Jump to content
Science Forums

Artificial intelligence


Recommended Posts

I used to think AI in the real sense (with ability to learn independently from human intervention) was not realistic but after reading a lot about how the brain works, it seems reasonable to expect something along the lines of a purely mechanical form of intelligence. The hurdle will be integrating the mental functions with a central nervous system so it can maintain itself. Forms of artificial intelligence have been around for decades, even before computers. But they are jjust robots, with explicitly limited capabilities. The movie I Robot which vaguely followed a concept in Assimov's classic is a pretty unlikely scenario at this time although it is possible even now for someone to create and activate a robot that would be capable of doing a lot of damage on command.

Artificial intelligence doesn't have to be like human intelligence, and doesn't have to be very smart either. It exists already, and I believe that it wont take many decades before an AI will be able to surpass a human being. Especially if quantum computers will become more of a reality than just research projects in laboratories.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just finished reading an article on the web: www.transhumanist.com/volume1/ ... that predicts, by the year 2020 we could expect computers capable of similar to human thought processes capability. With the advent of quantum computing, which looks like it's right around the corner so to speak, it may come even sooner than that. I wonder if we are ready for the intellectual competion that this technology will undoubtly bring?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

by the year 2020 we could expect computers capable of similar to human thought processes capability.

 

...

 

I wonder if we are ready for the intellectual competion that this technology will undoubtly bring?

I don't think the capability to process a though in any way gives rise to intellectual capability.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tormod; You could be absolutely correct about this possibility, we will have to wait for the answer to this question. It is however a possibility, and the spectulation about the question is certainly an interesting one. You remember the Wright Bros., how much support did they recieve in their quest to achieve flight. I'm sure if you asked the average citizen of that era, they wouldn't have given a success much of a chance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's just paranoia. It took nature (or whatever agent one wants to credit) about 10 billion years to produce life on Earth, and then another 3.697 billion years (give or take a few years) to produce sentient beings. I doubt we will be able to mimic something with our intelligence in the foreseeable future.

 

Or if they do, lets hope they put in a mix of intelligence, stupidity and arrogance to make sure the machine is able to learn from its mistakes...:)

 

Computers and robotics are evolving millions of times faster than us.

 

you under estimate the technologies we are facing in the 21 st century.

 

Nanotechnology

biotechnology

Robotics

computing power and capacity

 

By the 2020's its estimated that a $2000 home computer will have the processing power and capability of a human brain. If the current trend in technology , price , speed , capacity carrys on as it has been for the last few decades.

 

Something I wrote in another Forum

 

Quantum Computers are also advancing all the time. If a Quantum computer were to be built and it was the size of a Coffee cup it would be more powerful than any silicon computer, even if it were the size of the universe.

 

Think of how you genes are coded, You you're self are just 1 big giant walking piece of Programmed code (genes). When you program a robot you give it 5 senses, it learns of its surroundings and place from these 5 senses, it will also probably have other senses too, we wont just limit them to human capability sensory

 

 

I guess one could say that we have some basic programming when we are born, When you build a robot, you give it basic programming and then let it learn.

 

1 unique thing robots will have is, the ability to share knowledge between each other, they could learn a whole language in a matter of seconds, while it takes humans Years to learn any 1 language properly.

 

Now consciousness. Can a robot have this? it depends what you think of consciousness.

 

When you were born into this world, right away did you say to you're self. " gee what am I doing here? how did I get here? " I dont think you did. It took you a few years before you become aware of you're self. As your brain is trying to make sense of the world you become more aware. When you have a certain understanding of the world around you, then you feel conciousness.

 

Post-human era

 

Eventualy I can see Humans merging with Machine, I think this will happen before the 21st century is out and I believe the younger generation of today will be apart of this. Human life span will increase and is increasing. With emerging technologies looking extremely promising. Its quite possible that most of us living now will see all this and be a part of the change.

 

I do believe in the Post human era

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I really think that AI, as far as we've come, is still very early in its infancy. The progress has kind of frozen in the robotics stage. Its been waiting for computers and computing technologies to catch up so that it can progress further. This is where quantum computers could come into play. (as well as many other known and undiscovered technologies)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello Stargazer; You bring up an interesting point, that maybe the universe itself is a vast computer, if I understand your logic about this point. I would have to give you a thumbs up on that posibility. Seeing that we consider ouselves to be conscious beings,"that would be at least some of us" can we assume that the universe, of which we are only a part, should be calculated as less than it's parts? Very good thought here, I don't think we can rise above the very thing that created us. Don"t assume now, that I am speaking about a God by definition, I'm talking only about the Big Bang from which all things have evolved. It would also be a good question to ask, is the universe aware of itself?

You know, I've had thoughts about this for a while now, the entire world could be a simulation run by an artifficially intelligent program that could have grown (knowledge-wise) by creating many scenarios that it can oversees happening in the world. This simulation could be run within a set of predefined and contsantly redefined rules, in a controlled environment by a program that is so sophisticated that it pays equal attention to everything from the smallest componets to the largest ones... anyway, thats only a theory...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I doubt we will be able to mimic something with our intelligence in the foreseeable future.

