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Rethinking artificial intelligence

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Re: Rethinking artificial intelligence

#11

Post by coffeemug »

I always welcome ambitious goals - the fact that a problem has not been solved for half a century is absolutely no reason to call it quits. However, in the interest of spending money wisely, it's worth it to at least sit back for a moment and think about what went wrong before, and what we can do to steer ourselves towards the right path.

The article mentions revisiting fundamental assumptions, but doesn't mention a single specific thing that the team will do differently. I've studied AI on my own for some time, and the biggest problem (as far as I can tell) is that researchers can't agree on what "intelligence" means. AI research for the past fifty years hasn't been about building an artificial intelligence machine, it's been about precisely defining what "intelligence" means. Every time there was a breakthrough, after a bit of hype people realized that the program is actually pretty dumb, is a testament to the intelligence of the programmer, not the machine, and that the bar for "intelligence" simply shifts a bit higher up.

So, what exactly is this team doing differently? How do they define "intelligence", and what do they intend to build?

Re: Rethinking artificial intelligence

#12

Post by yummyfajitas »

asciilifeform wrote: post #9
Xichekolas wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is early in the process of considering Ph.D. programs, I'd be interested if you could expound on that. Also, any schools seem like the opposite of zombie? (This question also goes out to anyone else that has something to add.)

AFAIK the entire field is dead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter There are various explanations as to the cause of death: the end of the Cold War; the humbling of the mega-monopolies which funded "blue sky" research (mainly AT&T); a general loss of faith resulting from a decades-long lack of progress. Take your pick. In fact, the entire field of computer science has been stagnant for a while, shiny gadgets to p…

While the CS academy has many issues, the field itself is alive and well. Google and MS both do systems research, as do several financial firms and software companies servicing the financial industry.

As a person moving from physics to CS, I personally find computing to be a very interesting place right now.

Re: Rethinking artificial intelligence

#13

Post by horseass »

I think evolution is the best approach, given its proven power. Maybe we need replicators (like genes, only artificial/computer related) that actually codes to build hardware as the 'phenotype'. Then evolution can have something 'real' to select from instead of just a bunch of software. Only real stuff can interact with the real world obviously (opposable thumbs, eyes, ears). With DNA, the phenotype is physical like that.. molding form like hair/muscle/bone/etc. And it seems to me that a sophisticated sense, like eyes (that can see into the real world, not just 'seeing' inside the isolated simple second life software world model or something) is needed.

Re: Rethinking artificial intelligence

#14

Post by asciilifeform »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #12
asciilifeform wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK the entire field is dead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter There are various explanations as to the cause of death: the end of the Cold War; the humbling of the mega-monopolies which funded "blue sky" research (mainly AT&T); a general loss of faith resulting from a decades-long lack of progress. Take your pick. In fact, the entire field of computer science has been stagnant for a while, shiny gadgets to p…

While the CS academy has many issues, the field itself is alive and well. Google and MS both do systems research, as do several financial firms and software companies servicing the financial industry. As a person moving from physics to CS, I personally find computing to be a very interesting place right now.

> Google and MS both do systems research, as do several financial firms and software companies servicing the financial industry

Where, then, is the desktop operating system not built of recycled crud? Where can I see a conceptually original system created after the 1980s?

> the field itself is alive and well

I disagree entirely. It is a zombie, maintaining the illusion of life where there is none.

Hell, UNIX still lives, and this proves that systems research is dead:

http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/handbook.html

Why is my desktop computer running software crippled by the conceptual limitations of 1970s hardware? Why are there "files" on my disk? Where is my single, orthogonally-persistent address space? Why is my data locked up in "applications"? Why must I write programs in ASCII text files, and plod through core dumps and stack traces? Why can't I repair and resume a crashed program?

Re: Rethinking artificial intelligence

#15

Post by Sthorpe »

horseass wrote: post #13

I think evolution is the best approach, given its proven power. Maybe we need replicators (like genes, only artificial/computer related) that actually codes to build hardware as the 'phenotype'. Then evolution can have something 'real' to select from instead of just a bunch of software. Only real stuff can interact with the real world obviously (opposable thumbs, eyes, ears). With DNA, the phenotype is physical like…

I tried working on this very thing. The biggest problem I ran into is that if we program a system to do something, it will always be waiting for our feedback.

