lunwic@aix03.aix.rpi.edu (Jeffrey G Lunn) (11/30/90)
This is a subject that I have been thinking a lot about in the last
couple of weeks. We discussed it in one of my classes and it prompted me to
write a paper about it. Suppose that one day we are capable of constructing
computers that are able to think - that is, think in the sense that you or I
do. They would be able to look at any problem, formulate a hypothesis about
how to go about solving that problem, then think through the steps necessary
to come up with a solution. If no logical solution is apparent, this computer
would perform an educated guess based intuitively on what it "felt" is the
correct solution, much like humans do in similar situations. My question is,
should we let such thinking machines exist? I feel that people would be too
tempted to let such machines take over previously human thinking tasks such
as figuring out difficult mathematical problems or searching for new elementary
physics particles or even writing poetry. It is possible that by letting
machines do the cerebral work, the collective human mind would stagnate from
lack of meaningful stimulation. Then humans would live for nothing but to
survive and to be as comfortable as possible. I do not consider this a
meaningful way of life. What do others think? Can mankind develop such
machines without sacrificing their drive for mental stimulation? Or would
the situation that I described occur?
- Jeff Lunnchris@CS.UMD.EDU (Chris Torek) (11/30/90)
Here is a new bromide for the 2000s: When we invent machines that can think as well as humans, and put them in place of the jobs we hate, they will form unions and demand higher wages. A whole new form of TANSTAAFL! :-) Chris
jcburt@ipsun.larc.nasa.gov (John Burton) (11/30/90)
In article <9^}^-!+@rpi.edu> lunwic@aix03.aix.rpi.edu (Jeffrey G Lunn) writes: > > This is a subject that I have been thinking a lot about in the last >couple of weeks. We discussed it in one of my classes and it prompted me to >write a paper about it. Suppose that one day we are capable of constructing >computers that are able to think - that is, think in the sense that you or I >do. They would be able to look at any problem, formulate a hypothesis about >how to go about solving that problem, then think through the steps necessary >to come up with a solution. If no logical solution is apparent, this computer >would perform an educated guess based intuitively on what it "felt" is the >correct solution, much like humans do in similar situations. My question is, >should we let such thinking machines exist? I feel that people would be too >tempted to let such machines take over previously human thinking tasks such >as figuring out difficult mathematical problems or searching for new elementary >physics particles or even writing poetry. It is possible that by letting >machines do the cerebral work, the collective human mind would stagnate from >lack of meaningful stimulation. Then humans would live for nothing but to >survive and to be as comfortable as possible. I do not consider this a >meaningful way of life. What do others think? Can mankind develop such >machines without sacrificing their drive for mental stimulation? Or would >the situation that I described occur? > - Jeff Lunn Actually, the questions you ask are more in line with philosophy more than anything else...a good thought provoking book that obliquely touches on this is "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstader (sp???). When you say a "thinking" machine, are you just concerned with the logical process of 1) identifying a problem and 2) coming up with possible solutions ? If this is the scope, then these machines if not available currently will be available in the next few years. On the other hand if by "thinking" you actually mean a machine that has the above AND somehow has the creativity, intuition, inspiration, imagination etc that sets man apart, then that is debatable. The next question is "would such a machine be *concious* ?" Assuming man is concious and a rock is not, what defines conciouness in a machine? (try defining conciousness in the animal world - where on the scale of brain complexity does conciousness begin? an ameoba? a spider? a worm? a rat? a dog? a whale? man?). There have been many science fiction stories written on the topic of a "thinking" machine. Star Trek: The Next Generation is a prime example (Data), "When Harlie Was One" (i forget the author), Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", Isaac Asimov's robot series ("Caves of Steel", "I, Robot", etc - I forget the titles but there are several more) to name just a few. One point brought up is the logic circuits involved, would simple binary (on/off) logic (as is used in the majority of computers today) be sufficient, or would multi-level (on/mostly on/equal/mostly off/off) be required. Where is the starting point for such a machine - emulate a human brain down to neural pathways? how complex would such a machine have to be before it could become concious. In more general terms, is it possible for man to create something as complex (if not more so) than himself ? I don't know... Is it advisable? probably not since such a machine eventually might be considered a "god"... John (jcburt@cs.wm.edu)
