Jon...
By the way...When this new "Watson" computer was beating the living sh*t out of his two intrepid but very experienced human counterparts on JEOPARDY, it was NOT connected to the Internet! It played against those two sterling prior winners using just what was stored in its memory banks as a reference in order to more closely emulate the human memories available to the other two men. But tonight... Watson just "out-thought" them.
It has 16terabytes of RAM, and 2880 processors. From the beginning, it has been filled with information to do THIS SINGLE TASK. It holds the entire World Book Encylopedia, as just an example, which is probably at most, a couple DVDs. The thing itself is huge (2 clusters of 5 racks). To be able to package the same thing into human form is a far ways out.
Yes. It has all that amazing hardware...but the "One Single Task" it is doing...even now...while winning...is to THINK... and this puzzles the very people who designed it... for example in response to the question of how much money it would put up, Watson replied:
"I'll wager $6,435," Watson said in its pleasant electronic voice.
"I won't ask," said host Alex Trebek, wondering along with everybody else where that figure came from.
Now ...why did it choose to use that specific amount? The people who built this thing do not know...and the reason they do not know is because Watson is exhibiting a kind of intelligence that is a new and "alien" form of thinking. And a machine that can do that "One Task" close enough to emulate human thought and NOT reveal how or why it thinks as it does is a scary idea....especially if we cannot figure out how it works. If you could assume a form that approximated the size of a human brain cell... and say were standing in the tempo-parietal region of the human brain...you could borrow the .44 calibre Magnum Revolver from Inspector Harry Callahan ...and shoot out every fifth brain cell in the region...and that brain would not suffer one iota of functional loss. Brain scientists believe the reason for this is that unlike a binary system that can store information in a specific locale of physical memory and in great quantities as in this case of Watson... the human brain receives input from the world via our five senses (and some people think it contains the ability to tune in on even more undiscovered sensing that goes on inside our coconuts) and instead activates neurons in oscillating waves. This idea would explain why the brain does these oscillations when the person being tested is shown specific, pure colour frequencies of light. In fact...in the early days when gaming machines were invented...certain colours of light oscillating in the red end of the visible light spectrum were causing kids to suffer spontaneous epileptic seizures on the Mario Brothers hardware! So perhaps this theory really does hold water. Our brains are very far afield from computers indeed because rather than placing that recognition of what the colour "blue is in one particular location... a whole amazing array of brain cells are activated... almost like one of Nikola Tesla's neon light shows... and a bizarre and odd combination of neurons are triggered in response and thus that recognition is stored and remembered globally...and in three dimensions, electro-chemically inside our brains. Neural signals inside the human brain are transmitted at approximately three feet per second (3 fps)...very slow by any electrical standards...so is it any wonder that Watson can hit the Buzzer faster than anybody ever born?
Now that idea is also complicated by the fact that instead of being wired either in series or parallel...the human brain organizes and changes itself on an incalculable scale as a dynamic system almost constantly as a living organism...with little or no loss of stored information in the process. With over six trillion neural connections and all of the various permutations of these oscillating events... the "thinking" possibilities here exist on a staggering scale...and all this is happening inside an organic thing that weighs less than three pounds, floats inside your skull like a goldfish in a goldfish bowl and when felt between the fingers as during an autopsy...has the consistency of and feels like you are touching some greasy pudding. It is the most marvellous thing in creation...and the most weird. So Brad... I sincerely agree with you... Watson will NEVER be able to approach the compact and wondrous capabilities we have... but the point here is...it just does not matter. Watson will win the game on Jeopardy ...regardless! The fact is...Watson's "thinking" apparatus does not need to be built or designed EXACTLY like the architecture that allows us to sport a brain that brings "a mind" into being. Artificial Intelligence can and will be made to function, think and eventually even "feel" things... but when that finally happens...these machines just won't be "feeling" human...no matter what...or how hard IBM and/or Honda tries to to make this possible. And as for the humans?... We won't have a f*cking clue of what it is they are thinking about at any given moment... especially if we ever have to ask one of them, "What seems to be the problem, HAL?" Yup... but by then it will be way too late and we'll all be in Deep Kimshee.
