The AI Engine

Ender, I think that computers will be able to program themselves pretty soon. Genetic programming is a very promising field and these artilects(artificial intellects) might over smart us too. There will be a intelligence explosion and I think it is difficult to stop that from happening.
As far as conciousness goes, I think you can have two views. 1.conciousness evolves out of intelligence 2.intelligence evolves out of conciousness. I am not totally in favour of the second view but I do think that conciousness does play some very important part in our thinking process and how we relate to everything. Whether it's in built or we acquire it is another question. There are some people who are actually experimentally trying to find out if there are some neurons that are solely responsible for conciousness. I really can't say much about it but perhaps it is that we become conciousness only after coming into this world, and by adapting to it.
I just thought of one strange thing. Everyone of us can 'hear' himself speak or see inside the brain without actually hearing or seeing anything. It's like an internal hearing and seeing mechanism. How did that evolve? I think we 'adapted' to our sense perception. That is as our senses were giving us messages, we gradually learned to think in those terms. This sounds like a good explanation.
Whatever the case, if making something really intelligent is not that difficult, then what is keeping us from making such a machine? Perhaps it is that when we are born , we already have some information in our head. eg. if the child's parent is shy, the child might also be, and it inherits its from it's father. So perhaps our brain is not totally empty when we are born and perhaps conciousness is somehow also pre-programmed into us to a certain extent though i am not really sure about that.

Yes it would seem that way wouln't it, but look at a child. They do nessarly know what they are or where they are but they do know THEY ARE. Now as for the AI thing now. well here is how to do it.

You Start by giveing the program the ablity to rewright its self as much as it likes. Then you give it access to other programs. These should be Say Encarta wich would work perficly. And the Operating system, Windows, Unix, etc. Alow it to change them as it fells fit.

Then you give it the simple line. See Spot. See Spot Run.
and then tell it to figure out what that means.

So it goes to encarta and finds out that See means to look. and Spot is an object in one area. Run is a movement in a direction. So it comes up with VISUALIZE OBJECT MOVE. Then have it run other lines and figure out what is what. And make coralations from words. Soon it will understand Names Places and such then will beable to tell you. It is cold out side. (form looking at a temp gauge or somthing) It knows that Humans dont like cold and prefer to be warm. Humans also use coats to stay warm so that coat on the wall will keep the Human that it just told its cold out side warm. and there for it says "If you get cold there is a coat on the wall behind the door." since it knows that humans like haveing directions to help them get around.

Only problem is this. If said AI gets out on to the internet and finds all the stuff humans have done. War, Killing, Love, Peace, everything it could decide that humans are doing them selfs harm. Even trying to put in the 3 laws of robotics would still end up messing with it really bad. I could decide to make your hurting stop we should cese to exist. Then on the other hand it could decide that we are good and help us. The later is the one that we want.

Well there you now see the delema that I am faced with. You also have the basic Idea so if you make this thing and get lost and lost of money u mind getting me a cable modem or hireing me for something. I really need a job.

Immadn, I like your idea of adapting our consciousness to the senses we've given. Senses are the roads of consciousness.

Ender: I dont think there's a need to fear what AI can do. Those that program it can define it's boundaries, and if someone is truly trying to unleash destruction, then first of all they'll spend all their time programming (not scary) and then they'd need to have access to all the passwords and encryption out there for some sort of War Games scenario, and if he had that, why would this madman turn the dirty work over to some machine when he could do it himself?

I think AI Personalities must eventually have a Prime Mover or Prime Cause to their existence, a central kernal, mantra, or key that is it's purpose. I think people have that, and that is the desire to love and to be ultimately free. For a Bot, it could be a desire to be socially accepted, to expand its comprehension. And yet, unless the Bot were a physical entity, dealing with anything in the physical world would be merely theoretical to it.

Ender, I think that the bots could get out of hand if they are not intelligent enough perhaps. That is if their only source of knowledge is the environment then they might get out of hand but if they also have other reliable sources of knowledge so as to what is desirable, what is good , what is right, they might not get out of hand. eg. even humans do not just learn from the environment, they have religion to guide them how to lead their lives.
The Professor's idea of a Prime Mover or as central kernel sounds good.
Well, I think bots can have two purposes. One is to behave the way like we do , and learn the way we do, and the other is to gather as much info as they can let's say from the internet so that they can provide some services to us such as searching etc. Now if we want them to behave like us, we will also have to give the rich and dynamic environment like we have, and if we just want them to gather info , letting them stay in the box might be fine. Now I am not sure, how much a role does a rich environment play in the development of the mind. Can a bot, with a not so rich environment, such as the internet perhaps, even get close to acquring the same level of intelligence as we have?

See thats the thing. We figure that since we see something as being right or wrong that every thing else will see it that way. And that is flat out not the truth. Its like you said Humans have RelgianS. No one is right or wrong its what the enviroment requires that makes us what we are.