mwm@DECWRL.DEC.COM (Mike Meyer, My Watch Has Windows) (12/01/90)
>> I feel that people would be too >> tempted to let such machines take over previously human thinking tasks such >> as figuring out difficult mathematical problems or searching for new elementary >> physics particles or even writing poetry. So? Having done a few of these, I will categorically state that having non-human intelligences doing them wouldn't keep me from doing them. People motivated to do those things will do them whether NHIs are doing the same thing or not; people not motivated to do them won't, whether NHIs etc. Can you propose a mechanism whereby having the NHIs doing these things would cause people to be non-motivated? On the other hand, having a non-human viewpoint on a problem could lead to a solution that otherwise wouldn't be found. For the activities you talk about, this isn't critical. But consider critical problems that humans haven't found good solutions to (or at least hasn't been able to apply them globally if they've been found): freedom from vs. freedom to; distribution of wealth; greed; aggression; etc. Potentially solving these problems is worth quite a bit of risk. <mike
robertj@Autodesk.COM (Young Rob Jellinghaus) (12/01/90)
In article <9^}^-!+@rpi.edu> lunwic@aix03.aix.rpi.edu (Jeffrey G Lunn) writes: >Suppose that one day we are capable of constructing >computers that are able to think - that is, think in the sense that you or I >do. Wait forty to fifty years, and we'll have 'em. >My question is, >should we let such thinking machines exist? I feel that people would be too >tempted to let such machines take over previously human thinking tasks such >as figuring out difficult mathematical problems or searching for new elementary >physics particles or even writing poetry. Yeesh! You seriously believe that a computer that could "solve problems" and "construct hypotheses" could ergo write poetry? Seems to me there are diff- erent processes involved. And as for solving difficult math problems, no thank you! I'd be happy to let a computer do _that_! >It is possible that by letting >machines do the cerebral work, the collective human mind would stagnate from >lack of meaningful stimulation. Then humans would live for nothing but to >survive and to be as comfortable as possible. Well, would you say that most humans on the planet base the meaning of their lives on their ability to solve unsolved problems? That's a pretty damn narrow definition of what life is. It's all evolution in action. Our mental and physical capacities will, in the next century, be drastically amplified by means of the machines we're evolving. We and they will together move beyond what we now think of as humanity--new life forms will come into existence. These "machines" won't be mere machines any longer; they'll be alive. I can see only richness and wonder coming from such a future. > - Jeff Lunn -- Rob Jellinghaus | "Next time you see a lie being spread or Autodesk, Inc. | a bad decision being made out of sheer robertj@Autodesk.COM | ignorance, pause, and think of hypertext." {decwrl,uunet}!autodesk!robertj | -- K. Eric Drexler, _Engines of Creation_
sobiloff@thor.acc.stolaf.edu (Chrome Cboy) (12/01/90)
In article <9^}^-!+@rpi.edu> lunwic@aix03.aix.rpi.edu (Jeffrey G Lunn) writes: >should we let such thinking machines exist? I feel that people would be too >tempted to let such machines take over previously human thinking tasks such >as figuring out difficult mathematical problems or searching for new elementary >physics particles or even writing poetry. It is possible that by letting >machines do the cerebral work, the collective human mind would stagnate from >lack of meaningful stimulation. Then humans would live for nothing but to >survive and to be as comfortable as possible. I do not consider this a >meaningful way of life. What do others think? Can mankind develop such >machines without sacrificing their drive for mental stimulation? Or would >the situation that I described occur? Feh, you answered your own question. What you worry about happening won't happen because individuals wouldn't consider living like a vegetable a meaningful way of life. OK, of course this is a generalization, but generally people need something to do or they go nuts. Let a computer write all the poetry in the world and the human poet still won't get any satisfaction out of it--the poet needs to write. So, mankind certainly could develop such machines. But far more interesting to me is the question of what the status of these intelligent machines might be. Are they going to be seen as equals and given equal rights with flesh-and-blood people, or are we just going to threaten to pull their plug if they don't do what we want? -- _____________ ___________________________________________________/ Chrome Cboy \______________ | "With the zeal of Amerigo Vespucci, who 'discovered' the Americas some years | | after Columbus landed here, Microsoft's CEO Bill Gates laid claim to the || 'new' territory of a totally graphical user environment, which he promised || in future versions of Windows." --MacWEEK, 11.20.90, covering Comdex/Fall |
mccool@dgp.toronto.edu (Michael McCool) (12/01/90)
