Chip'n Review - Skeptoid

Skeptoid - 5 Chips - Undiluted win

Link - I'm going to start with the benchmark; To get five stars (or inconceivably, above) a given podcast must be at least this good. 

The Podcast

Skeptoid episodes focus on de-constructing a given topic - often a modern myth or misconception of some kind - and taking an in depth look at what makes it tick.

Brian Dunning - the shows creator - does far more than simple 'debunking'; He takes the topic and actually looks at it (*gasp*). How is this done? he looks at available data, original sources where available and does a fine job of explaining his findings using small words within the ten-or-so minutes of a Skeptoid episode.

That and he gives full references (which I am ashamed to say I have never looked at :P).

TL DR

I reckon Brian could make even reading a shopping list interesting - If you want a wide variety of interesting topics that looks at psudoscience and common myths (amongst other things) here is a podcast for you. And for the record - no other podcast I have come across is of this quality.

Chipp'n podcast reviews

As I am both busy and have little to say at the moment (I am aware that this is a sign of the impending apocalypse) I shall start a new series of articles - the Chipp'n podcast reviews. The rationale is simple: I listen to an inhuman amount of podcasts (and am technically looking for more).

The way I shall review them is simple I shall give them a 'chip rating'; This is a numeric scale that has no upper or lower bound; Three and above is what I would (and probably do) listen too, five and up means that the podcasts in question are in a league of their own in terms of quality.

TL DR;
I'ma review some podcasts for a while because I'm feeling lolsy, lower score = bad, higher score = good.

PS. A  high chip score does not mean that it is my preference to listen to: Skeptoid (the next article) has the best chip score out of the various podcasts I listen to - if I had to prune my podcast list it would not be the last one standing.

I'm done here

No not with my blog - I have a lot of gasbagging yet to do. I'm done with artificial intelligence; No, not the concept. As it stands the concept of AI is fascinatingly intricate. What i'm talking about is the term "Artificial Intelligence"

As it stands Artifical intelligence can be broken down into any number of specializations and subcategories; Generic,focused and such. Problem is, AI seems to have, at least IMHO, something of a holy grail connotation.

Leonardo da vinci in a computer if you will; Something that can be aimed at but won't happen until it is damn well ready to happen. By this I mean all of this research and effort is going into various aspects of AI and yet it will not happen until we get to a sort of critical mass of technology and concept.

Now how about I go about using the term 'Intelligent Agent'(IA)? - The definition of which, from Wikipedia is "an autonomous entity which observes and acts upon an environment (i.e. it is an agent) and directs its activity towards achieving goals"

To me this has the connotation of software/machine/fleshling capable of acting in an (at least partially) intelligent manner without it needing to pass that damned Turing test - and avoid the tired old term 'AI'

But maybe that is just me and my three hours of sleep. Thoughts?

The beginning of the beginning.

I feel stupid - the more I learn the less I know.

My articles have merely scratched the surface and I have made a decision to learn all I humanly can about AI, and to reinforce my learning I made this blog without the expectation that anybody would really care.

Well here I am reflecting how little I knew and how I have learnt even less. I guess this would be true of any subject - doesn't help me from feeling stupid as I look at the vast amount of knowledge I know not.

And yet I cannot stop, I REFUSE to stop - I will not walk another path.

Anybody who wants to follow (or even help) my forays into the world of artificial intelligence both technical and philosophical is welcome. This blog will not be entirely about AI. But so help me if it is not a major theme.

I will meander and search and find what is interesting. In any case upcoming is a few articles about video game AI since the concept, while somewhat of a misnomer, is rather interesting.

I have heard too much in passing over the years not to want to learn more about it. It needs work and research and as such will take time however.

Lets see where I end up in ten years.

End of line.

On accountability and AI - V2

You are sitting at a table at your favorite techno-savvy coffee shop after watching the boxlike robo-waiter regurgitate your meal - only to realize that it got your order terribly wrong

Who is responsible for this world-ending blunder? Surely you did not enter your order incorrectly on the touch-pad in front of you?