 

I am not as skeptical. With upcoming convergence of optical networks using frequency

shifting for transmission of bits coupled with quantum computing using the notions of

quantum entanglement. A machine could easily constructed to mimic intelligence and

learning ability. However, what I think Tormod was getting at -- would this construct have

a soul ??? What is the nature of intelligence ? How do we learn and store it for later

retreval. For a SF story on this subject, look for a novel called "Soul of the Robot" by

some author Bayley or something. I found it an excellant read.

 

Maddog

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Would there be any way to make a program want something?

Sure there would, if you can mimic human emotion, you can mimic want and need, want/need levels (as in Maslows "Hirearchy of Needs" and other trait theories), satisfaction or dissatisfaction and so forth...

A machine could easily constructed to mimic intelligence and

learning ability.

I wouldnt say that it woul be that easy, scientists have been working on this for decades and i dont see anything close to a real intellect, yes there are machines that can learn, but they can't truly comprehend what they have learned until a similar scenario is provided for it. The best developed machines now, are hundreds of times less intelligent than a human infant. Also intelligence involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn, by solving for one, you cant get the others, you cant learn how to think abstractly, reason and comprehend ideas. The only abstract thinking that the machines do now, is predefined and by that not abstract, some abstract thinking tests tha machines can do, and thats because they can be made to think very logically and without missing slightest details, but we are far from reaching machines that can be truly intelligent, and the wall that we have to leap is still a bit high to be able to see over. So, I'd agree that anything that can mimic intelligence is not forseeable as of yet and probably wont be in the next 5 or so years...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Perhaps AI and computer intellegence is farther along than many realize. Computers are already capable of generating their own code and more efficiently than human. And this has been the case for many years. Interestingly the effort also provides specific examples of how some mutations in an evolutionary process can be and are benefitial and will eventually develop "life".

 

"He built a computer program to model a virtual computer... and called his virtual world Tierra. However, Ray added a new feature to the virtual world that had been missing ... mutation... Every now and again, the machine code instruction which copied data between memory cells would randomly flip one of the bits during copying. If the data being copied was the machine code of the program itself as it tried to reproduce, the result would be a slightly different mutant program.... Conventional wisdom before Tierra was that randomly flipping bits of a machine code program could never result in improvement to that program--the chances against it were astronomical.

 

Like in the real world, Tierra had natural selection. Mutant programs that crashed were eliminated as unfit. In addition, a process called The Reaper would pick off the oldest programs to free up space--meaning this new virtual world had death, as well.... Ray decided to start his Tierra system off with a population of the most simple programs possible. He wrote a piece of code that simply copied itself elsewhere in memory then spawned the copy. It was 80 bytes long, so he named it 80. He spread a few 80s through the Tierra system's memory, and started the clock.

 

For the first few thousand generations, nothing much of interest happened. There were a few minor mutations that didn't break the code, but that was about it. Before long, though, there were a number of 81s--mutants with an extra byte of program code. A little later, a 79 appeared. Because the 79 had one less byte of code, it took less time to reproduce, and was more successful than the 80 or 81. It began to take over the Tierra ecosystem.

 

Next, something astonishing happened. A 45 appeared. Ray was initially mystified; he'd written the simplest code he could imagine and it was 80 bytes. A 79 seemed reasonable, but how could a 45 reproduce in only just over half the space? Examining the code of 45 provided the answer--and a new surprise. The 45 was a parasite: instead of reproducing itself, it hunted for the reproductive code of an 80, then called that code. It was almost like a biological virus, which reproduces by inserting its DNA into a host cell and using the cell's reproductive apparatus to build more viruses.

 

No parasite code had been written at any stage in Tierra's development, and the system had not been designed to support parasites; the fact that one program could make use of code in another was an accident. Yet the system had reproduction, death, natural selection and mutation, and that seemed to be enough to cause parasites to appear from nowhere. Suddenly Tierra was an ecosystem in balance. If there were too many 45s, then the 80s would die out, unable to compete; and then the 45s would die out too, unable to reproduce without a host.

 

It turned out that the 79s were immune to the 45 parasite. Ray placed some 45s in a Tierra world heavy with 79s, and soon a new 51 parasite appeared which was able to use 79s to reproduce. If the system was left running long enough, parasites of parasites began to appear.

 

Then came another surprise: after a long period of mutation and natural selection, another new program appeared. This was a 22, and it was completely self-contained, not a parasite. Somehow Tierra had evolved a program that was smaller than any human being had managed to come up with.

 

The power of evolution had been demonstrated, "

 

http://xxx.infidels.org/~meta/getalife/coretierra.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very interesting information Freethinker; it appears to me that Ai might be much further along in its developement than I had imagined. In similiar fasion to bio-life, this exersize demonstrates the ability for AI to function in ways thought impossible just a short while ago. It appears as though, in this case at least, AI has learned the immune response. Very, very good article!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks freethinker, that is a very interesting artice! I've seen it before, and actually I think I've mentioned it here on occasion, but i could never find the article so thanks.

 

For that to develop into intelligence could take thousands of years.
probably a lot less, merely a few billion generations of programs and you should be there...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...