---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 21:37:01 -0700 (PDT)
From: Franklin Wayne Poley <fwp@vcn.bc.ca>
Reply-To: bcpolitics@egroups.com
To: nwreports@toronto.cbc.ca
Cc: bcpolitics@egroups.com, ga-list@aic.nrl.navy.mil, wam4b@virginia.edu,
letters@nationalpost.com, letters@globeandmail.ca, money@cbc.ca,
sunbusiness@pacpress.southam.ca, moneyweek@turner.com,
info@fraserinstitute.ca
Subject: [BCPolitics] Triton: As an Evolvable (Self-Improving) Robotic
Village
Dear Allison:
Does your guest, Maurice Strong, really want to "end
pollution" as he says? Does he really use his business career as a means
to an end (public service)? The ability to build affordable,
pollution-free villages and cities has been with us for a long
time. Unfortunately people like Dean McDonough, U Virginia, are just a few
voices in the wilderness. Mr. Strong could fund such a planning effort
based at U Virginia. I will buy in, but only if it is the best village on
the planet. I have very high standards. All I need to convince me is a 30
page "Architectural Booklet".
FWP.
See <http://www.wkap.nl/journals/genp> re "Journal of Genetic Programming
and Evolvable Machines".
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re previous "thread":
Below is a "nonanthropomorphic" reply to Jose's sound answer. The previous
reply had to to with the anthropomorphic "Robomartha". False Creek is the
long, narrow inlet of the Pacific Ocean which runs through the middle of
Vancouver. The City Administration wants to build a model village on False
Creek for about 5,000 people. A couple of years ago L'Anse, Quebec decided
to pursue tourist dollars by crowning Denys I, Le Roi de L'Anse and
recently Toronto billionaire Conrad Black decided he wanted to pursue a
British peerage and become Prince Conrad-the-Magnificent of Toronto. It is
in the context of this backgrounder that the essay below was written.
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On Sun, 21 May 2000, Jose Klingbeil wrote:
> FWP wrote:
> >Where do you think evolving
> >machines will be in 10 years?
>
> It is most probable that these machines will have a lot of
> the characteristics of HAL 9000 in _2001: a Space Odissey_.
> Able to speak, to understand orders and of having a simple
> general conversation with humans, unbeatable at chess, etc.
> Yet nothing that I would call "thinking".
I don't worry about the philosophical issue of "thinking". I am concerned
with performance/results/achieving objectives. Remember that HAL in 2001
could have been considered to be the space ship itself. And as for
"thinking", hey...how many people you know are "thinkers"? A lot of the
"thinking" I do is just mechanical. Ask me to add columns of numbers. Is
my method any more a matter of "thinking" than the guy who uses an abacus
or vice-versa? Most of the time I find thinking to be BORING as hell and
I'd rather have a machine do it for me. I want to be a "Meta-Thinker" who
gives regal commands using voice recognition technology to the machinery
of his robotic village.
So let's imagine that Vancouver City Council suddenly gets
"inspired" re this model village for 5,000 people they want to build on
False Creek. First they heed the words of William McDonough, Dean of
Architecture at U. Virginia who says that any community development built
now which does not meet the criterion of "little or no pollution" is the
result of inferior planning <wam4b@virginia.edu>. Next they decide it will
allow people the option of getting from any point to any point without
facing inclement weather which is a characteristic of International
Village, recently completed on the north side of False Creek.
"The city of Baltimore was seriously considering acquiring the first
Triton City and installing it in Baltimore Harbor, (1968)...." writes
L.S. Seiden in his Fuller Biography. Triton was a three-sided stepped
complex for 5,000 people which would sit on floats. The US Navy had
attested it to be seaworthy.
Today the US Navy seems to have a strong interest in genetic algorithms
and evolving (self-improving) machines. I think this is better than both
the "USS Eldridge" project and Sgt. Bilko (Steve Martin) with his "hover
tank" put together. Therefore let me ask the US Navy for a floating
complex to house 5,000 people with the best computer money can buy and the
best robotic receptors and effectors money can buy. Isn't it Christmas
yet? This "HAL" will have lots of eyes and ears and hands all co-ordinated
by the mainframe computer. It will also be a "learning machine". We will
program it to LEARN TO SELF-IMPROVE. Over time it will be able to do more
and more of this on its own. But at first we humans will help it, using
the dictum of the late BF Skinner, "If it can be verbalized, it can be
programmed." In other words we verbalize the general plan for Triton's
self-improvement and the robotic receptors, effectors and artificial
intelligence take over once that has been turned into machine language.
The longer-term objective of Triton II will be to evolve into a
sky-city, perhaps like the warm-air-lift Sky Cities (Fuller
Spheres/Domes) which Fuller describes in "Critical Path" and from there to
undertake a "Space Odyssey". We give Triton a few lasers to play with and
work into a launch system. ("Tetra" was a large Fuller Sea City designed
for Matsutaro Shoriki). All this time it will have to maintain and
improve upon other criteria such as being pollution-free, providing
sheltered transportation as above, and total automation in the provision
of goods and services. As soon as fully autonomous evolution "kicks
in", we "meta-thinkers" will not have to program Triton to self-improve.
We will sit around and sing the national anthem of the "Kingdom of False
Creek". The lyrics begin:
"I don' wanna work
I jus' wanna bang on de drum all day."
If we have more than one Triton, they can constitute a colony of
communicating-cooperating robots. Each one with 5,000 human
inhabitants. Now that has Bilko's "hover tank" beat by a long shot.
But even at this primitive stage in its evolution a collection of such
future villages adjoined in a city would be autonomous for energy, food
and water.
FWP
(King Franklin the First of False Creek)
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Failed tests, classes skipped, forgotten locker combinations.
Remember the good 'ol days
http://click.egroups.com/1/4053/3/_/103697/_/959056641/
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