying around my
house all the time. They've good reason to be pissed off!
If you want to judge where the AGI component of the singularity is coming
from here's the layman's 'AGI litmus test', IMO: If the AGI wannabe lifts
hands over the keyboard to write one line of code that will be part of the
AGI 'final runtime program', then they have failed. Think of it this way: A
cake recipe, to an appropriately trained human, can represent a cake really
well to that human. _But it's not the cake_. The recipe becomes a cake when
the human is there. The progress is slow because most seem bent on recipes
instead of the cake, and they don't know it. We have to make cakes, not
recipes.
> If true, then we have no superhuman intelligence upcoming to guide us
> thru nano and biotech futures, and humanity is toast.
It'll happen- patience! And fear not those ignorant nay-sayers- The
Mindsmiths are at work!
cheers,
Colin
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:16:18 MST