[kenberg]

I'm delighted to have high tech stuff available for health care and I suspect so is everyone else (ok, mostly everyone else). How to get it right, that's the question. I would be fine with a robot taking my blood pressure. I might be more leery of a robot drawing a blood sample but perhaps I could be convinced. At some point, I'm sure I want a human at the controls.

[Chas_P]

Scarabin, on 2013-February-04, 15:52, said:

Is laser surgery an example of machines taking over?

http://www.intuitive...urgical_system/

[mike777]

Perhaps I would phrase the question as can robots/computers become intelligent? Intelligent in a manner that can be tested for, measured and compared?


If yes then we could discuss will it take 20 years or 20,000 years?

Please note I sidestep the question of computers being alive or being conscious; only if they are intelligent and if that can be measured in accepted ways.

[Scarabin]

I do not think computers will ever become intelligent in the sense of being able to learn as humans do, I think they are intelligent in that they can be programmed to solve problems. Many jobs involve comparing measured attributes with a knowledge base.

[mike777]

Scarabin, on 2013-February-04, 22:43, said:

I do not think computers will ever become intelligent in the sense of being able to learn as humans do, I think they are intelligent in that they can be programmed to solve problems. Many jobs involve comparing measured attributes with a knowledge base.

I have asked many Professors of Comp Sci they all tell me there is nothing in the laws of science that computers cannot have intelligence and that it cannot be tested for,measured and compared in acceptable ways to humans.


Clearly you disagree.

bUT YOU raise a good point perhaps they will learn not as humans do but still they will be intelligent in ways we can measure and compare to humans.

iF THEY LEARN in other ways compared to humans all the reason to say they may become hard to predict.

In any case I am assuming that as we learn more about the hardware and software of the human brain it will be applied to oomputers, but yes they may learn to learn in different ways.


If I mean if you agree that computers can be intelligent and that can be measured and compared to humans in an acceptable manner then the issue becomes what will be the growth rate of intelligence in computers?

If you think this issue is 20,000 years away..ok......if 20 years.....ok.

This post has been edited by mike777: 2013-February-04, 23:04

[onoway]

http://www.ted.com/t...are_robots.html

[mike777]

onoway, on 2013-February-04, 23:37, said:

http://www.ted.com/t...are_robots.html

side step the issue of self-aware, alive or conscious...just focus on intelligent and if you can measure and compare it or not.

It is not science if you cannot test for it, measure it and compare......


For example can a Sub swim?

[onoway]

mike777, on 2013-February-05, 00:03, said:

side step the issue of self-aware, alive or conscious...just focus on intelligent and if you can measure and compare it or not.

It is not science if you cannot test for it, measure it and compare......


For example can a Sub swim?

What exactly are you defining as intelligence and what/how are you trying to measure and compare? That is perhaps the heart of the matter, and it's a very complicated problem.

Say an unmanned sub is set a destination and left to get on with it. It gets there entirely on its own without further human input of any kind, avoiding obstacles and dealing with such things as tides, currents, other ships, sea creatures and so forth entirely on its own.Is that any less "swimming" than someone doing laps in a pool? If so, why?

[blackshoe]

Define your terms.

[hrothgar]

onoway, on 2013-February-05, 01:47, said:

Say an unmanned sub is set a destination and left to get on with it. It gets there entirely on its own without further human input of any kind, avoiding obstacles and dealing with such things as tides, currents, other ships, sea creatures and so forth entirely on its own.Is that any less "swimming" than someone doing laps in a pool? If so, why?

Neither propellers nor screws qualify as "limbs, fins, or tail"

Gratuitous comments about screw and tail deleted...

[P_Marlowe]

blackshoe, on 2013-January-23, 09:04, said:

<snip>
I would formulate the Golden Rule as the Wiccans do: "An' it harm none, do what thou wilt." On that basis I would have no objection to a private citizen (I think the term "common citizen" is an attempt to demean the citizenry) owning whatever weapons he or she wants, provided that anyone who does harm to another with such weapon(s) other than in self defense or defense of others pays (as in "makes reparations," not as in "goes to jail") for it. And I'm not talking about some minor fine - if you put someone in the hospital, you pay his hospital bills, and his rehab bills, and provide the equivalent to the salary he was earning before you did that until he can go back to work. If you kill someone, you take on all his legal financial obligations - pay his debts, support his family, whatever. If you go broke doing that, too bad.