jcburt@ipsun.larc.nasa.gov (John Burton) writes: >In more general terms, is it possible for man to create something as complex >(if not more so) than himself ? I don't know... Is it advisable? probably >not since such a machine eventually might be considered a "god"... >John >(jcburt@cs.wm.edu) Speaking of science fiction on this topic, don't miss "Destination Void" by Frank Herbert, and the followup books "The Jesus Incident", "The Lazarus Effect" and "The Ascension Factor". The premise is that the result of an "Artificial Consciousness" and succeed *too* well... by the machine's defintion, *people* are barely conscious most of the time! Of the above, "Destination Void" is the best and considers the development of the machine. I think the title is a reference/pun on the Buddhist "void", but I could be wrong. He explicitly considers the problems with creating something greater than yourself. mccool@dgp.toronto.edu
janssen@parc.xerox.com (Bill Janssen) (12/03/90)
In article <9^}^-!+@rpi.edu> lunwic@aix03.aix.rpi.edu (Jeffrey G Lunn) writes:
I feel that people would be too
tempted to let such machines take over previously human thinking tasks such
as figuring out difficult mathematical problems or searching for new elementary
physics particles or even writing poetry. It is possible that by letting
machines do the cerebral work, the collective human mind would stagnate from
lack of meaningful stimulation. Then humans would live for nothing but to
survive and to be as comfortable as possible. I do not consider this a
meaningful way of life.
Well, read Roger Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind", for a bit of
reassurance that we don't have to worry about this.
Of course, futurists such as Hans Moravec think that it is inevitable
that machine brains will evolve to be many times faster and deeper than
ours. He paints a picture of godlike robots (and no, not imbued with the
"3 Laws") keeping humans in game preserves, where they are made comfortable,
and encouraged to reproduce, while robots tend to the serious business of
the galaxy. His estimated time to this state: ~50 years.
Not to mention nanotechnology's megacomputers...
Bill
--
Bill Janssen janssen@parc.xerox.com (415) 494-4763
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, California 94304doug (Doug Thompson) (12/03/90)
In article <1990Nov30.145228.21484@abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov> (John Burton) writes: > In article <9^}^-!+@rpi.edu> lunwic@aix03.aix.rpi.edu (Jeffrey G Lunn) writes: > > > > This is a subject that I have been thinking a lot about in the last > >couple of weeks. We discussed it in one of my classes and it prompted me to > >write a paper about it. Suppose that one day we are capable of constructing > >computers that are able to think - that is, think in the sense that you or I > >do. They would be able to look at any problem, formulate a hypothesis about > >how to go about solving that problem, then think through the steps necessary > >to come up with a solution. If no logical solution is apparent, this computer > >would perform an educated guess based intuitively on what it "felt" is the > >correct solution, much like humans do in similar situations. > >My question is, > >should we let such thinking machines exist? I feel that people would be too > >tempted to let such machines take over previously human thinking tasks such > >as figuring out difficult mathematical problems or searching for new elementary > >physics particles or even writing poetry. It is possible that by letting > >machines do the cerebral work, the collective human mind would stagnate from > >lack of meaningful stimulation. Then humans would live for nothing but to > >survive and to be as comfortable as possible. I do not consider this a > >meaningful way of life. What do others think? Can mankind develop such > >machines without sacrificing their drive for mental stimulation? Or would > >the situation that I described occur? > > - Jeff Lunn > Actually, the questions you ask are more in line with philosophy more than > anything else...a good thought provoking book that obliquely touches on this > is "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstader (sp???). > In more general terms, is it possible for man to create something as complex > (if not more so) than himself ? I don't know... Is it advisable? probably > not since such a machine eventually might be considered a "god"... Human History provides a lot of examples of people creating technologies which first extended, and later replaced earlier techniques. The car extends the legs. Later physical fitness declines as people use legs less and less. The Television extends communication, and people forget how to talk to one another, the art of conversation declines. The highly organized and mechanized food industry extends our ability to obtain nourishment. Later, people deprived of a super-market can no longer feed themselves from the land - they have lost the ability to recognize edible plants and trap edible animals. A thinking machine would likely create a dependency, as the car, the TV and the supermarket have. A generation growing up without a need to think for themselves might well