...and a few more words about the concept of "One Single Task" that Brad has identified as the narrow context in which this machine functions. When it comes to intelligence, for better or worse, many human beings for all intents and purposes, fall into the general categories of either being "A Genius", "Very Smart", "Average" or if unimpaired medically but "Intellectually Challenged"... or just plain "Stupid". Like it or not...scientists and doctors could CAT scan the brains of each of these categories and but for the overly large pre-frontal cortex possessed by Albert Einstein and arguably the source of all his physics and mathematical acumen... all the others would biologically indistinguishable one from another. But where Watson is concerned, whatever programming and hardware are at the epicentre of its being... the machine itself is completely reproduce-able and if given an opportunity to follow Jon Von Neumann's concept of a self-replicating machine (see the WIKI on Cellular Automata)...then these machines could be duplicated again and again and break Brad's notion of their only being able to handle "One Single Task". As it is right now... that one simple task seems to be ...thinking. I wonder what other dimensions of the human condition it might go after next.
Last edited by 60dgrzbelow0; 02-17-2011 at 02:35 PM.
Lol, I own the "Ulitimate DVD" edition. This is my favorite part:
As Brad said, I figured they had a decent system behind it, although I didn't realize it was that big O.o I just figured they had a metric butt-load of history and facts stored on a huge hard drive. It's wagers certainly were odd amounts, especially the final one. Most humans would have used a rounded figure, so we have a ways to go to perfect AI.
Why have a robot run the controls in the first place? I mean, if you are building a machine for a robot to run, why build two machines- the vehicle and the robot- when you can build one and just build AI into it's control systems. Some of it's already there. Just look at tracking systems, etc. You could also just remove the control devices (control stick, etc.) and tap an AI control system right into the machines control systems so that if someone were to manage to get on board they can't turn your weapon against you.
I don't think automated armies will be the way of the future anyways. Like stated, machines might be able to calculate formulas and stuff faster, but we have a far more superior on the fly reasoning capability than machines do. Also an automated army would prove nothing except who can build a slightly faster, barely better robot faster than the next country.
...and LBNL....WTF IS THIS!!! ??? (Why ...just a little something light enough to be mounted on the back of an ambulating ROBOT... Th-Th-The That's All Folks!)
The thing itself is huge (2 clusters of 5 racks). To be able to package the same thing into human form is a far ways out.
i don't recall where, but I ended up on some link where the analysis was that our brains cost our bodies about 40 watts to keep going. And the ratio was something like 1/3 of our total power consumption. That's some insane bang-for-buck computing. Although no lab can sit down and build a similar amount of computing power, all of us are capable of paring up with the appropriate counterpart to make replacements. Though an astronaut did summarize what I said a lot better in the 60's.
It has 16terabytes of RAM, and 2880 processors. From the beginning, it has been filled with information to do THIS SINGLE TASK. It holds the entire World Book Encyclopaedia, as just an example, which is probably at most, a couple DVDs. The thing itself is huge (2 clusters of 5 racks). To be able to package the same thing into human form is a far ways out.
Here is an interesting an On Topic NOVA program about Watkins...."The Smartest Machine on Earth"
Some of the problems that Watson encountered in development had to do with its lack of any real world sensory input and the as yet undeveloped electromechanical but necessary equipment to appreciate what that means in the purest "sense". For example... it can neither hear sounds, understand spoken words nor appreciate music nor smell pleasant fragrances nor understand hazardous odours and the immediate threat they would pose to humans. For example, this is such a profoundly obvious thing to all but only the most well trained to deal with it: The smell of a decomposing body. We all possess an ancient, built-in response when we encounter very awful smells in that we'll automatically feel sick and wretch. And for those among us with particularly "weak stomachs", vomit violently.
The reason for this is that deep inside our brains is an exclusive spot that handles our sense of smell. Many brain scientists believe that it is the origination point of our intelligence, since a smell can conjure up our oldest memories quicker than any other human recall. And obviously this would be the most important automatic ability to a wandering group of hunter-gatherers looking for food and trying out damn near everything that curious, bi-pedal mammals could get their hands on and eat. The problem is... if one of them brings back either bad or poisonous food to the group to consume, if the food were bad, then all would die as a result. So this kind of "special sense" we have will always be alien to any intelligent, thinking thing made out of silicon. This age old brain structure is called "The Olfactory Bulb" and it has the ability and dedication to sense and detect smells, fragrances and odours; friendly or otherwise. Without, we would never be found and singled out in a crowded bar by that one beautiful woman who manages to pick up our pheromones. Neither would we miss stepping into a fresh cow paddy with both feet if it were not constantly doing its job.
