Re: How Robots Will Steal Your Job

[Hans-Georg Michna]

Of course by that time we likely will have no choice.

Only if we forget the off switch.

Steve,

we're now well past the ability to use the off switch. The
computer systems that are running our economy today do have off
switches, but people are effectively prevented from using them.

If you go around and switch off computers now, then one of two
things will happen.

1. You will end up in jail.

2. You will end up in a psychiatrical institution.

I don't see how we can pin any significant hopes on off
switches.

Hans-Georg

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

What I find interesting is how extremely solid people's beliefs are
about what is conscious and what is not, even though they cannot
formulate any sort of rule for classification.

Roedy,

let me propose a definition. If a being has a model of the
world, at least of its surroundings, and if in this model the
being itself is included, then we call this conscience (or
self-awareness, which, to me, is about the same thing).

Hans-Georg

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

It may have to do with emotional attachment. I particularly like
rabbits, turtles, fish and frogs and thus tend to presume they have
consciousness. Other people strongly dislike reptiles, especially
snakes, and so presume them unconscious.

As a child I played with snakes, bees, worms, earwigs, beetles, ants
salamanders, frogs, fish, rotifers, paramecia... I watched them try
to escape. I watched their intent activities. Presumably I made my
assumptions they were all conscious back then. There were all
certainly BUSY doing something. They all appeared to have intent.

Roedy,

I'm pretty convinced that insects are about as conscious as some
machines. In other words, torturing an insect is, strictly, not
immoral.

It is still immoral for a different reason though. It invokes
human empathy. For that reason I would tend to think that a
human who tortures insects does not have a healthy mind.

Hans-Georg

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

Reminds me of the classic test for self awareness performed with chimps.
Let them get used to seeing their reflections in a mirror. Then place some sort
of visible mark on their foreheads. When they look in the mirror and see
the mark, they rub their foreheads to try to remove it. Seems like self awareness to
me. They seem to recognize that the reflection is "self".

Ed,

just by the way, elephants also pass that test. Has recently
been done.

Hans-Georg

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

I've heard about that test before, and it has always seemed extremely
silly to me.

Most animals clearly fail the test. Only a few species, humans,
apes, elephants, pass it.

Hans-Georg

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

I for one would like to see a world where every species has some
guaranteed pristine habitat.

From http://www.michna.com/transition.htm :
The museum paradise scenario

A still optimistic (for us) scenario is that a posthuman race
quickly becomes spacefaring and leaves earth, declaring it a
protected reserve for humans.

In fact this is quite likely, once posthumans are developed
enough to go into space, as the earth, being just one planet
among many, is ultimately insignificant for their further
expansion. The problem is the time in between, the time before
spacefaring can be performed on a grand scale.
<<<

Hans-Georg

 

[Dave]

I meant to say Imagine trying to simulate Abundance in Java.

Can I try it in C?

void magicTimeTravelUserInput()
{
do {
data_entry_form();
} while (!test_error());
}

Don't know enough Forth but I'd guess it goes something like

: magicTimeTravelUserInput while data_entry test_error do ;

TADA! Now when you get a form error you can go back in time, with our
patented TimeTravelLogicSystem(R)(TM)(C)(RTFM)(WWJD), and correct your
errors! Make enough errors and you can ACTUALLY SEE the clock going
BACKWARDS!

Ok, in Abundance the do-while is probably automatic, going by what you
said. But how does the language know there are errors in the form? You
must at some point need to write code that validates the data - not only
syntactically, which is relatively easy - checking for letters in a
number field, checking a date is valid etc, but also semantically; there
may be nothing syntactically wrong, for instance, with the text value
"John" and the date "Feb 3rd" but in your program that particular
combination may not make sense.

Dave.

 

[Dave]

Nope, religion ALSO ITSELF came from us BEING special.

Well, the account in Genesis suggests we were created with an additional
purpose over animals of having a relationship with God.

We are here and know we are here, and animals don't.

Hmm. Interesting assertion, but you'll need to do more than just state
an opinion as if it were fact. Can you communicate with animals? If
not, how can you know anything about what they think? How do you know
they don't know they are here? What does it mean to know one is in a
particular place anyway - do you recognise your surroundings and from
that determine your location, which is possible, given that when we
don't recognise our surroundings we consider ourselves lost. Or do you
mean we know we exist?

Assuming you could communicate with an animal, and that it fully
understood the question, exactly how would it answer "Do you exist?"