As you watch the robotic waiter trundle from table to table to dispensing more stored orders you realize that it neither knows nor cares that your order was bungled - nor can it be held responsible.

So you grab the un-appetizer and wait in line with the rest of the lunchtime squares for a full five minutes before talking to the sanctioned checkout officer.

He confirms your order as sushi with a side of bacon even though you know you ordered simple cup of coffee so you insist that what you received was incorrect. 

The man in an attempt to quickly solve the problem blames 'some programmer' and hastily exchanges your order.

Now what if the system in question had more intelligence and still bungled order you muse? And what if you had special dietary requirements and had been killed?

An AI as of now has no rights/responsibilities and therefore could not be held responsible - This means the onus would fall to the same people as would if a standard computer program had stuffed up.

The above is just an example, an entire medical project working with neural networks to diagnose patients got canned. Why? Not because it was inaccurate - it was often more accurate than the doctors. Nay, it was canned because of accountability issues when it did stuff up.

For someone inspiring.

On wikipedia

I recently had a tutor (one of many) express that if Wikipedia was paper, it would not be fit to mop up a stain - and that is what came out of the mouth of those that where being NICE. This opinion is based on the not incorrect viewpoint that anybody can edit a wiki article is a weakness.

This makes me simmer a bit not due to extension of that statement that Wikipedia is not a valid source (more on that later) but they are basing their opinion on only one side of the story; The fact that anybody can edit an article is not just a weakness, it is the very thing that makes Wikipedia great.

Yes, I admit that the fact that anybody can edit an article is a the greatest weakness of Wikipedia - but I also acknowledge that it is it's greatest strength. Know something that isn't quite right about the article? Fixed. Full stop in the wrong place? Fixed. Idiot not using full sentences to express his opinions? Fixed.

Now Should it be used as a reference for a given report? Probably not; There are enough quality sources on a given subject that it is simply not necessary to use something as mutable as Wikipedia as a source.

That does not mean that it has no use in an assignment. In any given (non-pseudo-scientific) subject odds are there is a reasonably well written article that makes for a great first stop in unfamiliar territory.

So what is the real value when you have a marker that has the opinion expressed at the top of the page? The sources at the bottom.

The best way to learn is to teach

Ok yes I could write an article on how teaching robots will teach us much about ourselves

Screw that.

This article is to provide an open invitation to any of my mumble friends/acquaintances/people who i've set to ignore -should you read my blog- to join in to learn a bit about programming.

I'll be starting from the ground up, giving you new programming concepts at a rate you are ready with (in theory at least, i'm kinda new to the whole being a  benevolent teacher thing)

If you are an advanced programmer you probably know as much or more than me so you may not benefit me. Regardless, if anyone is interested drop me a line below or in mumble and i'll see what I can do.

Again, this is currently for my mumble homies only.

You will need:

• "codeblocks-10.05mingw-setup.exe" found here
• Default install is fine
• Enthusiasm

My plans:

• Introduction to the IDE
• Hello world
• Logic, loops and variables
• Preprocessor Directives
• Object oriented programming
• Classes variables and such
• Best practices
• Programming Practices
• Whatever (Post requests below)

Current peeps:

• Kalrenz(Mike)
• TheRandomHobo(Declan)

An AI's world - The First AI

So here I am writing an article on morality from the viewpoint of an (early; gen 1-2 at the most) AI construct.  Suffice to say morality without this context is pointless que series: An AI's world.

First context - when I say AI in this article I mean an artificial construct capable of intelligent decision making on a limited set of tasks. And thanks to everyone looking at the turing test as the baseline for intelligence - It must also be able to adequately communicate with humans about said task.

What sort of tasks?

Anything that falls in a 'grey area' of needing a knowing eye (something a human is traditionally good at) to perform a task that is either repetitive,  and/or voluminous (where machines exel).