Right now I'm looking for something like a fractal. Where we get large constructs out of a small equation.

Re: Rethinking artificial intelligence

#16

Post by Confusion »

coffeemug wrote: post #11

I always welcome ambitious goals - the fact that a problem has not been solved for half a century is absolutely no reason to call it quits. However, in the interest of spending money wisely, it's worth it to at least sit back for a moment and think about what went wrong before, and what we can do to steer ourselves towards the right path. The article mentions revisiting fundamental assumptions, but doesn't mention a…

For one, to do things differently, I'd start without trying to define 'intelligence'. Nobody can define what a game is and still we learn, understand and say plenty of interesting things about games. Nobody can you define 'water' in a way that captures all the mental images people have when they hear that word and still we can say lots of relevant things about water. Trying to capture something like 'intelligence' with words is a foolish endeavour.

Re: Rethinking artificial intelligence

#17

Post by yummyfajitas »

asciilifeform wrote: post #14
yummyfajitas wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the CS academy has many issues, the field itself is alive and well. Google and MS both do systems research, as do several financial firms and software companies servicing the financial industry. As a person moving from physics to CS, I personally find computing to be a very interesting place right now.

> Google and MS both do systems research, as do several financial firms and software companies servicing the financial industry Where, then, is the desktop operating system not built of recycled crud? Where can I see a conceptually original system created after the 1980s? > the field itself is alive and well I disagree entirely. It is a zombie, maintaining the illusion of life where there is none. Hell, UNIX still li…

Lack of adoption of systems research by desktop operating systems does not prove the absence of interesting systems research.

With the exception of MS, most of the systems research I was referring to is not used in (or intended for) desktop operating systems.

Re: Rethinking artificial intelligence

#19

Post by coffeemug »

Confusion wrote: post #16
coffeemug wrote: post #11

I always welcome ambitious goals - the fact that a problem has not been solved for half a century is absolutely no reason to call it quits. However, in the interest of spending money wisely, it's worth it to at least sit back for a moment and think about what went wrong before, and what we can do to steer ourselves towards the right path. The article mentions revisiting fundamental assumptions, but doesn't mention a…

For one, to do things differently, I'd start without trying to define 'intelligence'. Nobody can define what a game is and still we learn, understand and say plenty of interesting things about games. Nobody can you define 'water' in a way that captures all the mental images people have when they hear that word and still we can say lots of relevant things about water. Trying to capture something like 'intelligence' wi…

I agree with you in general (you can't get wet from the word "water"). In my experience, though, if you're building something fuzzy, it usually turns out to be a complete waste of money with no results. Human beings seem to need reasonable narrow scope to produce something useful. So while the team doesn't need to waste time on formally defining "intelligence" in a way that completely captures all its aspects, they do need to precisely define what they're building, to some reasonable degree.

Without a scope definition they can't budget their funds, their time, and their human resources. Projects like these usually result in a waste of money with nothing to show for it. Of course if they try to define what they're building, it will be intimately linked to the definition of "intelligence" (assuming they claim they're building an intelligent machine). Then someone will come along and propose a counterexample that demonstrates how the machine likely isn't intelligent at all, and cannot perform well on some problem where humans do spectacularly, thereby shifting the team's scope and definition. And so, they'll be back to square one.

Re: Rethinking artificial intelligence

#20

Post by horseass »

Confusion wrote: post #16
coffeemug wrote: post #11

I always welcome ambitious goals - the fact that a problem has not been solved for half a century is absolutely no reason to call it quits. However, in the interest of spending money wisely, it's worth it to at least sit back for a moment and think about what went wrong before, and what we can do to steer ourselves towards the right path. The article mentions revisiting fundamental assumptions, but doesn't mention a…

For one, to do things differently, I'd start without trying to define 'intelligence'. Nobody can define what a game is and still we learn, understand and say plenty of interesting things about games. Nobody can you define 'water' in a way that captures all the mental images people have when they hear that word and still we can say lots of relevant things about water. Trying to capture something like 'intelligence' wi…

How dictionaries circularly define words using other words, and how humans might learn by progressively expanding analogies starting with simple 'axioms' of body sensations like up vs. down (more on other pages): http://members.cox.net/deleyd/politics/cogsci5.htm
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