Practically speaking, the liberals and other anti-gun types in this country will never stand for this. So I would compromise. Where to draw the line, though, is a matter of negotiation. I would say that I would accept nothing less than "all individual weapons fall under the Second Amendment". Crew served weapons, WMDs, tanks, ships, and airplanes are negotiable.

Hopefully you allow for prechecks, that try to verify, that a persons, who want to aquire a weapon can pay their dues,
otherwise the whole proposition is useless.
And does your proposition include, that family members of this guy need to cover the incurred debts?

The guy goes broke, but was basically broke before, what will he loose, and for that matter your death penalty is no
deterrent either, most of the shootings ended with the guy who started the shooting to be death.

You have an idea, where this will end up?

[kenberg]

The irony thread is about guns but morphed into robotics. So I thought I would start a open ended thread on robotics.

The post below was my ontro post, but barmar has moved (I heartily approve) the robot posts over here and they now precede this intro.


Anyway, enjoy, and here's hoping a few bots chime in with their thoughts.


We recently buried the 2001 Honda and bought a 2013. It comes with an owner's manual that is 500+ pages long. It beeps at me if I change lanes without signalling. If I turn off the ignition and put it in Park, it explains to me that I must first put it in Park and then turn off the ignition. It knows whether I am driving or Becky is driving, and adjusts the seats accordingly. It heats the seats. I can link my cell phone to its Blue Tooth, although first I had to replace my $10 cell phoe with a high(?) tech $50 cell phone. Over a hundred pages of the manual are devoted to the audion system, including the Blue Tooth. I sought help from the Honda dealer and they got me "linked" but I have to read the manual for details about what it does.

I have this vision of my Honda chatting with another Honda saying something like "Huh! You think your owner is stupid, let me tell you what my owner did the other day".

Anyway, I suggest tech posts here, let the gun boys have the Irony thread.

[onoway]

hrothgar, on 2013-February-05, 09:01, said:

Neither propellers nor screws qualify as "limbs, fins, or tail"

Gratuitous comments about screw and tail deleted...

So what was Nick doing, then, toward the end of the video? If you want to define swimming as something that can only be done by a warm or cold blooded creature that's fine but it seems to be sidestepping the pertinent points which normally define swimming and sounds a little like the last refuge of an exasperated parent "because I said so!".

as far as that goes, consider the double amputee who walks with two artificial legs. (or even competes in track, in one case). Or people who use a mechanical larynx to speak with. (or, with which to speak, if split infinitives annoy you )
We still define what they are doing in the same terms we use for people with flesh and blood limbs or larynx, which they don't have.

[mike777]

onoway, on 2013-February-05, 01:47, said:

What exactly are you defining as intelligence and what/how are you trying to measure and compare? That is perhaps the heart of the matter, and it's a very complicated problem.

Say an unmanned sub is set a destination and left to get on with it. It gets there entirely on its own without further human input of any kind, avoiding obstacles and dealing with such things as tides, currents, other ships, sea creatures and so forth entirely on its own.Is that any less "swimming" than someone doing laps in a pool? If so, why?

As I said any generally accepted definition of intelligence and method of testing, measuring and comparing is fine. If you have a method that is accepted, great.

Here are some methods but if you have a better method that is accepted and used, great.

http://iq-test.co.uk...-brief-history/

http://en.wikipedia....igence_quotient

[mike777]

The technological singularity is the theoretical emergence of superintelligence through technological means.[1] Since the capabilities of such intelligence would be difficult for an unaided human mind to comprehend, the technological singularity is seen as an occurrence beyond which events cannot be predicted


http://en.wikipedia....cal_singularity

--


A few predict this will happen around 2050 many others say this is 50,000 years away if ever.

