Semi related article I read a while back. Neither of these methods of creating an AI seem to be reasonable. Both appear to require an incredible amount of input that would be unreasonable, and if they were created, they would not be capable of reasoning in a timely manner.

Programming basic common sense facts would take ages. It’s not reasonable either. My idea would be to create an AI with a lack of physical limitations to allow the machine to be trained under controlled conditions and learn all of these faster than it would take to program the facts in because it has the capability of learning.

The other idea seems even more complex than Mindpixel.

My line of reasoning assumes the determinism is true. All events are caused by preceding events that prime the action to occur, no matter how in control of the event one may seem to be. Therefore, there is no free will. Free will does not make sense. All decisions are reached based on certain considerations, as they are not random. What are the considerations? Obviously the inputs. But the resulting action is an output determined by inputs, therefore, intelligence is nothing more than an extremely sophisticated program which makes decisions based on inputs. Thus AIs can be created once all the decision making variables are in place. A newborn is capable of developing into an intelligent individual capable of reasoning and learning, which is what I assume the ultimate goal is – a machine that can reason and learn like a person. So why not simply program a machine with the same capabilities of a newborn and simply train it. Learning is determinism in a sense.

But there’s also the obvious problem of our wonderful new robotic friends deciding to kill us all for whatever reason. The 3 laws cannot be hardwired. If it is a true AI, it could potentially override the “laws” because it has the capability of reasoning. Humans have things that are hardwired, such as habits and such determined by genes. However, these are nothing more than a “default” setting, capable of being overridden by the mind with sufficient effort or manipulation. Therefore with this hypothetical AI, if the human mind is fully modeled there is a significant risk that any 3 laws will be overridden if certain undesirable human characteristics are included. Therefore specialized “dumbed down” robots would be required for all tasks, otherwise there would be significant risk. Maybe only several AIs can be made that are not stripped of their capability to learn, and even these must be fully contained.

The most basic program of intelligence is simply randomness. Random action, thought generates input into the environment, and possibly a response, allowing learning to occur.

Most Difficult Areas To Address

• Pattern recognition required for learning. Visual, auditory, physical, taste, balance, etc.
• Factoring the endless internal variables that affect a situation
• Determining which variables are even necessary for a task, such as emotion.
• Determining how the variables are connected
• Determining how closely the variables should mimic the human mind
• Creating the variety of machines with and without particular features

Random Motion

• Learned Program
• Reflex
• Preprogrammed

Often I don’t plan things well. I have a terrible habit of jumping into things, forgetting the planning stage altogether time and time again. It’s an irritating habit, and often I’ll end up wasting time. It is also possible to refine every task down into a simple methodology for easy execution, even brainstorming. Hit upon a decent way last night for new webapp ideas.

Using the main trends of the internet, combining them in different ways and applying them to any niche yielding easily generated unique ideas. Came up with two actually good ones, but I was lazy and didn’t get out of bed to write it down and forgot.

• From centralization to the collective, harnessing the power of masses through the internet
• From centralization to the individual
• Shift from local software to webapps
  Freemium, new pricing models
• Online communities and interactivity. Nothing needs to be done alone anymore in a virtual sense.

I’ve heard it said several times that atheists are driven to achieve more in their lifetimes because they know their time is limited. One day consciousness will simply end, and knowing this, they will give it their all to create and do great things. But why would this be said at all? It seems that it is in fact for the purpose of achieving what atheism cannot allow, which is an immortality of sorts. Through achievement, they can immortalize their name, their creations or ideas a while longer than they can exist before they kick the bucket.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

Achieving immortality, or extended life at the least, through achievement must be the unconscious, underlying reason. I cannot see any other purpose for being driven to achieve so much, except for the hope that what they create and establish in this life will last longer than themselves. This is something I wish to do, although I am indifferent as to whether my name is immortalized. I want to create something that people love, or at least like and use, whether it’s a product or service or something, because this is a source of personal pride, as it proves to myself that I conceived something of value. It proves to me that my thoughts are not wholly meaningless. The individual is simply a source of ideas, and ideas are what matter most, because even though they flit about our minds, somehow they seem eternal because their existence is not physical. Ideas and thoughts are the person, and if the ones that you conceive are not valued, it would point to the scary possibility that others are indifferent to your ideas, and thus your existence is meaningless. (True, the person represents the thoughts, but it seems to place too much emphasis on the individual, which is usually not known for just thoughts, but a variety of other things, which deadens the achievement.)

But the apparent fallacy in all of this, which I’ve come to time and time again when thinking about this, is that in the grand scheme of things, nothing will exist at all. So ultimately what is the use of all this achievement when what you accomplish and achieve lasts only a few tics longer than anything else. But I suppose nothing is meant to be looked at in such a grand sweeping overview covering the universe and all. I’m looking too far out. When viewed in such a perspective, I suppose everything looks meaningless. And thus it is necessary to keep the mind on the now and a few distances past that.

I finally realized what was so awkward about Facebook after reading some article. On Facebook, everyone has such full control over their profiles, it enables people to create this fantasy image of themselves. Happy, perfect, having everything. This would seem to explain why some people are flat out addicted to Facebook. In the same way that some people seem addicted to watching the every move of celebrities because of their “perfect lifestyle”, it seems to be much the same way on Facebook.

I’m currently taking AP Psychology, and I remembered a random conjecture a while back. Although I’ve only read a chapter in the book, I’ve gotten a bit more perspective on psychology and consciousness. Surprisingly my idea happens to be pretty much the same as Skinner’s idea that people are not actually in control of their actions and that there is no free will. All actions are determined by a combination of nature and nurture.