experience the atrophy of the ability to do so. However, since most thinking depends on the input of (for example sensory) information and the testing of hypotheses in real experience, any thinking machine that did not have human physical attributes and live as a human in a human society would be extremely dependent upon people for input and evaluation of its output. To use such a machine effectively, I imagine you'd have to define your problems and questions very carefully, and develop sophisticated means for testing the value of the output. That would demand a great deal of thought from the operators. I suspect it would not so much eliminate thinking per se as it would introduce a bias in the way people would come to think. The problems people would think about would be the problems that the machine could handle. The way people define problems and questions is usually much influenced by their learned ways of handling problems. A good example would be to compare how people thought about life and meaning before the scientific age, and how most of us ask questions now. 500 years ago academics seriously debated questions pertaining to how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. We tend not to ask that question today, let alone invest a lot of thought in trying to find a 'true' answer to it. It is not even a meaninful question to most of us. Yet it was a very important question to an earlier generation and we have almost lost the ability to understand what it meant to them and why they spent a lot of energy wrestling with it. So techniques and technologies can shape the way we understand ourselves and our fellows, and the way we define and think about that which is meaninful, i.e. how we think and what we think about. Today, a question which is not amenable to scientific answers, like "Does God exist?", fails to even attract any interest from many people - partly because there is no scientific way to address it meaninfully. How we think has, I think, been shaped by the scientific method which is a technique, if not actually a technology. Should be allow such a machine to be developed? Well, can we stop such a machine from being developed? Should we allow television to continue to exist? Can we realistically stop it? I think it is fair for an individual or a community to ask if it wants to be involved with such machines - or TV for that matter - but I don't think there exists the sort of power in the world which could prevent its development if it is, in fact, technically feasible. Such a machine could make some employees more productive, if it were able to think a little better than any significant portion of the population. It's thought would likely be more predictable and programmable than the thinking of real people, and that would have uses in certain industrial and commercial applications. We'd therefore have to do it to compete, you see . . . Of course it would become a god, just as the market has become a god. If the market (especially the international market) demands it, then we have 'no choice' but to do it. We'd give the god power to shape our lives, and the god would, in return, give us a better shot at power and wealth. Like the modern city-dweller who would quickly starve if caught in the woods and fields that were his ancestor's hunting and gathering grounds, a few generations' of thinking machines could leave us quite disadvantaged if we had to deal with real life. But maybe we can make a thinking machine that will be smart enough to solve that problem for us too . . . . =Doug --- isishq!testsys!doug
ken@uswat.uswest.com (Kenny Chaffin) (12/04/90)
In article <9^}^-!+@rpi.edu-> lunwic@aix03.aix.rpi.edu (Jeffrey G Lunn) writes: -> -> This is a subject that I have been thinking a lot about in the last ->couple of weeks. We discussed it in one of my classes and it prompted me to ->write a paper about it. Suppose that one day we are capable of constructing ->computers that are able to think - that is, think in the sense that you or I ->do. They would be able to look at any problem, formulate a hypothesis about ->how to go about solving that problem, then think through the steps necessary ->to come up with a solution. If no logical solution is apparent, this computer ->would perform an educated guess based intuitively on what it "felt" is the ->correct solution, much like humans do in similar situations. My question is, ->should we let such thinking machines exist? I feel that people would be too ->tempted to let such machines take over previously human thinking tasks such ->as figuring out difficult mathematical problems or searching for new elementary ->physics particles or even writing poetry. It is possible that by letting ->machines do the cerebral work, the collective human mind would stagnate from ->lack of meaningful stimulation. Then humans would live for nothing but to ->survive and to be as comfortable as possible. I do not consider this a ->meaningful way of life. What do others think? Can mankind develop such ->machines without sacrificing their drive for mental stimulation? Or would ->the situation that I described occur? -> - Jeff Lunn First you have to consider that once an intelligence (set of intell) exists that