Our special and highly developed olfactory sense acts constantly and automatically to process airborne molecules and treat this information in a way that guarantees if we should accidentally ingest something rotten or poisonous... our bodies will reflexively get rid of the entire contents of the stomach, just to be on the safe side. In part...this is also because two of our five senses in regards to eating are married within this event. The sense of smell and the sense of taste are almost inseparable in this matter. Watson will always lack an appreciation for the smell of the dozen roses we give to that girlfriend. Watson will never know that eating Ice Cream is such a pure pleasure because it evokes both a FEELING and a FLAVOUR while giving us all "Brain Freeze" to boot!
If they are REALLY smart... Computer scientists will avoid ever making a machine that possesses these sensory input and output capabilities that approach our own penchant for physical pleasure or sexual novelty seeking, or acting as fuel inside our heads; powered by endorphins or Dopamine run amok. THESE are the things that distinguish us at a base line from all machines. If science ever contemplates making something intelligent out of silicone that is HUNGRY for any of these things, then we really will be in "Deep Sh*t with Deep Blue". The last thing the world needs is a machine that is not only smarter than any hominid ever will be... but also one with a jealous, angry or vengeful nature simply because it wants to FEEL what we are able to feel, SEE what we all can see of the world and sense either pleasure or pain and yet programmed with an ability to know its own inadequacies and want what we uniquely claim that makes us all...human beings.
Last edited by 60dgrzbelow0; 12-16-2011 at 10:32 AM.
I was just wondering whether the unexpected, child-like surprise and wonder on the faces of the jaded, arguably intellectually superior and sceptical members of the audience would have been so... had the benign... almost silly Watson Logo Box standing between its human competition looked back out at them all like this... and all the while... merely out-thinking them.
Last edited by 60dgrzbelow0; 01-30-2012 at 08:48 AM.
Something else interesting occurred to me about this original "Skinput" technology that raises the spectre of the unintended consequences of designing and implementing some new technology that requires the repetitive and tympanic impact upon the human skin...perhaps without the designer understanding what might happen "'neath the skin", so to speak. In the early 1970's, I was well on my way to becoming a fairly accomplished martial artist in the style known as Uechi-Ryu. It happens that understanding how the human body works and what its weaknesses are of course at the epicentre of being able to subdue, injure or kill your opponents and thus, knowing more than just a passing amount of knowledge of pressure points and nerve bundles and ganglia centres often helped to speed things along and win as many fights as possible.
Contemporaneous with my involvement in this arena, there was a supremely gifted fighter called Bill "SuperFoot" Wallace who suddenly dropped off the map in semi-contact competition as it was known back then. It seems as though Bill injured his right knee such to extent that he was barely able to walk, let alone throwing one of his infamous roundhouse or high heel kicks without suffering much disabling pain. He visited many doctors and almost gave up hope of ever being able to fight again. That was until someone suggested "Chinese Acupuncture" as the means to relieve his constant joint pain. It followed these treatments worked wonders and subsequently, he won the First Professional Karate Full Contact Fight against his adversary Joe Corley and arguably launched an avenue for the eventual state of the Mixed Martial Arts fighting we enjoy to this day.
You don't have to be punched, kicked or choked out to know the affect that seemingly innocuous but repeated pressure and impacts on nerves can have. For anyone suffering from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, the ultimate in pain is losing control of your fingers and not being able to put any pressure on the wrist without feeling the tingling and sharp pain that arises form this "low contact injury". And so... with this reality of our having a dual and complex nervous system that is both autonomic for controlling a myriad number of important things such as breathing and having a regular heart beat as well as being able to voluntarily "throw the harpoon" when we know its time to do so... we can have no idea of how this "Skinput" gadget will affect so many people over time. Here are a few links and images that go into much greater detail on the subject:
The Science Channel (Channel 100 on Brighthouse in the Tampa Bay Area) featured a Premier Show of "Prophets of Science Fiction" produced, directed and opened by none other than Ridley Scott (Alien) himself. The show features prominent and visionary writer's of Science Fiction like Arthur C. Clarke and of particular interest and serendipity to this thread...the show about Isaac Asimov and the subject of Robots as well as Artificial Intelligence. This fascinating program bears all the earmarks of questions and concerns we've been looking at here. The shows are very well made visually and quite thought-provoking, too. Here is the trailer to pique your interest:
...and soon from the Mind of The Genius Scott..."Prometheus"...This trailer has an intriguing long final look at the living "Space Jockey" later found as a fossilised being in the 1979 movie "Alien"...:
Originally Posted by 60dgrzbelow0
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