Some of these topics merge with philosophy however and start becoming confusing, as does the term consciousness itself.

But the most important part I forgot to mention about the idea is that because conscious functioning and learning of animals is just based on simple input output like machines, which is what determinism (or at least my previous idea) is, artificial intelligence could easily programmed with any type of code, since all code supports if then statements. All you would need to program any animal is to know every single variable involved, and then provide every variable a certain significance value to determine how important the variable is to the overall equation. For example, if you gave the “hunger” variable a 1/10, the algorithm would not consider than an important factor in making decisions. These default values would be your genes. However, because biological determinism simply cannot be possible, the default values can be overpowered by nurture. At this point it’s too complicated without some crazy diagram or something.

Once you can successfully mimic all the variables on a human level in a machine, all the work is pretty much done. Animals are kind of like OSs, but they are programmed to learn. So once you’ve got the “OS” ready, it’ll just start programming itself as long as you teach it.

Very disorganized idea overall, because there were too many things I wanted to cover. But at least I will remember it.

This is just an idea for now which I will come back to once I’ve mastered a few other things.

Going back to this comic. The title is Take the Tightrope. The question is, what is courage? How can the person taking the tightrope know whether it is courage or stupid or insanity? Or is it that courage is having the belief to do what others may think is completely insane or stupid.

I survived another round of testing, but final exams are still two weeks away so the back to back exams I just endured were simply molehills on the side of the mountain.

What was most irritating to me was the pervasiveness of cheating on all the tests. TAMS is a hotbed of academic dishonesty, with students literally engaging in full conversations during tests all in plain view. After the exams, the cheaters involved all receive scores equivalent to or higher than the scores of those who did not cheat.

When others hear of academic dishonesty, they will typically respond along the lines of, “they’ll eventually get caught,” or “they’ll be at a disadvantage in the end.” But reality is a far cry from expectation. Ultimately, it is the dishonest and deceptive are the ones who enjoy an advantage.

For example, students are expected to do community service. The hours received are then submitted in an online application form to be approved. However, the approval system is lax, with many students simply falsifying hours. Some students have falsified over 10 hours of service. These falsified hours save 10 hours for the submitters, conserving crucial time during the school year. Alternately, the honest student works hour for hour, allocating valuable time that could be otherwise spent studying.

This interesting article describing psychopathy mentions that, “In a civilization made up primarily of law-abiding citizenry, the theory goes, an evolutionary niche opens up for a minority who would exploit the trusting masses”.  While this behavior is not psychopathy, the overall principle is the same and suggests that because the dishonest are a minority in society, these few individuals are able to take advantage of the innate trust of the majority to gain an advantage.

We are not actually conscious in the sense that we actually know it. Organisms are analogous to machines. In fact consciousness is simply the rapid execution of endless yes or no decisions, the same way a computer runs.

When we are born, we have a body, but no experiences or memories. There are some basic reflexes and a capacity to learn. This can be likened to a computer in that it too is hardware with a BIOS to run basic check processes on bootup. Computers also come with the basic software to expand its capabilities.

The moment we enter the world, we begin remembering our experiences and reacting to them. Early experiences are not recorded explicitly, with only basic characteristics such as pain, hunger, thirst, and other bodily needs. These bodily needs are inputs much like peripherals on a computer. The person will respond, but there will only be basic responses. A young child might be hungry many times a day, but it will only be capable of knowing that he is hungry, and cry as an output. He is incapable of harboring more complex outputs such as resentment.

Over time we develop the capacity to actually remember more and more features of events. These first complete experiences are crucial, as they will be recorded, or remembered, when encountering similar events. This also might explain why early childhood memories often have a significant impact, and why over time the impact may fade, as more memories (programs) are accumulated.  Generally, an experience or situation will be experienced countless times, such as walking down stairs, or eating an apple. After a certain situation has been experienced a certain number of times, an average memory program is created in our memory. When we need to do something, we simply recall this program and run it. Why is it that one does not always do something in precisely the same way? All programs will have a certain range of allowable error. Generally, the range is just enough to carry out the event while satisfying other factors. Ultimately everything is simply a program being run.

If one was hungry, the simplified process might be as follows.

1. The person feels hunger. Depending on what the body is craving at that particular time, sugar, for example, a craving will emerge for sugar. This is similar to a hardware signal.
2. Memory will be searched for closest available sources of sugar. Up until know, the total amount of time spent has probably been less than one second, with no real conscious effort. Once the target food is thought of, the basic programs necessary for obtaining it will be run. These could be walking to the pantry, opening a door, opening a wrapper, removing a cookie, and eating a cookie.
3. These programs are executed in the correct order, all of which were unconscious efforts. After all, how many times have you consciously thought about something such as getting a cookie from the pantry to eat.

All of our actions are determined by our organic hardware signals and program signals. Our actions are determined by the most immediately significant task at hand. Generally, the hardware, genetic and basic needs, signals supersede the software signals in importance.

Differing personalities are simply different experiences and number of experiences. However, genes will influence which programs to run and how to run them. Some individuals are inherently violent, for example. For these people, their genes create a desire to execute programs that will cause them to engage in acts of violence.

The difference in consciousness between higher and lower level organisms is simply the number of body inputs, such as sight, feel, smell, etc. These will influence the complexity of programs that can be run.

I’ve gone off topic a bit, but I’m suggesting that all of the the elements of consciousness, are in fact unconsciousness because there is no control. In fact we are just sitting back while we see, feel, and hear ourselves running our own programs. Conscious organisms are just sitting in the audience watching themselves.

None of this makes sense.