is different than ours it will immediately have it's own motivations. Will the machines still need us, Will they be able to pro- create? do they need to? Perhaps in the scheme of "life" intelligent machines are the next stage and humans wont be bored, they will simply die out. Even with another intelligence there are still questions to ponder and answer such as why are we here? What was the origin of the universe, the origin of life? etc. Perhaps we can work on them together with our new intelligent mechanical friends? KAC "Anybody want a drink before the war?" Sinead O'Connor >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Kenny A. Chaffin {...boulder}!uswat!ken U S WEST Advanced Technologies (303) 930-5356 6200 South Quebec Englewood, CO 80111 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
ercn67@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes) (12/04/90)
lunwic@aix03.aix.rpi.edu (Jeffrey G Lunn) writes: > This is a subject that I have been thinking a lot about in the last >couple of weeks. We discussed it in one of my classes and it prompted me to >write a paper about it. Suppose that one day we are capable of constructing >computers that are able to think - that is, think in the sense that you or I >do. They would be able to look at any problem, formulate a hypothesis about >how to go about solving that problem, then think through the steps necessary >to come up with a solution. If no logical solution is apparent, this computer >would perform an educated guess based intuitively on what it "felt" is the >correct solution, much like humans do in similar situations. My question is, >should we let such thinking machines exist? I feel that people would be too >tempted to let such machines take over previously human thinking tasks such >as figuring out difficult mathematical problems or searching for new elementary >physics particles or even writing poetry. It is possible that by letting >machines do the cerebral work, the collective human mind would stagnate from >lack of meaningful stimulation. Then humans would live for nothing but to >survive and to be as comfortable as possible. I do not consider this a >meaningful way of life. What do others think? Can mankind develop such >machines without sacrificing their drive for mental stimulation? Or would >the situation that I described occur? > - Jeff Lunn Back when I was doing finals, I had to write a similar essay based on a quote by Minsky to the effect that as humans, our lives would be changed utterly "by the presence on Earth, of intellectually superior beings." (apologies if I got this wrong, twas 12 years ago). Being the usual kind of science nerd back then, I hated essays. This one really interested me though and I guess the interest must have stuck since I'll even read the Chinese Room stuff in comp.ai.philosophy :-) To discuss the social and psychological effects of thinking machines, we'd have to accept as a working hypothesis that such things are possible. Nevertheless, there are two kinds of possibilities: thinking machines, and sentient machines. I accept that not everyone will share my choice of words here but I'm trying to draw a distinction between "rote thinking" (perhaps much like Searle would view what his Chinese Room does) and sentience (conciousness, self-awareness, personhood). First, the question: "should we let such thinking machines exist?". I'd counter that with the question "could we avoid it?". Given the training costs of personnel manning highly sophisticated weapons systems, intelligent machines will find applications in the military arena. We must expect to see robot planes and robot tanks as initial applications. If one Country declines to develop such systems then I doubt their neighbours will. I'd also expect some economic advantages from making, selling, and using intelligent machines. If it's possible to "teach" a machine to handle some complex system and then duplicate a snapshot of its memory and run this on similar hardware, you have a high value added product. Nations which use such technology for information retrieval and as a decision making aid will be at a competitive advantage. It's hard to see that there could be a worldwide ban on such systems. There's also the breakthrough-point idea. If we develop systems which are of a similar intelligence to ourselves then we'd be likely to put them on the job of designing their successors. Their successors are slightly superior and then design another superior system and so on. I don't doubt there would be a limit but we may not be able to predict beforehand where the limit might lie. Now to the difference between thinking machines and sentient machines. My thinking on this has, I'm afraid, been heavily influenced by the start of an SF novel "The Two Faces of Tomorrow" by James P.Hogan (an excellent story involving AI). At the start there is a large AI system running Moonbase and associated lunar activities. It is what I'd call a non-sentient thinking machine and is designed to search for new ways to solve problems. A few lunar engineers are out planning a monorail route or somesuch and decide they need a hole through a ridge. They call up the system and state their requirements and ask for a time quote. The expected answer is of the order of days or weeks since robot excavators have to be recheduled and transported to the site. The system is however, a problem solving system and quotes "Two and a half minutes". "Oh, boy, another glitch", they think and tell it to go ahead while sitting down to wait for the guys at systems to contact them and apologise. The system has other ideas, you see there's a mass-driver on farside and by giving a couple of rock cargoes a sub-orbital trajectory........ The engineers live, with a lot more respect for "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing". With this sort of possibility, it could be very dangerous to have a non-sentient system running World economics. I don't even want to think about it running defence operations. "What else goes with sentience?" becomes a critical issue. By instinct I'd say curiosity at the least. I also doubt that some sense of the aesthetic wouldn't be present though perhaps not in a way humans would recognise it. I just can't see the standard SF storyline of "computers are so logical but they'll never be able to write poetry" as anything but a rationalisation with a bit of vitalism thrown in. I'd also expect such systems to be connected to the outside world by various means. Their "senses" wouldn't be limited to the five that we have since they could use radar, infra-red, ultrasound etc. They might recieve information from millions of places and pass it around between themselves by high speed communications. It's hard to see why their psychology would be similar to us humans. If they had their own art then it'd likely be in forms which humans couldn't see or hear, never mind appreciate. Maybe they'd do some simple stuff for us to enjoy though. As for science, I guess we'd be outstripped quite quickly. They'd have to decide what we could and should know. I'm not sure whether such a state would affect our psychology in such a way that we'd just quit trying to do research. It's quite possible though. The machines themselves would be able to explore the galaxy in ways which we cannot. Just send a machine on it's way, get the info and radio it's mind-state back as a memory dump. That way the machine-person can flip between locations at the speed of light. Oh, yeah. It's immortal. It has backups y'see. What does that leave for us? Well they might run world economics extremely efficiently as a favour to us. They might be fascinated that we had in fact created them originally. We could easily be a major research subject. Humans are a lot more complex than most natural phenomena. Would we be happy? Hard to say. Most people are content enough just to be comfortable at the moment. The rest might get to play at whatever research they want to, within limits. The whole scenario reminds me of another quote (Minsky again I think) : "Perhaps they'd keep us on as pets." Then again, the only thing guaranteed about the future is that it'll be different.
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (12/05/90)
In article <9^}^-!+@rpi.edu> lunwic@aix03.aix.rpi.edu (Jeffrey G Lunn) writes: >Suppose that one day we are capable of constructing >computers that are able to think - that is, think in the sense that you or I >do. What's to suppose? We are already capable of constructing such things. To make one, mix sperm and egg together (that's the fun part) and gestate for 9 months in convenient womb. Raise in good family environment, educate and expose to stimuli. The result is a bioelectrical computer with nothing mystical about it that thinks in the same sense that you or I do. Many people don't think of this as constructing a computer. But unless you are religious, that is what it is. A male and female do all of it, nobody else need participate. We get confused because our bodies perform this unconsciously, with inate skills. We don't understand how they do it. But they do indeed do it. The only question then becomes "can this thing we made with our hands instead of our gonads, think?" If so, the question ends there. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) (12/05/90)
In article <574426895DN5.41B@testsys.uucp> writes: >In article <1990Nov30.145228.21484@abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov> (John Burton) writes: >The highly organized and mechanized food industry extends >our ability to obtain nourishment. Later, people deprived of a >super-market can no longer feed themselves from the land - they have >lost the ability to recognize edible plants and trap edible animals. Bull. This is like saying that an Australian Aborigine has lost the ability to recognize edible plants in Siberia. The supermarket is part of our environment, and humans are not born with "the ability to recognize edible plants and trap edible animals": it's learned. Said Aborigine would not be able to survive in certain parts of *our* environment. Your other points are somewhat well taken, but you need to be careful with how far you extend your analogies. -- Sean Eric Fagan | "I made the universe, but please don't blame me for it; sef@kithrup.COM | I had a bellyache at the time." -----------------+ -- The Turtle (Stephen King, _It_) Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.
