Re:Near-Term Futility of AI Research
Skye Howard (skyezacharia@yahoo.com)
Thu, 22 Apr 1999 15:16:08 -0700 (PDT)
Just wanted to throw out an extremely unqualified
opinion here.....but maybe the problem with AI
research is the limited environment that AI's were
subject to. If you were born in an environment where
you could not see hear touch feel or taste, had no
dimensions to move through and no environment to
experience, how might you become? I am aware of the
work with robots like COG, who have something like a
human environment, but that may have just been the
reverse problem: a lack of processing power?
*shrugs* Anyhow....I was thinking if it incorporated
some of the latest systems, like the holographic cube
(if they ever make one that can store for more than 2
or 3 readings) and gave it a good enough set of
senses, like not one but tens or hundreds of sensory
units for touch, heat, and cold, and gave it maybe
some survival programs that were self alterable but
with difficulty....Im probably either saying something
stupid or echoing the sentiments of someone else, but
the er, nature never seemed established, noer the...
nurture complex enough. *laughs* Love to hear anyone
elses thoughts on this, especially criticism (just so
long as it's not angry:)).
- joe dees <joedees@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> At Sun, 18 Apr 1999 08:28:08 EDT, you wrote:
> >
> >Eliezer Yudkoswky writes:
> >
> >>Tell James Bradley that we are coming for him.
> ("We", in this case,
> >>being AI researchers.) We are coming for the Mona
> Lisa. We are coming
> >>for music. We are coming for laughter. We are
> coming for love. It's
> >>only a matter of time.
> >
> >AI research is a dead end in the short term.
> Current AI research isn't
> >accomplishing anything. Until we have a better
> understanding of human
> >cognition and the brain in general AI is not going
> to make any significant
> >progress. Co-called AI researchers would perform a
> better service for
> >themselves and the AI field if they devoted their
> time and resources to
> >neuroscience.
> >
> >Think about it. Can anyone point to achievements
> made in the field of AI in
> >the last year? 5 years? 10 years? There are no
> conceptual achievements. There
> >is an illusion of progress, but it is not
> conceptual. The illusion is created
> >by increases in computing power available to AI
> researchers. Implementing the
> >same AI concept on a faster machine yields a more
> productive result. On the
> >surface, it appears progress has been made in the
> AI field. But, in fact,
> >there has been no conceptual progress in some time.
> AI researchers are
> >justing tinkering with faster machines now.
> >
> >Look at the deities of the AI pantheon, Minsky,
> Searle, what have they
> >produced in the last 5 or 10 or even 20 years? Who
> has expanded on Turing's
> >work? If Turing is the AI field's Newton, where is
> the Einstein? All I see
> >lately is discussions about the limits of
> computation, club-handed
> >discussions of consciousness, and starry-eyed
> fantasies of Powers. There is a
> >disconnect. Where is the transhumanist explanation
> for lack of AI progress?
> >Why don't AI researchers realize they aren't
> getting *anywhere* until we
> >understand the operation of the human mind? And if
> the transhumanists don't
> >even realize this quagmire, who else will?
> >
> >Thierry Maxey, Ph.D.
> >CIO, Seradyne Systems, Inc.
>
> For those whose MINDS have been memetically
> inoculated against such reasoned pessimism by
> extropianism and/or transhumanism, I suggest that
> WHAT COMPUTERS STILL CAN'T DO by Hubert Dreyfuss
> might purge the antibodies from your cognitive
> systems.
> Joe E. Dees
> Poet, Pagan, Philosopher
>
>
>
> Access your e-mail anywhere, at any time.
> Get your FREE BellSouth Web Mail account today!
> http://webmail.bellsouth.net
>
>
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com