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Artificial Intelligence as the year 2000 approaches (1992)

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Re: Artificial Intelligence as the year 2000 approaches (1992)

#21

Post by thaumasiotes »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #19
neonate wrote: post #2

For those who don't know, Maurice Wilkes invented subroutines and microcode. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Wilkes

I always find it fascinating things like subroutines that are obvious to us now had to be invented by someone. You can easily imagine an alternate history where computing would look totally differently.

> I always find it fascinating things like subroutines that are obvious to us now had to be invented by someone.

This is just the anthropic principle. The fact that somebody was first doesn't mean something wasn't obvious.

I like to complain about De Morgan's Laws, which state that:

(1) If neither of two things is true, then they're both false. (And vice versa.)

(2) If two things aren't both true, then one or both of them are false. (And vice versa.)

Augustus De Morgan lived in the 1800s, but obviously these laws were well known for many millennia before him. Having these laws named after you is the honorable-mention-in-the-Special-Olympics of making discoveries. It's an insult to the concept of naming things after people.

Re: Artificial Intelligence as the year 2000 approaches (1992)

#23

Post by spectramax »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #21
Ididntdothis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find it fascinating things like subroutines that are obvious to us now had to be invented by someone. You can easily imagine an alternate history where computing would look totally differently.

> I always find it fascinating things like subroutines that are obvious to us now had to be invented by someone. This is just the anthropic principle. The fact that somebody was first doesn't mean something wasn't obvious. I like to complain about De Morgan's Laws, which state that: (1) If neither of two things is true, then they're both false. (And vice versa.) (2) If two things aren't both true, then one or both of…

That's a brilliant way to argue about it, makes total sense. What would you say is invented by total happenstance and the world would be totally different if the person had not?

Re: Artificial Intelligence as the year 2000 approaches (1992)

#24

Post by Ididntdothis »

spectramax wrote: post #23
thaumasiotes wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always find it fascinating things like subroutines that are obvious to us now had to be invented by someone. This is just the anthropic principle. The fact that somebody was first doesn't mean something wasn't obvious. I like to complain about De Morgan's Laws, which state that: (1) If neither of two things is true, then they're both false. (And vice versa.) (2) If two things aren't both true, then one or both of…

That's a brilliant way to argue about it, makes total sense. What would you say is invented by total happenstance and the world would be totally different if the person had not?

I would say alphabets, languages, religions, fashions.

Numbering systems? Is there an advantage in going base 10 vs base 11? Now that I think about it base 8 may be better.

Re: Artificial Intelligence as the year 2000 approaches (1992)

#25

Post by Barrin92 »

ggggtez wrote: post #4
melling wrote: post #3

Vernor Vinge’s 1993 Technological Singularity is worth a read: https://frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/book98/com.ch1/vinge.singularity... “ Progress in hardware has followed an amazingly steady curve in the last few decades. Based on this trend, I believe that the creation of greater-than-human intelligence will occur during the next thirty years. (Charles Platt has pointed out that AI enthusiasts have been making claims like t…

We still have 10 more years to go then. But honestly I'd argue that we have already achieved at least some level of "greater than human" intelligence. Not general intelligence, mind you, but none the less.

If you're suggesting that something like a chess engine is intelligent then we might as well call a forklift intelligent because it can lift boxes I can't lift.

Pretty much the opposite is true. Virtually all progress in 'AI' has been in pattern matching and purely numeric or symbolic manipulation of simple objects or functions, we aren't even remotely close to 'breath life into a machine', which is what people like Vinge had in mind. And people like Minsky when he invented the term artificial intelligence.

Re: Artificial Intelligence as the year 2000 approaches (1992)

#26

Post by patrec »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #24
spectramax wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a brilliant way to argue about it, makes total sense. What would you say is invented by total happenstance and the world would be totally different if the person had not?

I would say alphabets, languages, religions, fashions. Numbering systems? Is there an advantage in going base 10 vs base 11? Now that I think about it base 8 may be better.

> Is there an advantage in going base 10 vs base 11?

Yes, you can divide by powers of two and five and exactly represent the result. When did you last feel an urge to divide something into 11 parts?

> Now that I think about it base 8 may be better.

Well, that would have given us nicer shutter-times and screw sizes, "Megabytes", max_ints and better floats for money calculations as well as slightly better numerical properties. But personally I think 6 or 30 would have been the way to go. Being able to divide nicely by the first two primes seems pretty practically useful to me.

Re: Artificial Intelligence as the year 2000 approaches (1992)

#27

Post by spectramax »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #24
spectramax wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a brilliant way to argue about it, makes total sense. What would you say is invented by total happenstance and the world would be totally different if the person had not?

I would say alphabets, languages, religions, fashions. Numbering systems? Is there an advantage in going base 10 vs base 11? Now that I think about it base 8 may be better.

Arguably, Duodecimal would have been better. 12 is divisble by a large number of factors and it has some more interesting aspects outlined here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal

Re: Artificial Intelligence as the year 2000 approaches (1992)

#28

Post by thaumasiotes »

patrec wrote: post #26
Ididntdothis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say alphabets, languages, religions, fashions. Numbering systems? Is there an advantage in going base 10 vs base 11? Now that I think about it base 8 may be better.

> Is there an advantage in going base 10 vs base 11? Yes, you can divide by powers of two and five and exactly represent the result. When did you last feel an urge to divide something into 11 parts? > Now that I think about it base 8 may be better. Well, that would have given us nicer shutter-times and screw sizes, "Megabytes", max_ints and better floats for money calculations as well as slightly better numerical pro…

> When did you last feel an urge to divide something into 11 parts?

When did you last feel an urge to divide something into 5 parts?

Re: Artificial Intelligence as the year 2000 approaches (1992)

#29

Post by _bxg1 »

spectramax wrote: post #27
Ididntdothis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say alphabets, languages, religions, fashions. Numbering systems? Is there an advantage in going base 10 vs base 11? Now that I think about it base 8 may be better.

Arguably, Duodecimal would have been better. 12 is divisble by a large number of factors and it has some more interesting aspects outlined here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal

Came here to say this.

We got 10 instead because we have 10 fingers to count on.

Re: Artificial Intelligence as the year 2000 approaches (1992)

#30

Post by patrec »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #28
patrec wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there an advantage in going base 10 vs base 11? Yes, you can divide by powers of two and five and exactly represent the result. When did you last feel an urge to divide something into 11 parts? > Now that I think about it base 8 may be better. Well, that would have given us nicer shutter-times and screw sizes, "Megabytes", max_ints and better floats for money calculations as well as slightly better numerical pro…

> When did you last feel an urge to divide something into 11 parts? When did you last feel an urge to divide something into 5 parts?

I feel this urge a lot more often than you seem to think :)
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