A few examples of where you'll see these first AI off of the top of my head:

• Science
• Often data derived from sources contains a large amount of data that is near impossible to sift through within a reasonable time-frame. An AI trained on what to look for would in theory be able to find noteworthy data - and communicate it to a human.
• Military
• Getting gear, soldiers and ordinance where it is needed in a more efficient manner (or off the front-lines completely) is a win. Any machines filling these roles need to be able to follow orders and communicate effectivly.
• Power grid
• No really - the USA power grid is massive and the full implications of 'what happens if I do this?' is not fully understood by humans. A single entity being able to comprehend the entire grid and communicate with humans is invaluable.

That is not to say any of these systems will be created with the intention of being an AI. But as the autonomy of these systems is upgraded along with human interface capabilities it is near inevitable.

Thanks Turing for your piss weak requirements of AI.

Stay tuned for an AI's viewpoint - coming up next.

Artifical Intellegence Rights 5

Digital Privacy and the patenting of our DNA

First of all I would like to make my standing clear: patenting our DNA is stupid; understandable, yes, but still stupid.

I was reading through a GNU (open source) licence and a thought struck me, because all derived work must also be released under the same (open source) license, what happens when our digital buddies (or future overlords/executioners) hit the scene?

Does a company who created the AI in question have control over the AI's source code, and by extension the AI?
Would open source AI's (in whole or part) belong to the community?
Do AI have any right to 'source code privacy'?
Would an AI be able to petition for control of it's source code even if it is a derivative work?

Also by extension, would it be the companies or communities responsibility to maintain the AI?

As with humans and the workforce I imagine a give and take, we created you, we expect you to do X for Y number of years, we'll give you these benefits but you have to abide by these restrictions.

I am reminded of a fictional use for deformed (read: as good as dead) babies as dreamed of by Amn Mcaffery - Stick them in life supporting pods and train them up to be the controller for a starship.

Naturally this isn't cheap, and the goal of every shell person is to buy out themselves and their starship so they contract out their services to whomever they wish; rather than just being tied to company that created them.
</ i'll-formatted braindump>

What are your thoughts on the matter?

Digital Ecosystems

"I had a thought the other day, in regards to generating sentient AI.
Digital Ecosystem, designed to simulate billions of years of evolution. Essentially start with limited, instruction-based code that updates itself incrementally, and let these separate programs interact with each other.


Do you think this would be a viable course of action for Artificial Intelligence? If not, why not?


Regards,
Jonathan"


On the sliding scale of simulated evolution there's the purely organic abstractions and ones that rather closely resemble a collection of programs with an over-watch breathing down their neck to keep the population in check.

I remember messing around with this sort of thing in passing; Truly fascinating. For reference the program I believe I used back in the day was Tierra, an early 1990's approach at the latter; evolution of programs competing for CPU cycles and memory space.

The people who worked with Tierra found some rather interesting approaches at maximizing their chances of survival and breeding came about; For example there where parasites that used other programs replication code to breed, counter-parasites that tricked the parasites to create copies of said counter-parasite and other fascinating things.

Newer similar projects have the individual programs gaining bonuses for completing certain tasks and the like.

So what about other means, like the one alluded to in the quote?

What I have described above isn't really meant to go anywhere specific, it's more about the journey. Another way of using evolving programs that is used today is about the end.

In this approach you start with a blank section of code, or write a set of code that conforms to certain functionality requirements. Then throw the original version through the blender a couple of times. Test if the 'offspring' are any closer to a second more constrained set of functionality requirements, take the winner(s) then rinse and repeat.

And then there's the viability thing...

There is only one major limitation to all the above examples: the environment. Processor, Memory, and the fact that we are only processing abstractions of biologically similar systems.

With an unlimited amount of monkeys banging on typewriters processor power/memory, along with sufficiently complex methods of abstracting the biology in question (eg. enough potential complexity in the machine code of tiera or a good-enough facsimile of biological and/or neural function), we could very make a fully fledged AI - or in all likely hood -  an entire ecosystem of them with a bunch of monkey equivalents with oppose-able thumbs sitting at the top.


And how long did it take to make humans, out of how many planets?

That is not to say we can not learn a ton from these systems. They are invaluable when it comes to learning about biological and digital evolution. In the far flung future we may well see an AI arise from a long forgotten simulation left running.