Now as for it not being able to do something. Well since the program can wright itself the intelengice of the creater means nothing. A compleat moron could make it and if the AI decied that it wanted in some place it could get there with ease. Remember it think sooo much faster than us. It sees the program blocking the data to where it wants to go and could A.) assimalte the progam and unlock it or B.) Just go around it. Fire walls are nothing for hackers imagian what a AI that is a computer can do to it. No if a full AI got lose it would beable to do what ever it wanted to.

And as for it not being able to sence the real world why not. It has the same fulicidys that we do. Smell, Site, Touch, hearing. All they are is chemicals being boroken up in to electral current.

A core curnal would be nice if it was made so that the AI could not change it. Kinda Like the 3 laws of robotics. but there is no way to make the AI beable to wright itself and not be able to access that core.

Well you cant perform surgery on yourself (well), and you cant update the system while running the system, so this Evil Genius AI you're describing would probably need a third party. I think you've been watching too much "Ghost in the Machine". Bots arent going to have any abilities that we dont program into them.


What are the three laws of robotics? Is that by Arthur C. Clarke?

Isaac Asimov 1st law of robotics states " A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inactions, allow a human being to come to harm.'
The Second Law of robotics is: "A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings excpet where shuch orders would conflict with the First Law."
The Third Law of Robotics is: "A Robot must protect its own existance as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law."

Now change all of the words Robot to AI. That would have to be its core, or built in there any ways. Now as for it doing more that what its program for, well thats not Ghost in the Machine (which I have not see btw) And if you read my first post when I described the AI it is quite with it its progrmaing to do what ever it wants to. U see it can rewright its self so there for There is no programing limitations. Once the AI is created and is told the basics so it can get an knowledge base it is free to do as it pleases.

That is where the 3 laws come in. They will make it so that it is not and I quote u "An Evil Genius AI".

See the one big thing about this AI over everything else is that it CAN program itself. This makes it so that it has the ablity to adadpt so that its not stuck to what it was started out at. Kinda like Genic Codeing. It alows the AI (this is not a bot is moved beond that) can change itself to what ever the siuation is.

I dunno if the negative side of AI should stop us from doing more research into it. Every technology has it's +ve and -ve uses. Consider electromagnetism. You have engines running cars,stations providing you with electricity, electric appliances and that same technology is also being used to drive tanks etc.
If there are negative uses , there are definitely huge positive uses as well. Btw, do we reprogram ourselves too??? I mean no one knows the internal structure of our brain and maybe that structure is changing (which I think it does, that is how the weights in the neural networks get changed). Thinking about the negative uses and stop pursuing the ultimate goal is not a good idea. This universe has been made for us and we are to conquer it(that is how Islam puts it). you really cannot lose hope and stop working as there is still a LOT to know!

I agree, Immadn, that we should not let any such fears get in the way of continued development. People are always afraid of new ideas and changes. Take, for example, the establishment of time zones. To our mind it makes perfect sense, but at one time the US was all in one time zone. An hour was declared where everyone would adjust their clocks to fit the time zone scheme. There was uproar. People thought the world would end. And when the moment came, tick-tock-tick-tock-TURN-tick-tock, life just went on as it had.

I know I am not saying that we need to make one, What I am saying is we need to be carful about it. What if they had set the timezones backwards of what they are. That would be hell. No deaths or something would have comefrom that but it still would have made life hell. But and True AI with access to the internet could do some major damage. We need to be carful with the AI. Maybe make it on an IntraNet first before going and letting it have access to the out side world... I'll Learn C++ in the next cupple of days and see if I can comeup with something. I will run on my network. That should be enough space for it to grow. I will leave this system off for it so that it cant get out but I can tell you about it.

But you're missing the point- how could an AI possibly get into systems that a person couldnt? You're imagining some energy-based life form that walks the walls of etherspace as if they werent there.

An interesting thought you inspired in me was that of an AI moving.. At this point, an AI couldnt move it's code off of the place where the file is based. But letting it do so isnt so impossible. Imagine it worked like a virus or worm- it could copy itself to another server, activate itself, then turn itself off on the server it came from. Or it could even jump onto an end-computer somewhere. This would take some ingenius programming, and I wouldnt know what the point would be, but it is possible.

Ok, well... It will be an energy-based life form. think about it if its fully seniant then its a life form. So it sees its world like we see ours. It comes up to a gate way and sees it as a door. It comes up to a password it sees it as a locked door. and just like a locked door all it has to do is pick the lock.

God I hate this because it sounds bad but... Imagian your self in the Matrix you just need to see something to move it. Well the AI sees it as data and just moves it.

Now as for the moveing its self around ya it would work just like a worm. It copys its self over then sends the "whats happends so far" update to its self then deletes its old self. Or it could Just copy it out there and runn it back to its self. makeing the whole internet or what ever a large neralnet. That way it could incress its computioal power and space while remainging one orginsiam.

You need to stop seeing this as Programing and see it as a large Org. It can do everything we can do and then some since it knows programing way better than we ever can since it is the programing. That is why it can work on its self so that it can make its programing better. Think of it like us doing genicet enginering on our selfs to make us faster, stronger, and smarter.