[onoway]

mike777, on 2013-February-05, 13:48, said:

As I said any generally accepted definition of intelligence and method of testing, measuring and comparing is fine. If you have a method that is accepted, great.

Here are some methods but if you have a better method that is accepted and used, great.

http://iq-test.co.uk...-brief-history/

http://en.wikipedia....igence_quotient

The first link would not work on my computer. The second didn't spend much time dealing with what has been a major problem for IQ tests, which is cultural bias. You might be interested to see how you score on this IQ test http://www.wilderdom...Australian.html


I was looking for but could not find an article I'd read some time ago which noted that age was directly related to IQ in North America. The percentage of mentally handicapped in the population rose around age 6 and dropped again around age 18..which led to the tongue in cheek conclusion that schools caused mental retardation.

The article you linked to itself noted that IQ is affected by any number of things e.g diet (IQs rose when vegetarians supplemented diet with creatine) or special mental exercises/training. Stress or depression can cause IQ scores to plummet. So what is an IQ test beyond the measure of how someone performs at that moment in time to certain questions based on an assumed shared cultural background?

Both Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton (among many others) were considered intellectually deficient as children. I once knew a brilliant teenager whose parents had been told he was mentally deficient, it turned out he was merely dyslexic. He could ace any tests given orally but had to take so much time to decipher written tests that the teachers assumed he was incapable of understanding the material. This is apparently so common that in many schools the option of taking tests orally is now offered.

The article also notes that IQ tests are notoriously incapable of accurately assessing people suffering from autism, a large and growing segment of the population.

So IQ tests are certainly one measure of intelligence but a highly flawed one. I suspect that most "intelligent" computers would score quite well on them as we now use them. What else you got?

[mike777]

So IQ tests are certainly one measure of intelligence but a highly flawed one. I suspect that most "intelligent" computers would score quite well on them as we now use them. What else you got?

I would not expect an intelligent computer/bot for another 20 years or so. There needs to be much more research and understanding of how the brain works.

btw I think your last post raises many interesting issues regarding education and medicine but perhaps those are other threads, but interesting issues to discuss.
I would hope you will elaborate on such topics in the future.

[Scarabin]

The "technological singularity" may already be upon us: Barmar transferred the robot posts to this topic but the software left behind my post #180 which first highjacked the "irony" thread and transferred P_Marlowe #31 which threatens to morph this thread. I do not know if this is an example of robot whimsy or value judgment but perhaps we should start a thread on:"Are robots in favour of censorship?" while we still can?

More seriously I do not see any evidence to suggest that computers will develop real intelligence this side of infinity. As for measures of intelligence: Turing suggested imitation of humans but programs like Eliza fulfilled this with gullible subjects and without requiring any real intelligence. I would put forward two possible tests (1) demonstration of spontaneous learning and(2) a capacity for original thought.

In practice I think the pursuit of abstract computer intelligence is a bit of a red herring outside the groves of academe, what is important, in the real world, is how well computers perform the tasks they are programmed to do. That is enough for me, and for Blofeld to take over the world with the aid of drones!

[mike777]

It sounds like either of your tests would be a fair one as long as we can measure and compare it to a human.

For starters you need to present a standard method to measure.

My guess is a computer/bot would measure zero today.

[onoway]

mike777, on 2013-February-05, 14:02, said:

The technological singularity is the theoretical emergence of superintelligence through technological means.[1] Since the capabilities of such intelligence would be difficult for an unaided human mind to comprehend, the technological singularity is seen as an occurrence beyond which events cannot be predicted


http://en.wikipedia....cal_singularity

--


A few predict this will happen around 2050 many others say this is 50,000 years away if ever.

This paper is dated 1993 http://www-rohan.sds...ingularity.html He predicted it would not happen before 2005 but within 30 years of his talk.
This Ted talk is dated 2012 and demonstrates robots which behave autonomously and interact with each other and the environment in order to complete their tasks. http://techgearz.com...-and-cooperate/