Google achieves artificial stupidity?

[trdsf]

trdsf ... "I know it when I see it." ... that is when you know you are dealing with an axiom, not a deduction.  Life, consciousness etc ... are axioms ... are not analyzable by more primitive concepts by deduction and computation.  Though some axioms are tricky, like the Parallel Axiom.

I'm inclined to think we can understand cognition someday.  I'm philosophically (there's that word again) disinclined to think that the basis of consciousness is unknowable.  But it's an extremely difficult question, and I think we're a long way off from it.  I consider it axiomatic that one should proceed from as few axioms as necessary, and there's no reason to write off consciousness as unknowable, certainly not yet.

With regard to AI itself again, certainly we're talking about artificial human-like intelligence.  A natively-evolved machine intelligence falls prey to Wittgenstein's observation that "If a lion could speak, we could not understand him."  We would lack the common frame of reference that makes communication possible.  Even with another human with whom you do not share a language, it is possible to work out a means of communication between you.

Now, I'm not sure that I agree with Wittgenstein if the lion were to have a human level intellect (as opposed to a human like intellect) -- at that level, yes, we could work out some sort of mutually intelligible communication.  With a lion-level intellect, I think we could learn how to understand it, but I don't know if we could make ourselves understood to it.  That's hard to call communication -- it's only one way.

[TomFoolery]

As someone who grew up watching Star Trek, the idea of AI has always fascinated me. Data was such a beloved character because his ultimate goal was to be human and his efforts taught a lot of the humans he served about their own humanity.

I think the saddest part of AI in modern science fiction is that it proves that humans really are shitty. Data never really was treated equally, and was often sent out on dangerous missions instead of his human counterparts. In Star Wars, the droids are practically slaves. Even if we were to create sentient artificial life, I think it's human nature to want to exploit it.

[Baruch]

Hydra009 - reductionism is not as successful as its advocates promote.  Also male geek culture produces most of technology ... because men are mutant women, and geeks are mutant men.  And yes, I was joking ... sort of.  Marie Curie is the exception that proves the rule.

trdsf - there is no self-licking ice cream cone

TomFoolery - all of economics is based on slave labor ... starting with the family unit ... you know what the ladies are for, right?  And in most societies the children are used as unpaid labor whenever possible.  For the really shitty work we use war prisoners (as recently in the Soviet Union following WW II .. and all thru Nazi occupied Europe) or foreigners sufficiently different from us (see export of US jobs to every 3rd World shit-hole on the planet).  Robots or humanly modified life forms (human-animal hybrids like the human-sheep cross the Brits developed (10% human, 90% sheep)) are ideal ... because robots aren't sentient, and the human-animal hybrids aren't going to get any "human rights".  Modern society invented wage and debt slavery, because the oppression is less obvious to those being oppressed ... because they are coopted into voting/working for their own demise.  The Elite are simply the most successful predators of their species, the most sociopathic.

http://www.bioethics.ac.uk/topics/human-animal-hybrids---chimera.php

http://listverse.com/2013/03/08/10-insane-cases-of-genetic-engineering/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2017818/Embryos-involving-genes-animals-mixed-humans-produced-secretively-past-years.html

Ape-human hybrids as super-soldiers are inevitable, and probably technically possible now.

[TomFoolery]

TomFoolery - all of economics is based on slave labor ... starting with the family unit ... you know what the ladies are for, right?  And in most societies the children are used as unpaid labor whenever possible...

...Robots or humanly modified life forms (human-animal hybrids like the human-sheep cross the Brits developed (10% human, 90% sheep)) are ideal ... because robots aren't sentient, and the human-animal hybrids aren't going to get any "human rights". 

I can't disagree with many of these points (though I find them very bleak when taken alone and perhaps not fully capturing the point of society, if there is a point at all), but when it comes to sentient artificial intelligence, does it make us better or worse that we would deliberately create something just to openly enslave it? Computers, smart phones, and really all tools already serve as non-sentient slaves, but at what point should be begin feeling bad about it? When we put faces on them and give them personalities?

For the really shitty work we use war prisoners (as recently in the Soviet Union following WW II .. and all thru Nazi occupied Europe) or foreigners sufficiently different from us (see export of US jobs to every 3rd World shit-hole on the planet). 

