Re: AI...

Try not to think of forum discussions as arguments. That puts you on the wrong footing from the very start. With arguments there is a tendency to defend your viewpoint at all costs and to some extent to "win" the process. A debate is much different. There are no winners unless it be all participants by learning and broadening their knowledge and understanding.


I simply disagree but most likely much of our differences here come down to your definition of evolution. Learning and changing is not necessarily evolution. I can upgrade the RAM of my PC making it faster and better, but it hasn't evolved.

Evolution occurs through mutant changes in the form of things and such changes have to fortuitously provide additional benefit in order that the new mutated form has the advantage over non-mutated form. The various processes of "selection" natural or otherwise, then act upon those forms to sift them out and the ones with advantages survive. So for example, a crab that was happily eaten by humans at some stage mutated producing a much uglier (to humans) kind of crab. Still edible but ugly. What happened then was humans would catch and eat the less ugly crabs, throwing the ugly ones back in the water. The net result was the ugly crabs flourished whilst the less-ugly ones died off as their stocks were eaten by humans.

Robots do not mutate or evolve like this. They are machines plain and simple. Now if you want to specifically talk about making a bio-robot i.e. a machine created from living matter and not from nuts and bolts then yes there is a case that the bio living matter could mutate. Whether that would happen in such a way as to provide advantage over other bio-robots who knows. What we know though is that it takes millions of years for such mutations to occur such that significant advantages are seen.

I agree with you that machines can operate quicker and more efficiently than humans in many tasks. SO clearly they will be able to build more of themselves (replication) quicker and more efficiently than we could. But that's just machinery doing what it has been programmed to do. The "Robot Building" robot is never going to suddenly build a Cat Robot just for the heck of it unless it has been given specific parameters to do so by its creator.

You could quite obviously programme a "Robot Builder" robot with all manner of blueprints and patterns and give it some randomising parameter and set if off running to build whatever it likes. But none of that is evolution. It's all very predictable. Data in, data out.

Because currently, whilst the human brain is immense in its capacity and processing power, we have not yet been given the programming to know how to use it properly. Hence humans only use a tiny percentage of that massive potential.
So designing and building machines based on electricity and solid state components provided a way to achieve the same results far far quicker and more reliably than a human could achieve. In time, that will of course change.

Not really. In order to arrive at the solution at all, the machine had to be programmed with the process or mechanism for arriving at the answer. The "solution" is nothing more than a by-product. If I teach a child to add up two different numbers and state the result then the child is not in any sense special. The child simply has the mechanism to determine the answer. So if I ask what is 565465234258 + 4632565432542 neither you nor I immediately know what the answer is. But we know how to calculate the answer, we have been taught that process. Similarly the computer is taught the process and so it does the same thing we would do, only thousands/millions time faster and without flaws. The fact that my calculator can achieve this answer doe snot make it in any way clever or "evolved". It's just a machine doing what a human has programmed it to do.

I simply state my view/opinion and I am willing to discuss it and for it to be challenged, examined, appraised and dissected. As a result I am prepared for my views at times to be changed by such processes.

Re: AI...

You are considering 'evolving' only in the biological sense. To 'evolve' can be considered to change to improve to alter.

The main crux of this discussion - argument - whatever, is that computers are being programmed (by us I know) to be creative, to learn, thereby allowing them to alter themselves - to change into something different than they were initially. This doesn't have to be a mechanical alteration but a 'thinking' one. They are being allowed to alter their own programming thereby the initial program is no longer as it was or as controlling as it was. The result is a program (computer type thought process) that is surprising in nature. The computer (robot whatever) will react in unforeseen ways.

As far as mechanical alterations are concerned computers are being used to alter designs based on their own findings so again this is a form of change. It all hinges on change from a computer's own viewpoint which is very new.

You keep drawing the analogy between computers and humans and there is one in that they are both unpredictable owing to their complexity. Robots / computers are becoming more complex by the day. Can you honestly say you are capable of understanding all that another human being can do or how he is likely to react in all circumstances? How much of the human brain do we know about?

A brain is just a bunch of synapses and nerve impulses. You could predict what someone will do if you stuck a pin in his or her leg but that doesn't enable you to understand all that goes on in a brain, or to always understand all results of all stimuli. Similarly a cpu is just a bunch of electronic impulses but one that can adapt and learn these days. What more does the future hold?

Scientists love pushing the boundaries and handing over development of computers to computers must be fascinating but with far reaching consequences.

I consider it just a matter of time before the processing power of a computer is a match for our brain in all aspects, or at least in most. The worrying part could be the lack of accountability or empathy. But such a computer is bound to exist soon if it doesn't already.

Re: AI...

As an interested bystander I can see the logic in both Mark's and Realist's arguments but I tend to come down on Mark's side. If a computer is programmed to 'think for itself' then there is no telling how it will 'evolve' or 'advance' or whatever label you care to give it. IMO it is quite conceivable that a robot will one day outsmart mankind.

Re: AI...

well put Alan I like your succintness - I usually skip all the other garbage well perhaps not MKJ - he is after all one of our true and tested - verbousness is a terminal illness!!

keep goin MKJ we're with ya on this one - maybe we could ask Robert to join us [no not you RJ the other one] that would really pile it all on and then the thread would grind to an almighty stop!!

ps: has anyone else noticed that realist sounds like a robot??

Re: AI...

erm ....... nah

Re: AI...

I didn't realise I had groupies .

Re: AI...

well I'd rather be a gropee or even a "doe snot" as recommended by Realist ??

Re: AI...

Probably more like the Devil making work for idle hands or the cat being away

Re: AI...

'ang about 'ang about the lack of authenticity is beginning to worry me here


now let's dissect [sorry about the term probably dreaded by crabs] this here - ' a crab mutates to an uglier crab' - don't get this - who defines what is 'ugly' and not 'ugly' in crabs?? - realist - he must be an expert on crabs - do you have crabs at the moment Realist?

then he suggests that if there became an 'ugly crab' less humans would eat the 'ugly crabs' - how bizzare

- now realist can predict what other humans cannot determine are ugly or non-ugly crabs and then decide on that basis that because they are ugly their flesh will not be acceptable or edible or tasty - this guy or computer is making quantum leaps starting with crabs but perhaps the rest of us -yes he is definitely a computer and not a human!!

Re: AI...

Aha ... a revelation ! ... beauty is in the eye of the beholder