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Friday, May
25, 2001
David Goodman and Machine Emotions
The AI camp has been hard at work for half a
century, and yet they have little to show for their efforts. Their initial
quest for complexity was a dead end. Fruit flies have fewer neurons than
modern AI constructs, but they can easily solve problems that befuddle
these machines and their elaborate software.
Next came the era where context was key to AI. If
they could just put everything about life experience into a giant
relational database, why signs of intelligence would certainly appear at
some point. Another dead end.
Then we had the "OhmyGodthebrainisanalog"
era where Carver Mead and others popularized the notion that neural
networks could be scaled to solve any AI problem. Ironically, most of
these networks existed as simulations running on digital computers, and it
soon became obvious that these too were dead ends.
So now, Goodman wants to use coherence and the
rhythms of nature to breathe life into a box of silicon, metal and
plastic. I wonder if it ever occurred to these intelligent men that
consciousness is possibly an outside phenomenon, a gift that completely
transcends the material world? Plato and Democritus had it right long
before Newton came along with his colliding billiard ball models of
reality. The essence of consciousness and reality cannot be found in any
material object or construct.
Goodman is wise to note that adaptation to external
cycles can influence and enhance survival. The men who designed and built
Stonehenge probably could educate him further. I believe though, he is
naive in assuming that only measurable phenomena influence behaviors that
can lead to consciousness. The pure beauty of mathematical truth existed
at t=0, and in the billions of years since, it has also influenced and
enhanced the survival of at least one important, conscious species. I hate
to say it, but I think Goodman's attempt to capture consciousness will be
as successful as the child who tries to catch his shadow as it races in
front of him on a sunny day.
Minsky points out that creating Artificial
Intelligence is a moving target: every time they do something that was said
to be AI, they are told "no that isn't it either." Penrose has
attempted to prove you can't do it at all. In Starswarm I "create"
(in a novel, of course) a caring AI, but I do not know how to write the
program described in the story.
An article published several years ago in Scientific
America addressed one of the fundamental problems with the current (read,
the 20-40 year old plants) crop: too big and too different from one
another.
If we built nuclear power plants they way we built
automobiles (or computers), it would not only bring the cost down, but, if
any problem was detected with one plant, the others plants could be
inspected and corrected for that same problem, before anything unfortunate
occurs. The current number of land-based plants were designed and built by
morons and not by engineers/physicists. They subscribed to the bigger is
better model (the oil industry school of thought), thinking more power
from a single plant was better the same power from several plants. Naval
nuclear reactors do not melt down, but produce enough power to light,
heat, cooling, power and propel a modern super carrier, for two years
between refueling. If nuclear power plants were built on the same scale as
naval nuclear reactors (keep the mass produced model in mind here), there
would not be the same statistical probability of ruptured lines (fewer
welds), coolant leaks, core melt downs, etc. as there would be fewer
components and welds (and ionizing radiation can test the mettle of many
materials), and not enough fissionable mass to allow the core to go bezerk
and force a SCRAM. An added plus is there are quite a few qualified
technicians and operators available to operate them with little or no
additional training (thanks to the USN Naval Nuclear Engineering program).
If only the people in the oil business could see far
enough and invest in nuclear power generation, instead of lobbying against
it (we all understand that it costs less (meaning more profit) to continue
to do business as usual), or any alternative power generation technology.
Thanks,
Gerald Roebke.
-I believe that fireworks should be legal on the 4th
of July. -GR.
I tend to agree that small and all alike would
make more sense. The fact is that the safety record of nuclear plants is
very good, and the on-line reliability is better than any other baseline
plant; and the pollution is lower as well there being more radioactivity
in coal plant stack gasses (because of natural uranium and other such in
coal) than in the emissions of a similar capacity nuclear plant
(negligible in both cases). Whether sanity will prevail now that we face
the energy crisis I foretold 20 years ago is another matter.
