Re: AI...

One of the most worrying things about the synths in humans was when one of them became aware and was being used as a sex worker, she had all the feelings and awareness of a human but no right to say no, eventually she flipped and started killing men. A robot union may not be what they chose.

Re: AI...

Actually none of that stuff made much sense TBH. The synths were by definition man-made machines. Anything and everything they were was created by the humans that made them. If they could simulate feelings it could only be because their creators programmed simulated feeling responses in their coding. What is being expressed as feelings by the synths is simply computer coded feelings. One has to ask why the programmer would have put the effort in to make the robot behave in that way.

By far a better approach for the whole TV show would have been to turn it around and have some tech company making robots out of humans, i.e. starting with a human, adding better body elements, organs, limbs, eyes, skin and so on and then basing the show on the interaction of "enhanced humans" with ordinary humans. After all, that is most certainly where the coming years will take humanity, no question about it.

Re: AI...

I think you will find that robots are being programmed to think for themselves and to evolve. The confines of the initial program are not barriers any longer. There will definitely come a time (and quite soon) where robots will be thinking and behaving in ways that are no longer understood or envisaged: robots creating new cpus for instance or creating new programs for use in robots designed and built by robots! The door will be wide open for robots to evolve any which way they choose. The initial constraints imposed by the programmers are under threat and have been for quite some time.

Re: AI...

well for the true believers there may be a 'God' angle here and a real, realistic one too!!

Maybe this is the point of human evolution where 'God' has lead us to be our own creators - He/She created us and no one has done any better yet?? and now we are having a go. A bit like 'Dad/Mum' building a real, realistic house and then saying to their sons and daughters "there ya go - you have a go now - you don't have to build it as big but we think you are ready to make a good effort"

just watched 'Six Sense' again - great film heh?

Re: AI...

There is no "thinking" involved. A robot/computer only "processes" and it processes only in the way it has been programmed to process.

You can build random elements into a computer which can make it appear to be unpredictable, but in the end it's just following the rules it has been given.

Again doesn't make sense. If a robot creates a CPU it can only do that if it has been programmed that way. It is not thinking, it is simply following rules.

Humans are pretty much the same. We have an amount of memory (RAM) and an amount of processing power (CPU) and everything we do is simply following the various rule sets we have been programmed with. Your body for example has been designed and programmed to operate as it does. Are YOU making your heart beat? Nope. That was decided for you by someone else. Go ahead and try to refuse to breathe. You can't because your programming does not permit it. After a few minutes the programming in your body will take over and force you to take a breath.

Everything you invent or are capable of imagining is based on existing knowledge, on factors and criteria, however remote, that you are already aware of.

Humans started off with basic abilities and the capability to store information and process that information. Through increased experimentation and experience we have progressed from cave men to current day people.

Despite all this, are we actually thinking? Or are we just working within the rule sets that have been given to us?

Re: AI...

Yep it was a good watch, but ultimately it is quite flawed because it so implausible that Willis can't realise he is a ghost until the very end.

What did he think about all the other strange goings on up to that point? A movie flaw website puts it like this:

All the other ghosts in the film seemed to be wandering the earth, mindlessly reliving their deaths, with little awareness of the outside world at all. But ol' Bruce was just carrying on as normal, working and going about his day-to-day routine, completely unfazed by the fact no one but a small child had spoken to him in several months.

What kind of lifestyle was he living before his death that would make him fail to notice that no one could see or hear him? He assumes his wife isn't speaking to him because he's "neglecting their marriage." In the days right after he died, did he think she was mad at him for getting shot in the stomach? And what about everyone else? Does he also assume all waiters are suddenly assholes? That the girl at the supermarket check out finds him too hideous to make eye contact with? That taxis won't stop for him because he's balding?

And how does he get the assignment to treat the kid anyway? Nobody hired him, being a ghost and all. Does he just approach random children in churches and start giving them free psychiatric advice?

Re: AI...

An interesting post Realist. I hope you are right.

Re: AI...