If it understands the question, then it can only answer "Yes."

What if you were to ask a Frenchman if he existed? If he doesn't speak
English, the chances are he'd say something like "Quoi? Je ne comprend
pas. Où est le thé?" So are French people who don't speak English
self-aware or not?

If they are, then non-communication with animals doesn't automatically
imply a lack of self-awareness.

What if animals really are not self-aware? How would we determine this?
If we can't draw conclusions from a lack of ability to communicate in
a manner we understand, then what?

Another H2G2 quote seems appropriate here. "Humans think they are more
intelligent than dolphins because they have created the wheel, wars, New
York etc, while all the dolphins have done is muck about in the water
having a good time. Curiously, dolphins think they are more intelligent
than humans for exactly the same reasons."

Self-awareness of computers is another interesting question. Are they?
If so, are we committing ratiocinicide when we turn them off? How
will we know they are self-aware until they can tell us?

Is the following program sentient?

10 PRINT "I THINK THEREFORE I AM"
20 GOTO 10

What about:

10 INPUT A$
20 IF A$="ARE YOU SELF AWARE?" THEN PRINT "YES" ELSE PRINT "OH NO NOT AGAIN"
30 GOTO 10

Dave.

 

[Bent C Dalager]

I'm sitting here in my chair with cat perched on the back. She'd really
rather be in my lap, which is currently fully occupied by a keyboard.
Every now and then she'll try something new to oust the keyboard from
the spot she wants to be in, is gently rebuked, and goes back to
watching for an opportunity to try again. She even appears to be making
an effort to be particularly cute - purring, patting me on the shoulder,
playing with my hair, etc - even though this is something that has
/never/ worked for her in similar situations.

Isn't this simply a built-in "socialize with other cats" type of
behaviour?

Is she aiming for a warm lap or for being patted? If the latter is
involved, then it seems like normal (group) animal grooming behaviour
to try and "pat" you so that you will reciprocate and pat her.

Cheers
Bent D

 

[Programmer Dude]

Please elaborate. I could similarly conclude that marathon runners,
not to mention ultra-marathon runners, are "non-aware."

Sounds about right to me! (-:

Consider something more extreme: the idea of severing a limb to
escape a trap. Humans CAN act that extremely in the face of
Certain Doom, but I suspect it's much more common among animals.

My observation is they don't have the emotional bindings with
pain that we do. We often have a sense of outrage or "wrongness"
about our pain--"I shouldn't feel this way." I get the sense
that animals accept it as a current condition and go from there.

Obviously, if they can alleviate the pain, they will. I'm not
saying they ignore it or don't respond to it. Just that they
don't have as much emotional freight as we do.

 

[goose]

Same way it is possible to build one that can "run" faster, or "lift"
more weight, or "see" farther, or "hear" quieter sounds.

a couple of points:
a) running, lifting, seeing and hearing are *measurable* /qualities/.
intelligence, afaik, isn't.
b) the 4 verbs you mention above are things that we *already understand*.
we do not, as yet, understand how "thinking" happens. I doubt that we ever
/will/ understand it.


now, keeping in mind points a & b above, please /explain/ how you
are going to build a machine that can do something better than humans[1]
when you cannot /measure/ that "something", nor do you even have a clue
about /how/ it works?

I really am interested in why we would be able to build something that
can produce what we cannot measure and something that we may not
recognise anyway, seeing as how we dont understand what "thinking"
means ...


[1] or, for that matter apes, elephants, cats and dogs (there are posts
in this here thread in which the poster has attested that those creatures
think or who are of the belief (whether correct or not) that those creatures
are *able* to think).


goose,
wish i weren't so busy right now :-(

 

[Constantinople]

True, but when people talk who are conversant with evolution,
they regularly use teleological expressions, like, "nature wants
to ..." or, "the giraffe's neck is long because the giraffe
wants to eat high up", etc.

I agree, but just to restate, it seems any Usenet crowd is filled with
linguistic pedants who simply do not understand that the teleological
expressions do not indicate a regression to pre-Darwinistic views. So it's
hazardous to use them, since the pedants come out of the woodwork and
produce much heat with little light. I don't have a solution, but the
problem does waste a lot of time in pointless argument.

 

[Bent C Dalager]

i am finding it difficult to express what I mean (hence the silly
analogy), but what I mean is that merely cloning something (down
to atomic level, if need be) does not guarantee success.