Dr. Pournelle,
MSNBC has a video on their website of the floor
collapsing out from under the wedding dancers in Israel. Remarkable video
of a tragic event. It'll take your breath away. This reminds me of the
'gargoyles' in the novel "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson, who
wore equipment everywhere and recorded everything for later resale on the
Internet.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/578005.asp
Don McArthur www.mcarthurweb.com
******************** "A skittish motor-bike with a touch of blood in
it is better than all the riding animals on earth." T.E. Lawrence (aka
Lawrence of Arabia, died in a motorcycle accident in 1935)
********************
Also AKA Aircraftsman Shaw; he had resigned from
the Royal Army and enlisted in the RAF. He also translated the Odyssey in
perhaps the best prose translation in English...
From Ed Hume:
The things they Carried....
They carried P-38 can openers and heat tabs, watches
and dog tags, insect repellent, gum, cigarettes, Zippo lighters, salt
tablets, compress bandages, ponchos, Kool-Aid, two or three canteens of
water, iodine tablets, sterno, LRRP-rations, and C-rations stuffed in
socks. They carried standard fatigues, jungle boots, bush hats, flak
jackets and steel pots. They carried the M-16 assault rifle. They carried
trip flares and Claymore mines, M-60 machine guns, the M-70 grenade
launcher, M-14's, CAR-15's, Stoners, Swedish K's, 66mm Laws, shotguns, .45
caliber pistols, silencers, the sound of bullets, rockets, and choppers,
and sometimes the sound of silence. They carried C-4 plastic explosives,
an assortment of hand grenades, PRC-25 radios, knives and machetes.
Some carried napalm, CBU's and large bombs; some
risked their lives to rescue others. Some escaped the fear, but dealt with
the death and damage. Some made very hard decisions, and some just tried
to survive. They carried malaria, dysentery, ringworms and leaches. They
carried the land itself as it hardened on their boots.
They carried stationery, pencils, and pictures of
their loved ones - real and imagined. They carried love for people in the
real world and love for one another. And sometimes they disguised that
love: "Don't mean nothin'!" They carried memories for the most
part, they carried themselves with poise and a kind of dignity. Now and
then, there were times when panic set in, and people squealed or wanted
to, but couldn't; when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered
their heads and said "Dear God" and hugged the earth and fired
their weapons blindly and cringed and begged for the noise to stop and
went wild and made stupid promises to themselves and God and their
parents, hoping not to die.
They carried the traditions of the United States
military, and memories and images of those who served before them. They
carried grief, terror, longing and their reputations. They carried the
soldier's greatest fear: the embarrassment of dishonor. They crawled into
tunnels, walked point, and advanced under fire, so as not to die of
embarrassment. They were afraid of dying, but too afraid to show it. They
carried the emotional baggage of men and women who might die at any
moment.
They carried the weight of the world.
THEY CARRIED EACH OTHER.
[The man who wrote "The things they
carried" was Tim O'Brien, author of If I Die in a Combat Zone and
Going After Cacciato, which won an American Book Award for fiction around
1972. The quote was from the latter. Ed Hume]
Thank you.
Dr Pournelle:
You recently said "[a]fter all our taxes
are at the level they were in WW II. . ."
Actually, it's worse.
I pulled the national GDP stats, as well as the
federal and state revenue data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis web
site ( http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/dn/nipaweb/SelectedTables.asp
) and calculated the percentage of GDP taken as revenue by federal and
state/local governments for each year from 1929 through 2000. (You have to
adjust the state/local figures for transfer payments from the Federal
government to avoid double counting some amounts.)
The peak WW II year was 1943, when the Federal
government took 19.4% of the GDP in revenue, plus 4.6% for state &;
local governments, for a total of 24.0%. (All governments combined spent
about 50% GDP during the peak WW II years, with the difference between
take and spending representing an increase in the national debt.)