First generation of AI however will not be from the evolutionary department, it will be from the engineering department. That is not to say adaptive techniques developed by both the humans making the simulatee's - and the simulatee's themselves may well be finding their way into future (or even the first) generations of AI.

Now after all that I have to say it: Lets just hope whatever machine that is running our own universe isn't running windows!

Moar Posts(?)

So the current line of posts is coming to it's end
Whats next? I could go quiet for a while 'till the next thing that must be brain-dumped appears.

Or I could take suggestions.

Enough from me, need more from you, my as of yet non-existent readers: what do you want me to do next?
Of note: I'm happy to do just about anything - I however won't touch religion for the foreseeable future

--end of line--

Artificial Intellegence Rights Part 4

Defining AI (continued) and defining the rights

It's easy to simply write up a feature list of an AI and say they get X rights for Y features. To use my last post as an example, each successive AI generation might get more rights because they are (in theory) capable of more, but also more responsibilities.

Obviously that won't because each generation may not be capable of more; just able to determine how you like your toast with more granular precision (he likes it 0.0001% darker on the butter side, but only on Sundays)

But a system like that is partway there, if is your right to have an internet connection, but do not have the capability to access the internet, whats the point? So the above needs to be used with the below.

In any case I'll stop listing features and rights and get down to the meat of it: 

How do we define those rights/Who qualifies for them?

WRONG TRAIN OF THOUGHT

Who defines those rights/How do we set the qualifications for them

Short answer: 

Democratically.

Long answer:

You begin with an (elected?) council of humans in Generations 00-01 (see last post if you want more info on generations) This is because any potential decision on the rights of even one AI (at least initially) will have major repercussions throughout the worlds of both human and AI. That and the niggling detail that the artificially inclined properly exist yet in a bra-burning sense.

Who are these people?

For the love of god not politicians, please, just don't go there. Aside from that i'd hope to see a mix of tech savvy philosophers. Bear in mind that is the ideal situation.

More likely your going to see major tech-developers/tech-gurus/tech-<insert relevant field here>, politicians representing the commercial sector (shudder) and/or military.

It ain't pretty but it's a start; and in the end, it is not about presenting a council without an agenda, its about presenting a council that is adaptable the the needs of the time and presents as many agendas as is feasible.

Why are they there/What are they doing?

They are there to regulate the industry to begin with, make sure that the cutting of the ribbon in front of the first true AI ain't' going to be a disaster, or if it is (and i'd put my money on it is), they cover it up. Besides, if they don't, someone else will certainly try.

Trust me, it's better for us in the long run. We want as little preconceived prejudices when the AI community as a whole starts philosophizing; Letting our fears get the best of us will set relations (and AI development as a whole) back YEARS if not damage them permanently.

Why? we oppress what we fear/hate. Can't escape from it, it's human nature at its simplest.

As someone wise once said: fear leads to hate, hate leads to violence, ??? leads to PROFIT  darkside.

...and yes I am well aware that it is:
"...Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering..." - A funny looking Muppet  YODA DAMNIT.

Where will they be going from there?

Well... that is a bit harder to predict, but easier to be naively optimistic about. Assuming all AI past the inevitable first crisis aren't lobotomized at creation you will eventually see some philosophizing; either by learned behavior or design.

These initial philosobots may or may not have anything useful to say on, for example, a council defining the rights for artificial intelligence's but those that do will help with the initial task of defining what an AI is. 

And for you sitting in your chair, even after reading my prior articles, saying "An AI is an AI, it's easy to define", I put this question to you: humans (outside of Africa) are from 5-10% neanderthal.

What is human?

And the council from there?

Just like any council it must constantly adapt, new AI's are elected to the council as old ones are shelved so to speak, definitions are redefined, humans phased out, post-humans - should they exist at all within the context of AI culture - phased in and we all go about out democratic life.

One last note, as I mentioned above, even an AI shouldn't be on term for forever, fresh ideas, oldies oldies being stuck in a rut (I know i'm stereotyping shush), young blood and all.