You do understand the word 'evolve' do you? FREE thinking robots are on the cards whether you discount the idea or not. A programmer can construct a program and a machine can construct a cpu but the complexities are immense these days. With the way robotics are nowadays and the hunt on for who can create the first 'aware' robot only a robot will be able to understand the logic involved eventually. The 'stuff' you posted applies to common garden computers but to the incredible designs being put forward no-way. As for the rest of the stuff what on earth are you on about? We are discussing robots that can think for themselves and that is all.

You draw a comparison with robots to human beings and I will go along with that but you are really shooting yourself in the foot by doing so. Human beings can be totally unpredictable, devious and secretive. Some human beings cannot understand themselves never-mind others trying to do it for them. If, as you say, we are just robots then by your logic everyone of us is predictable owing to some 'greater understanding'. If only that was true.

And stop bloody preaching to people as it is pissing me off - again!

Re: AI...

Yep. But strictly speaking that is a term applied to LIVING biological things. The evolution happens through freak mutations perhaps caused through environmental impacts.

Robots do not "evolve". You confuse iterations of technology with something completely different. Media advertising might claim for example that the iPhone has evolved to the latest version, but it's simply marketing spiel. Nothing has evolved, it's just a different iPhone.

Your definition of the term "Thinking" is the issue with your statement. Robots do not "Think". They just process instruction sets that they have been programmed with. For certain that may APPEAR to you as thinking, but it clearly isn't. For example the super computer developed by IBM called "Watson" was capable of winning the US Game Show "Jeopardy". It could anticipate the questions being asked faster than a human and come up with the right answer just as quick. However all it was doing was firstly reading text, simple, interpreting that text, simple following defined rulesets, analysing the questions, based on logic programmed into it, and deriving the answer. Fabulous to watch and witness but in the end it's just a dumb machine doing whatever it's developers programmed it to do.

How are you defining "aware" here. Robots can have sensors of varying types but the human has to programme the robot so it knows how to interpret the signals from those sensors. So for example you can programme a robot to recognise say a fire and programme it not to go near. The robot is not "aware" of the fire, it is just a machine processing signals.

I disagree. Even the impressive Honda robot ASIMO is just a machine doing what it is programmed to do. Nothing more.

I would say that humans display a great many attributes of what we ourselves would call a robot. There is a whole debate to be had in regards to how you define a robot.

There is a cause for every action. Whether one man understands the cause of another's action is neither here nor there. You can only predict those things you are given to predict.

I don't preach MJK. I enter civil discourse and debate. It's obvious that you don't respond well to alternative view points or to anyone that challenges your posts. You seem to take that personally as if you were being attacked, but that's not the case. It is through such exchanges of dialogue that we learn and see new avenues to explore. Embrace it.

Re: AI...

Phew, trying to argue with you (Realist) is akin to pulling your own teeth out.

Robots can and do 'evolve' now. Robots can learn and change. This adaptation is the future of robotics. Adaptation is chaotic in nature with surprising results. You think one man is capable of programming an incredibly complex robot? It is a conglomeration of 'brains' inputting all sorts of logic. It is obvious to me that the combined understanding of these programs will be way beyond anything one human brain can grasp. Only the infinitely streamlined and incredibly powerful computer brain will be able to absorb all the signals and interpret them accordingly, but to what result?

I can give you an analogy of the above - Alan Turing breaking the Enigma Code.

If one man's mind is capable of so much why did he have to create a massive machine to work out the problem? The machine he created was a forerunner of the computers we have today.

Lets take this a step further. The machine worked out a solution that was in effect not known to the creator. He made the damn machine but the results it came out with were beyond his reasoning. Move forward to today where robots are able to find answers that are again beyond any human's brain to figure out and then to adjust themselves or to create something NEW from them - even to redesign their own brain. This is evolution in a sense and will result in totally unpredictable actions. Taking it a few steps further forward we will eventually no longer understand robots.

And by the way statements such as these ...

is akin to preaching. It is trying to impose your dogmatic approach (to everything it seems to me) on others.