In 2000, the Federal government took 20.7% of GDP in
revenue, not much different than during 1943, but the state take increased
to 9.9%, for a total take of 30.6%.
Thus, the total (Federal, state and local) tax
burden is about 127% of the rate we found necessary during 1943.
The tax percentages I'm quoting above are slightly
below those I found in the OECD data I sent you a few days ago for 1996.
The BEA data is probably more consistent for a comparison between 1945 and
now.
In 1929, the total take was 10.2% of GDP, split
about 2/3rds state and local, 1/3rd federal. Thus, within living memory,
the tax take has tripled.
On a different matter, I'm a semi-retired lawyer
that started out earning an honest living as an electrical engineer, but
then was seduced by the dark side. The current fad for "zero
tolerance" policies in the public school system is a method of
passing the buck -- it insulates school administrators from charges of
discrimination that inevitably would be made in our excessively litigious
society, instead dumping the need for intelligent analysis onto the
juvenile justice system, where legislatures have also increasingly reduced
the scope for flexibility. Thus we have cases of felony arrests for a pen
knife or for drawing a picture of an armed soldier. When my dad went to
school in a rural part of West Virginia in the 1920's and 30's it was
common for the boys to bring their rifles to school during hunting season.
When I went to high school in Michigan in the early 1960's school rifle
teams were non uncommon. Yet, we didn't see wild shootouts until the last
decade or so, after 30 years of increasingly draconian gun control laws.
Our society is profoundly broken, and I don't see
how more laws and more taxes will fix it.
Jack Smith Clifton, VA
Niven says "When kids shoot up a school, no
one shoots back. It's as if someone has disarmed all the adults!"
Jerry:
Forwarded without comment. Original author unknown.
<<<---BEGIN FORWARD--->>>
OBITUARY NOTICE
Today we mourn the passing of an old friend by the
name of Common Sense. Common Sense lived a long life but died from heart
failure at the brink of the millennium. No one really knows how old he was
since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He
selflessly devoted his life to service in schools, hospitals, homes,
factories and offices, helping folks get jobs done without fanfare and
foolishness. For decades, petty rules, silly laws and frivolous lawsuits
held no power over Common Sense. He was credited with cultivating such
valued lessons as to know when to come in out of the rain, the early bird
gets the worm, and life isn't always fair.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial
policies (don't spend more than you earn), reliable parenting strategies
(the adults are in charge, not the kids), and it's okay to come in second.
A veteran of the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, and the
Technological Revolution, Common Sense survived cultural and educational
trends including feminism, body piercing, whole language and" new
math." But his health declined when he became infected with the
"If-it-only-helps-one-person-it's-worth-it" virus.
In recent decades his waning strength proved no
match for the ravages of overbearing federal regulation. He watched in
pain as good people became ruled by self-seeking lawyers and enlightened
auditors. His health rapidly deteriorated when schools endlessly
implemented zero tolerance policies: reports of six year old boys charged
with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate, a teen suspended for
taking a swig of mouthwash after lunch, and a teacher fired for
reprimanding an unruly student. It declined even further when schools had
to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student but cannot
inform the parent when the female student is pregnant or wants an
abortion.
Finally, Common Sense lost his will to live as the
Ten Commandments became contraband, churches became businesses, criminals
received better treatment than victims, and federal judges stuck their
noses in everything from Boy Scouts to professional sports. As the end
neared, Common Sense drifted in and out of logic but was kept informed of
developments, regarding questionable regulations for asbestos, low flow
toilets, "smart" guns, the nurturing of Prohibition Laws and
mandatory air bags. Finally when told that the home owners association
restricted exterior furniture only to that which enhanced property values,
he breathed his last.
Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents
Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and
his son, Reason. He is survived by three stepbrothers: Rights, Tolerance,
and Whiner.
Not many attended his funeral because so few
realized he was gone
<<<---END FORWARD--->>>
Jim Carr
No comment needed.
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