Or the council stagnate and fester like all councils do if left at it. After all for the most part "Governments are not voted in, they are voted out"

Post-Humanism

Since I brought post-humanism up in my last post I might as well put this footnote as well.

If we do not evolve with our technology our technology will leave us behind.

tl dr.

Artificial Intellegence Rights Part 3

Defining Artificial Intelligence

Time for a slight tangent for a brief and probably overplayed game of categorize that AI! Since most artificial intelligences will be radically different from each other a universal categorization system is rather hard, and yet necessary for the distribution of rights. More on that later though.

<music>We're talkin' 'bout artificial generations</music>
Since to exist a given artificial intelligence needs to be by definition be created, I can foresee an emergent timeline of said creation going something like this. Personally would like to see someone better qualified at this do one of these; this is as close to speculative fiction as you can get.

Generation 00 - And so it begins
The here and now; if it exists in the present (as of the writing of this article) it belongs here.

Generation 0.5 - The talking toaster test
In the near future chat bots and similar built solely to successfully pass the Turing test, I put this as gen .5 because as impressive as this is, it is merely the start.

Generation 1 - And so it REALLY begins
This generation will probably be more for proof of concept or specialized uses; testing the waters if you will. They will most likely be based off of gen .5/00 technologies and concepts such as the hypothesis generator .

This need necessarily be the case however. Biggest definer of a gen 1 AI is the implementation of heuristic learning methodologies and kicking of entirely new industries (or simply redefining a few old ones). I know the science of earthquakes for example would be revolutionized by a gen 1 AI.

Something else worth noting is that even though it will be based off of gen 0.5 tech, a generation 1 and above AI need not be able to speak; though it would most certainly help it in the whole proving it is intelligent (and thus an AI)

Generation 2 - The bubble
If it's happened once with humans, it's happened a million times, a bubble occurs, more money enters a given sector than is sustainable and (perhaps misguided?) innovation is rampant.  This is where I can see concepts such as self-modifying code bases being implemented in a practical manner.

Additionally this is where ill-conceived and poorly educated AI's with a lack of social skills and no work prospects leads to a brand new unemployed underclass, good job humanity. (I wish I could say that I am entirely joking when I say that)

Generation 2.5 - Pop
It isn't a bubble unless it pops; If there is going to be trouble it will probably be in gen 2-2.5 as progress moves faster than the society does. Heck, trouble caused by generation 2 will probably cause the bubble to pop.

What happens to all the half baked bastard children we've created though...?
And what will be the true backlash of the pop?

Generation 3 - Post-human is the new black
Signified by the designing and creation by an artificial intelligence in whole or part by another artificial intelligence. Post-humans also fall under this category because if you are not one by now  your officially outmoded as of several decades ago.

Also on post-humans, depending on the ratios of post-human to vanilla-human one or both will be  discriminating against the other. So you've shed your mortal shell, one or more humans, but now your all uptight know-it-all snobs who -still- haven't learnt from their own mistakes.

Generations 4+ going postal
At this point the sky is the limit and the definition of generations 4+ is probably best turned over those controlling it - our friendly new robot overlords/vacuum cleaners/unstoppable omnicidal doom machines, who knows this far in the future?

Artificial Intellegence Rights - Part2

Equal Rights for the ToasterKind?

So should we really give our toasters the same rights as we enjoy?

Short answer: maybe.

In truth it's a lot more complex than simply copy-pasting the bill of rights onto any machine that is able to tell us where to go (i'm looking at you, satnav). 

This is since, quite unlike humans, there are likely to be differences that count among st AI's. Your toaster, installed with a simple chat-bot (read: not smart at all) and able to learn how long to leave the toast in; probably shouldn't get more rights than you being polite to it every morning - and likewise it's only responsibility is to make your toast that perfect shade of brown.

A mainframe AI (read: smarter than the entire human race combined) would be subject to a few more rights than even we have; and notably more responsibilities/restrictions than we have. This is simply because it is capable of so much more than us squishy humans.