Are you from the U.S., or at least familiar with the U.S. prison system? All prisons are federally operated, but many are now contracted out to private companies which subcontract out prison labor to private industry. For a slightly higher wage than other prison jobs (usually still less than $1 an hour) prisoners can produce goods for commerce, and it's a system whereby companies have a labor pool they barely pay, a labor pool they can ensure will show up on time every day and never take sick or family leave, and if they complain they can be put in solitary confinement or have time added to their sentence. I don't know if you could have a more perfect description of slavery, but it seems like no one complains because they get "paid" and they're prisoners anyway. It's like no one realizes (or cares) that it encourages us to jail more people and keep them there because private companies don't want to pay fair wages to free citizens. It's insane.

[Mike Cl]

All prisons are federally operated, but many are now contracted out to private companies which subcontract out prison labor to private industry. For a slightly higher wage than other prison jobs (usually still less than $1 an hour) prisoners can produce goods for commerce, and it's a system whereby companies have a labor pool they barely pay, a labor pool they can ensure will show up on time every day and never take sick or family leave, and if they complain they can be put in solitary confinement or have time added to their sentence. I don't know if you could have a more perfect description of slavery, but it seems like no one complains because they get "paid" and they're prisoners anyway. It's like no one realizes (or cares) that it encourages us to jail more people and keep them there because private companies don't want to pay fair wages to free citizens. It's insane.

Seems to be another guise of the 'company store' or 'share croppers' and the Jim Crow laws that allowed blacks to be arrested for next to nothing and made to 'work' off their fines.

[Baruch]

Mike CL ... correct ... there are 250 million laws in the US ... every person on average violated 3 felonies per day (as reported elsewhere) ... so yes, the police can pick you up at any time and throw away the key.  The police, like the rest of the middle class, are quisling enablers of the upper class psychos.  In America today, we aren't racist, because everyone not wealthy is a B&%^k.  Anyone who is wealthy, like Tiger Woods, is at least an honorary W#6$e.  Except that women, colored folks, and Jews are still forbidden from many private country clubs.  That is where the KKK lives today.

TomFoolery - privatized prisons?  Of course!  Just a coincidence that most prisoners are B$&^k men.  Most are there on drug violations ... for violating the right of the Pharmaceutical Oligarchs to control distribution and pricing (and doctors are the enablers, not the controllers).  But the greatest drug of all is money, and it is perfectly legal.  Yes, thanks to technology, the average middle class family has an average equivalent of 11 house slaves.  Without technology we would need to import more Irish maids and English butlers.  PS - the Japanese love to put faces and personalities on their robots.  We must eliminate all jobs for people working minimum wage or sub-miniumum plus tips wages.  So when all human work is replaced, we will all be retired .. just not equally wealthy.  Mansions for some, viaduct cardboard boxes for the rest.  I don't think we will have to worry about Seri getting the vote ... that was never part of the Master's plans (bad guy from Dr Who).

[dtq123]

When we put faces on them and give them personalities?

Are you testifying that machines can have personalities? Wasn't there consensus that they cannot? I'm lost after about 5 long posts, pardon my idiot self.

[Baruch]

No need to apologize ... nobody thinks that Anime people are more than two dimensional anyway ;-)

Well not real personalities, but in the same way that an advertising icon like Tony the Tiger has a personality ...

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/us/news/articles/new-japanese-hotel-will-be-staffed-by-robots-androids/45009/

I find the Japanese preoccupation with humanoid robots to be creepy ... as compared to robot arms for car assembly etc, which are clearly not anthropomorphic.  In an old Dr Who, there is an episode that mentions that humanity will develop robe-phobia eventually.

[TomFoolery]

Are you testifying that machines can have personalities? Wasn't there consensus that they cannot? I'm lost after about 5 long posts, pardon my idiot self.

All a personality is a characteristic and adaptive pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving.

It would be an interesting experiment to program 10 androids with a baseline algorithm for how to perceive and respond to all manner of social interactions. More frequently used traits would become more dominant over other traits and as time went on those dominant traits would become more fixed, so an android that was constantly exposed to dry humor and sarcasm would use those characteristics more often than tenderness and sensitivity for example. If you exposed each android to very different conditions (some to frequent humor, some to frequent tragedy, some to frequent violence, etc.), what would the androids be like after a year? After ten years? Would you consider that the development of personality?