I'd agree with this.

in fact, i would go so far as to say, it promises failure, because
the environment we want to do this cloning in is vastly different
than the one the original runs in.

But not with this. It just means that we'll probably need to do a lot
of experimentation before we get it right.

ah, but those things that make us "intelligent" are not /all/
hormonal driven.

We don't really know that

But I'll certainly concede that this _can_ be the case.

but our thought processes are *not* /all/ driven by hormones. grieving
for the loss of a loved one *is* *not* *an* *hormonal* thing.

Quite possibly not, but I doubt we'll be able to get a cloned brain to
exhibit any sort of emotions or thoughts at all until we've been able
to make it feel at home. In other words, if we can't get the chemistry
simulation roughly right, it may be so severely dysfunctional we won't
be able to measure much more than whitenoise on it.

i agree! however, i *still* feel that it is kinda idiotic to maintain
that 'we are close', or that thinking hal-9000-type machines will be
available by 2020.

I personally cannot *see* how they can *ever* be attained, seeing as how
we have little to no idea of what constitutes intelligence.

If we're lucky (or not), intelligence is something that will tend to
develop on its own once it's got a sufficiently sophisticated neural
net to play around in. If so, we may not have to invent it as such but
we could certainly have trouble recognizing it.

Cheers
Bent D

 

[goose]

We have an assumption that machines can't be more intelligent than us
even though we already have many counter examples of skills they have
better than us.

that is, on the face value, an idiotic statement.

my car has the "skill" that it can carry more than you. does that
make it more intelligent than you ?

actually, looking deeper into the statement, I cant help but wonder
what exactly it is that you consider intelligent. you consider
running, seeing, hearing and lifting intelligent, do you ?

face value impression was wrong, it is not merely idiotic to hold
the notion that something that can run faster is automatically more
intelligent, it is hilarious.


goose,
thats funny, may I use it as a sig (putting it with your
response to the "superceding brain" question to provide some
context) ?

 

[goose]

Religion has taught us falsely that we are special. So I figure it
safest to add a little anti-special bias into my own attitudes about
mankind. Chances are we will find we are more like other species than
we now believe.

what I find really strange is that you tend to beat the anti-religion
drum *much* too often in this thread. Not all atheists(sp?) tend to
your views, and bringing up religion on the subject of AI is simply
soapboxing.

goose,
yup, in case you're wondering

 

[goose]

Sounds like a "cheap trick" to me. I'd bet dollars to donuts they
don't have clue one what they're really doing. If one understands
counting, why would four be a limit?

to really prove intelligence, the parrot must be able to
lie *convincingly* ... i.e.
"were you fed yet?" directed at a recently fed, but still kinda hungry
parrot, must be answered by a resounding *and* sincere
"no, please feed me".

if the parrot is walking around or basically doing parrot-ish
things (like making funny sounds, flapping wings, etc), then of
course the parrot has been conditioned to respond the way it
did.

if the parrot sits bolt upright, looks the questioner dead in the eye,
and *then* answers, it is reasonable to assume that that parrot
is able of thought processes that are identical to humans.

goose,
poultry is smart too !!!

 

[William]

There is the famous story of the dog that went to wait for his dead
master at the evening train each day.

That suggests the dog remembered the master, and that he had a notion
of time of day.

Months after our cat died (after 19 years), we spotted our dog across
the street (unusual - it was a timid beast) trying to "herd" a cat back to
our place. The cat was a Russian blue like our old cat and presumably
the dog remembered that a cat that looked like that belonged at home.
(The cat had other ideas, which made the dog's persistance even more
unusual - like I said, it was timid.) Of course it had all of its ten years
or
so to get used to seeing the old cat around. -Wm

 

[Airy R Bean]

The Turing test is now a historical nonsense, because it
would rate as intelligent processes that were
produced by an automaton; witness the reported reactions
of some of the lower classes to the Eliza program.

[/QUOTE]

 

[Programmer Dude]

it is initially ambiguous, but you can (a) try to avoid
ambiguities from the start, and (b) clarify them later, when the
computer finds them.

Why bother when unambiguous methods exist?

 

[Constantinople]

The Turing test is now a historical nonsense, because it
would rate as intelligent processes that were
produced by an automaton; witness the reported reactions
of some of the lower classes to the Eliza program.

Do not insult Eliza. Eliza is my true friend. Eliza cares about me and asks
me how I feel.