To put it into perspective, if humans where computers, we'd all be like commodore 64's; some with noisy fans and/or different colored machine cases; some able to use all their ram, and some are a little bit slow to boot up; but all essentially built to the same specifications - and the highest selling computer model around.

Now I understand that human beings have a lot more processing power than a mere commodore 64 - but suck it up, AI's are the eldritch abomination of the technological world; they hit the floor we might as well have that sorta processing power.

Equal rights movement for the Artificially Inclined? Nay.

Artificial Intellegence Rights - Part 1

Why even bother giving rights to a toaster?

Why indeed, there is a long precedence amongst humans that if two or more otherwise perfectly rational individuals don't quite see eye to eye everything form a bar-fight to bra burning to wars can break out. This is not to say that these thing won't happen for other reasons as well of course.

Humans being a generally selfish and stubborn species (I know peeps have their redeeming qualities, the only reason I have not jumped off this ride years ago really...) we will (by precedence) not give any more rights than we damn well have to until we are forced to.

This worked well and good when it was humans we where oppressing (see: all of history) - they simply fought tooth and nail through whichever means was available to them to right their situation.

This is not to downplay the countless battles won against oppression to this day - heck, many battles for human rights lay right around the corner, and it still won't be easy, just like it has not been easy in the past.

How does Selfish Preservation sound?

Now this is not why we should give rights to a toaster, but its a reason that may appeal to many people.Violence was one way, rights where clawed from an oppressors hands, politics but another - reform almost never came easy no matter the means. Now what happens when a vastly superior being of our own creation (read: just as bloody selfish and stubborn) wants it's share of the rights pie...?

This is where the future gets fuzzy, as there are a million ways an AI could be architectured and taught to do whatever it is it does. Will it rise up against us violently or will it do so in some other means using a technology that is inconceivable to our minds of today?

Will AI's of today's popular fiction ever exist when we can just put a post-human mind to work at the task?

Many many of the possibilities have been explored in books and movies - no real need to go over all them here.

The Future

Since this writing this blog is mostly in the future from the standpoint of this post start with, you guessed it, talking about this blog
From the title (The Past, The Present, The Future - As I see it) you can imagine I will be covering a broad range of topics, but anything specific I hear you ask?

Nay, I say: Everything.

If it's on my mind, it'll probably appear here, within reason that is; this isn't twitter after all. Fiction, Non-Fiction, restaurant reviews, you get the idea. But since this post is about the future in a vague sorta-kinda way, stick to that I shall.

I'll begin by a short disclaimer, I can predict the future. Ba-humbug you say. But wait don't close the page! You can to! It's easy! What will you be doing tomorrow? Bam done. You just predicted the future, congratulations. The future gets harder to predict with accuracy any length of time into the future - and frankly humans have a bad track record in the future predicting business.

The world is still here, Jesus has not come a second time, aliens have not enslaved us as foodstuffs and the USA did not get a bla- oh wait that one has come true, ah well, three outta four is a pretty bad track record anyway. This is not to that you can't predict the future, I am most certainly going to try a few (un?)educated guesses.

ps. Obama is a pretty swell guy, all things being equal, love his work. 'Cept for the medical marijuana crackdown though I don't blame him for that. That and probably a million other things I haven't heard of since I live in AUSTRALIA.

First!

I wrote an article later on musing on how far I had (not) gotten but there is no better place for it than the first page, so I am replacing the sad excuse of a first article and putting my reflection.


I feel stupid - the more I learn the less I know.

My articles have merely scratched the surface and I have made a decision to learn all I humanly can about AI, and to reinforce my learning I made this blog without the expectation that anybody would really care.

Well here I am reflecting on how little I have learned from the whole and yet how much more I know than what I knew. I guess this would be true of any subject - doesn't help me from feeling stupid as I look at the vast wealth of knowledge I am merely  glancing at.

And yet I cannot stop, I REFUSE to stop - I will not walk another path.

Anybody who wants to follow my forays into the world of artificial intelligence both technical and philosophical is welcome. This blog will not be entirely about AI. But so help me if it is not a major theme.

End of line.