[dtq123]

No need to apologize ... nobody thinks that Anime people are more than two dimensional anyway ;-)

Hey! Spinoza would not like such insults with his name! Spinoza would love anime (I hope :3)

In an old Dr Who, there is an episode that mentions that humanity will develop robe-phobia eventually.

How much of that do you believe? Sure with movies like terminator that might seem true, but with JAPAN leading the anime industry and Anime lovers eating that up it might seem that we have a faction of Robot lovers. Do you agree? Or does the episode sound more accurate XD

Would you consider that the development of personality?

Ask Spinoza, I can't answer that X3
I haven't taken my psych class yet to think critically of it

[Baruch]

TomFoolery - that is a good description of artificial neural net theory.  And at least as a simplified model, it does match part of what neurons do for a living.  But I wouldn't characterize something like a robot following a program ... as having behavior ... it has a program (which with fuzzy logic or neural nets is adaptive).

dtq123 - those folks are Japanese ... who can figure them out?  I see Americans as more European, and thus more likely to engage in "sabot"eurism.  Sabot were wooden shoes that early French workers tossed into the machinery, to break them down.  This is why England progressed industrially faster ... they were more Tory.

[Hydra009]

Hydra009 - reductionism is not as successful as its advocates promote.  Also male geek culture produces most of technology ... because men are mutant women, and geeks are mutant men.  And yes, I was joking ... sort of.  Marie Curie is the exception that proves the rule.

Serious question:  are you on illicit drugs when you post?

[trdsf]

As someone who grew up watching Star Trek, the idea of AI has always fascinated me. Data was such a beloved character because his ultimate goal was to be human and his efforts taught a lot of the humans he served about their own humanity.

Heh.  Shows my age, when you said Star Trek and AI, I thought about the talking computer on the original series.

I think the saddest part of AI in modern science fiction is that it proves that humans really are shitty. Data never really was treated equally, and was often sent out on dangerous missions instead of his human counterparts. In Star Wars, the droids are practically slaves. Even if we were to create sentient artificial life, I think it's human nature to want to exploit it.

The flip side is robots as presented by Isaac Asimov, in which they are explicitly manufactured products with built-in safeguards -- whence the Three Laws of Robotics.  I think he was more correct in that if commercial robots -- as independent, ambulatory, artificially intelligent entities -- ever come to pass, that's exactly how they will be built, with hard-wired limits on their behavior.

[trdsf]

trdsf - there is no self-licking ice cream cone

What does that have to do with anything?  Logically and/or physically impossible things are logically and/or physically impossible, but there's no reason to file understanding of consciousness as either.

[TomFoolery]

Heh.  Shows my age, when you said Star Trek and AI, I thought about the talking computer on the original series.

I like the original series quite a bit, but I will say I feel like TNG posed social and philosophical questions that related more to my generation. The original had space hippies. I mean, come on! :)

But in TNG there are two episodes that deal with definitions of "life" in regards to AI. The more obvious one was "Measure of a Man" which explored Data's position within Starfleet, whether he was equipment that could be ordered to submit to experimentation or a life form. The definition of life, what it is, when it begins and when it ends will always be up for debate. A point in the episode that really resonated with me (perhaps due to my biochemistry background) was when they pointed out that if you can look at human life as being an intricately arranged mass of organic compounds made operational by chemical signaling, is it really that crazy to imagine we could achieve the same thing with non-organic compounds and electrical signaling?

There was a second episode however called "Quality of Life" which I think hit further home in regards to AI and being "alive" in a way we have a difficult time comprehending. A scientist built these little robots to perform repairs in a mine and eventually they began showing signs that they were self-aware when they avoided going into a situation that would have been certainly "fatal" to them. These robots looked very much like robots. They didn't have Data's face or anything that a human would relate to in real way as a life form.

I think self-awareness for us is a problem in a lot of ways that we don't want to confront. It forces us to consider there are things out that that might rival us in ways that we consider exclusive to humanity. If sentience is a requirement, there are animals that have demonstrated a profound level of intelligence and self-awareness, yet we don't extend the same rights to those species. *cough* Sea World *cough*