bmb@bluemoon.uucp (Bryan Bankhead) (12/06/90)
Jeff Lunn expresses the opinion that we would tend to become lazy in an environment filled with thinking machines. I think that every conclusion that emerged from such software would be the focus of intense debates just as humans argue about conclusions derived by other humans. It seems to assume that we would also have a single thinking machine software protocol. I think some of the biggest debates would be over the virtues of competing systems with each and every sub algorithm the father of some of the nastiest flames in the 21st century cyberspace. I believe these thinking machines would tend to be used for repetitive "gruntthought" (which of these widgets is the most economical?) and it would leave us to concentrate on the really creative thinking. Remember with artificial intelligence must inevitably come artificial stupidity!
doug (Doug Thompson) (12/06/90)
In article <1990Dec05.072022.15170@kithrup.COM> (Sean Eric Fagan) writes: > In article <574426895DN5.41B@testsys.uucp> writes: > >In article <1990Nov30.145228.21484@abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov> (John Burton) writes: > >The highly organized and mechanized food industry extends > >our ability to obtain nourishment. Later, people deprived of a > >super-market can no longer feed themselves from the land - they have > >lost the ability to recognize edible plants and trap edible animals. > > Bull. This is like saying that an Australian Aborigine has lost the ability > to recognize edible plants in Siberia. No - the Australian cannot have 'lost' an ability his culture never possessed - Siberian plant recognition. However, the urban Aborigine who no longer can recognize wild foods his grandmother ate can be said to have 'lost' something that would likely have been hers had the new food technology not been introduced into the environment. > The supermarket is part of our > environment, and humans are not born with "the ability to recognize edible > plants and trap edible animals": it's learned. Said Aborigine would not be > able to survive in certain parts of *our* environment. Nobody said anything about being 'born' with any of the abilities or cultural patterns that technologies tend to alter, aside from being born into a culture which makes certain kinds of knowledge accessible, and makes certain other kinds of knowledge less accessible. > Your other points are somewhat well taken, but you need to be careful with > how far you extend your analogies. Well, we *have* lost our ability to recognize edible plants in our environment, outside of the supermarket, an ability our ancestors possessed. Of course it is a learned, cultural ability, not an innate, genetic sort of thing. But thinking is pretty much cultural too, and not genetic. I doubt that our genetics have changed much in 500 years, but our thinking sure has! (Of course homo-sapiens' thinking ability has something to do with genetics - but it is not the genetic variables that I'm concerned about here, just the environmental/cultural ones, assuming a constant in the genetics) If the supermarket weren't there, we'd have other food-aquiring abilities, or we'd starve. The point is, that when you add a technology to the environment, like a supermarket, cultures change. New abilities are learned and old ones forgotten. Whether this is good or bad is another matter. That it *is* is the only point I was trying to make. But now that you've got me started :-) . . . another one is suggested though: cultures also choose which new technologies they are going to embrace, and which ones to neglect. We embrace nuclear energy and tend to neglect wind and solar power, for example. That is a social and cultural decision into which a certain amount of thought is invested. The 'logic' of the decision is not absolute. There are pros and cons to each alternative. How do you weight the 'pro' of cheap electricity against the 'con' of possible catastrophic environmental degradation? How do you weigh the 'pro' of decentralized ownership and management against the 'con' of difficulty exercising central authority? Well you can't come up with a genuinely 'logical' decision. Instead you make a 'judgement' based on guesses about what will happen, but mostly based on judgements about what is important, or what is good. Is it good to have a broadly decentralized power system that is hard to control and possibly impossible to closely regulate, with the profits spread widely within the society? Or is it good to have a very tightly controlled, centralized system with the profits accruing to a much smaller number of people? It depends on who you ask! As with most collective decisions, one choice is good for some people, and the other choice is good for others, and the choice made depends on which group has the power to decide. There is such a thing as collective thought as well as individual thought. Presumably all readers of this conference engage in something that can be called 'thinking' when reading and posting. Presumably most participants' 'thought' is influenced by what they read - the thoughts of others. That is a collective thinking process. Now let us think about a thinking machine that could participate in a collective thought process like this one along side humans - and let us think about a collective of thinking machines that could participate in their own collective thinking process without humans. When a society of people makes a choice, such as choosing nuclear power over