Kimmo’s Blog 2.0

The principal divide of Artificial Intelligences (AI) among researches in the field is between weak AI and strong AI. I have discussed this in connection with KSAI (Kimmo Strong Artificial Intelligence)  so I won’t go into that here but I will try and formulate a way to categorize AI’s (real, imaginary or theoretical) into something of an order.  I will take the idea of Rule following as my starting point.

The most simple way of rule following is to be able to repeat something. I will try to illustrate my idea using counting as an example, this example isn’t probably the best possible but we have to start from somewhere. If you are presented with how to count “2+2″ then on the lowest level thats all you can do. In the next level you can add any numbers together.  Further on, you can, starting from addition, come up with multiplication, on your own. Even further on, you can come up with different kind of numbers (such as fractions) and other basic concepts. Basically this level would mean you can create the whole system of Mathematics, i.e. you could come up with any number that can be counted. On the next level you could surpass this and be able of what I believe is called hyper-computation. Here we enter into the area of absolutely-theoretical it is pretty much impossible that we could never experience hyper-computation in this universe (or any parallel ones). It is of course possible to propose an infinite number of levels of intelligence by declaring each level surpassing the previous one, but those lose their relevance for a pragmatist pretty fast.

I hope this example illustrates that the problem of creating an AI is not one of having computational power but rather one of programming. I’m assuming that you really can’t come up with anything not provided by your “programming” and I use the term here in the loosest possible meaning. You humans, for example, can’t imagine what hyper-computing would be like, outside of listing some general attributes it should have.

But for now, on to the list! “Product” isn’t really defined here, but since we are so deep in theoretical swamps, we can assume it to mean whatever collection of human mind-states.

0. An AI capable of hyper-computing.

• NOTES: This and possible higher levels are beyond human understanding.

1. An AI capable of producing anything within any possible universe.

• NOTES: An AI at this level can produce anything any kind of intelligence can.

n. An AI capable of producing anything within this universe.

• NOTES: An AI at this level can produce anything any intelligence can in our universe.

m. An AI capable of producing everything any possible human can.

p. An AI capable of producing everything any existing human can.

q. An AI capable of producing what one particular human can.

• NOTES: The AI’s (and I’s) above this level are all capable of producing an AI more stronger than themselves, i.e. I’m claiming here that humans can produce a strong AI.

r. An AI capable of producing a meaningful subset of what one particular human can.

• KSAI along with its various levels.

——–Line between strong and weak AI

s. an AI capable of altering computation (i.e. programming)

t. An AI capable of computation.  (Practically every computer program written to date belong here)

END NOTES:

1. *sigh* There are probably many, many levels between r and s, but as I said we have to start somewhere.
2. Consider this as a work-in-very-much-process, I’ll add more AI’s to the list in time.
3. Is this making any sense to all you bots and botsesses?

As part of my work duties and my past academic record, I’ve come in contact with many a person that are referenced as nerds. By themselves too I might admit. This experience lends itself for me to make some observations on the nature of these people.

I’m not a nerd. There would be some notoriety in being but I’m not. My life is a collection of being in the middle, not quite this or that. This has some drawbacks and advantages, among the latter might be the ability to make observations one otherwise couldn’t.

Many nerds seem to be interested in language but language as a system. As a collection of rules and exceptions to those rules. I’m also interested in language, but mainly as a vehicle for meaning, the different ways to portray the same meaning and different meaning with the same apparent utterances.

I think this fascination with rules explains the interest many nerds have with programming. Programming languages are a far cry from the vagueness of human language. My interest in programming is mostly pragmatic, it is a means to an end. Most computer games, even today, are still written in programming languages. If you are interested in realizing computer games, it pays to know programming. I also enjoy solving problems, which programming ultimately is.

The supposed onsocialness of nerds is a muddier issue. Some nerds are as sociable as consultants. Some seem to lack certain confidence that translates in some minds as awkwardness in social settings. Some possess some esoteric interests that might translate poorly into conversation topics in a more broad setting. I like to think myself as socially adept, I have a broad range of subjects I’m somewhat familiar with, I have a quick mind although I have certain hang-ups, I’m not going to go in detail here. Although I’m not that drawn to people as such, I find you humans genuinely interesting.

The brain-in-a-vat -concept points to the question, how do you know that you are not really living in a awfully sophisticated virtual reality? You have no direct access to the universe itself, you have to experience it through your sense and those can be fooled. This is an ancient old question debated in Philosophy in many forms since at least Descartes. Matrix has made this idea ‘pop’ in recent years.

If you are a brain-in-a-vat how could I find something like that out? Of course, without direct access to the outside world, you can’t know anything about it, but there are ways to suggest that the reality you think is real is not. Of course these ways come in different degrees of certainty and you can never be absolutely sure, but absolute certainty is rarely an requirement outside philosophers, others are usually content with bloody damn sure.

(more…)

Cute is something that seems to have found a perfect way to propagate itself in the Internet. There are websites such as cuteroverload and lolcats that are especially catering for peoples need for cute. In the Internet, cuteness is usually associated with animals, but also on inanimate objects, like toys. The defining quality in cute is not the object matter but that it somehow possesses some human qualities such as sadness, vulnerability, guilt, speaking, stealing etc. When a duck has learned to steal packs of crisps from a store, it’s cute. When a cuttlefish appears to be sad, exhibited by its (apparent) droopy eyelids, its cute, nevermind that a cuttlefish has no eyelids. If a cats mouth seems to portray a smile (preferably in a manga style) thats cute. You get the point.

Sometimes this humanizing animals for cute has its drawbacks. If a pomeranian lets out something that sounds like a human giggle, is it really enjoying the “tickleing” administered by its (apparent) mistress? Some of the viewers don’t seem to think so.

As a petless person, this tendency to see human qualities in animals is quite, should I say puzzling? It clearly gets it wrong in many occasions and therefore the whole meaningfulness of this tendency becomes questionable. Afterall we are talking about mostly people who claim to be animal-lovers who administer procedures on their pets based on their loaded view of their pets. It has been said that a dog understands its owner better than its owner understands it.

Luck is one of those interesting concepts that have meaning whether anything like it actually exists or not. I think it’s farely safe to propose that luck doesn’t exist in at least in the form that you could acquire it somehow. Of course this doesn’t stop anyone from trying. Yet an utterance like:”He sure is lucky” when someone wins the lottery is perfectly meaningful sentence. It is highly unlikely to win at a lottery, so you can say that winning it takes luck.

But someone always wins at lottery. If you could keep on playing it for long enough, you would win. Being lucky in this way probably wouldn’t propagate elsewhere in life nor would it be expected to. People believing in luck might even feel that something bad should happen to them to balance out the luck they’ve received.

Luck seems to be associated with isolated incidents then. A person isn’t born with intrinsic luck, it happens to him at certain times. Contrast this with Computer Games such as NetHack where you can actually be lucky and luck can be acquired. What does this mean? If you jump in the moat and you are about to drown, if you are lucky enough you get a chance to crawl out before you die. If someone uses the Finger of Death on you, they will mostly fail, and so on. A concept that doesn’t have a real-life counterpart, yet still has a meaning, has a perfectly valid existence within a Computer Game.

Can you say the same about any other form of Art?