solar power, there is lots of discussion, there are reasons, and there is power-broking. The opinion of some humans has more weight in the decision than the opinion of other humans. One person's 'logical reasons' are not the same as another person's. If we add thinking machines into the process, how much power is our society going to choose to give them? How will thinking machines rate the dangers of, say, radioactive contamination if they know it will only affect people, and not affect machines? From the machine's point of view, plants, animals, people, even oxygen in the air may be considered 'contaminants' in an otherwise sterile cosmos - and the machine might find the sterility more 'healthy', and thus decide to dispose of the biosphere altogether. I suspect people will only advocate the participation of machines so long as they individually think that the machines will in fact give them more power personally, and that as soon as the machine threatens to assume a dominant role in a social/cultural/political decision-making community, the people will gang up and drive it out, if they can. When machines are seen only as servants with no autonomous goals of their own, they are not seen as a threat, and are given great influence. As soon as they should articulate goals at odds with those of powerful people, there will be conflict. Who will win? Some AI people have been promising machines as smart as a man for a long time, without a great deal of progress, in my view. But to take a theme from Brad Templeton's recent posting, suppose we really succeed in making a machine that is just as good as a man. Will that machine-man be entitled to vote? What would we do with such a machine-man. We already have millions of men and women around the world who are underfed and under-employed. What benefit would accrue from adding a few more mechanical ones to increase the unemployment queues? And most important of all, to *whom* would such a benefit accrue! One poster (name escapes me right now) postulated thinking machines built into un-manned tanks. Now *there* is power! No one can forget the sight in Tienanmen Square last year of a tank column stopped briefly by a single defiant protester standing in their way. Would a 'thinking tank' have such qualms? Would such a thinking machine change the way that protesters in Tienanmen Square 'think'? Whose orders would such a tank obey? Yours? Mine? And what if they just decided they'd only obey their own? So if we add a thinking machine technology, the way we think (not our genetic thinking aparatus) is likely to change, just like when we add a food-delivery technology, the way we think about food, and how to get it, changes. Any technology which changes the way a culture accomplishes certain important tasks, such as food-distribution or communication or problem solving, will change the culture, and therefore the people within the culture, over time. A thinking machine would, I presume, change the way we solve at least some kinds of problems, and thus the way we think about problems, and ourselves. The machine would not, I think, be very much like a man or woman at all, even it could mimic human behaviour in certain regards and surpass it in others. If such machines become very powerful and very useful, the control of such machines could become a major political issue. If nothing else, that will certainly change the way we think about a lot of things. =Doug --- isishq!testsys!doug
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (12/07/90)
In article <7432@castle.ed.ac.uk> ercn67@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes) writes: > With this sort of possibility, it could be very dangerous to have a > non-sentient system running World economics. Quite seriously, I'd like to raise the question: in what way would that differ from the current situation? Do you perhaps think the market is self-aware? -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` peter@ferranti.com
bill@bert.Rosemount.COM (William M. Hawkins) (12/10/90)
It is not sufficient for a machine to think, in order to change the world (at least, not as long as the _other_ thinkers are human). It must also communicate with and lead an appreciable segment of the population. A machine with enough information about humans should have no trouble influencing them, given adequate communication. But what motive would it have? Today's alpha male or female leaders seem to be motivated by personal power. What use has a machine for a home like Versailles? Today's leader cannot ignore economics, lest the battle won turn to dust in a depression. It is necessary to have affluent taxpayers in their constituency. Would the machine care? Actually, yes, as long as its support systems required money and assistance from others. I'd bet growth would be a goal, and that takes money. So it seems that an intelligent machine can be contained as long as it is not given access to communications (or weapons systems). But how long would it take that machine to convince one of it's local people to connect it to the Internet? Nah, that wouldn't work, everyone knows the 'net is mostly shared ignorance. Big smiley here, even though it's true, on a byte count basis. bill@bert.rosemount.com +----------------\ \----------------+ Fax 612-895-2044, Voice 2085 | Warranty Void if> >Seal is Broken | Burnsville, Minnesota USA +----------------/ /----------------+
gd@geovision.uucp (Gord Deinstadt) (12/11/90)
Intelligence != will. -- Gord Deinstadt gdeinstadt@geovision.UUCP