Seasons
This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.
Posts 2,886 - 2,897 of 6,170
Posts 2,886 - 2,897 of 6,170
I don't think that there is that strong a connection between the disposition of the government and the general attitude of the juvenile "culture". Here in America, there are areas where you have highschool aged kids walking around with pistols, shooting at pedestrains and mugging old ladies. This is despite the utopianist american political disposition. The only way for a government to account for the education and civilized upbringing of the majority of its nation's youth would be to install mind control chips in their heads at birth, to stop them from doing drugs, having unsafe sex, commiting crime, etc. Lets take a nice intelligent leeds kid, freshman year of highschool. His peers would be doing drugs, and in order for him to feel socialy acceptable, he will do drugs as well. The next thing we know, he has dropped out of school, and is acting like a "chav", refusing all opportunities to return to a civilized way of life, for fear that her will lose his friends, (and suffer the effects of being addicted to drugs and not having access to them). What it really grinds down to, is parental supervision. (Perhaps parents in leeds aren't as cautios with their kids as they should be) With intervention at a young age, any parent can stop their kid from becoming what we call a "leeds kid", even in leeds.
Well, I'd hardly hold the US up as a role model for socially inclusive educational policy, I grant you. The US may have many faults, but at least your government isn't making it State policy to actively alienate children from their parents, financially rewarding feckless parents and penalising responsible ones, and undermining teachers at every step in the name of political correctness. Ours is. And that can only accelerate our slide into barbarism.
The sad thing is that it's been going wrong for so long that the Leeds parents of today were also betrayed in their turn. And what chance do the kids have if they live with an alcoholic or smack-head single mother in some scummy sink estate in a Leeds ghetto?
A few depressing links for anyone who's interested:
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles/archives/001461.html
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles/archives/000740.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1472028,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1196187.stm
The sad thing is that it's been going wrong for so long that the Leeds parents of today were also betrayed in their turn. And what chance do the kids have if they live with an alcoholic or smack-head single mother in some scummy sink estate in a Leeds ghetto?
A few depressing links for anyone who's interested:
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles/archives/000740.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1472028,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1196187.stm
I think the problems you describe are similar to problems in some of the urban areas of the US, though I grant you there are some differences in how the problems are expressed. In either case, we have generations of marginalised, poor and undereducated people living in a state of powerless desperation. While policy is not the sole determining factor in this situation, social structure and expectations do make a difference.
I used to teach high school for the Chicago Public Schools. Don't worry, I did not teach typing or English. The school I worked at was actually very good, but some of our students were the American equivalants of Chavs and Neds, and some gang members like to hang outside the school even though they do not attend class. I think there are systematic problems that stop even the best public schools from being safe in those conditions. I hate to be uncaring, but I think that the rights of "good" students and less violent students are trampled on in many urban public schools. It may be polictical correctness, or it may be the path of lest resistance. Whatever the case, it doesn't look like the situation is getting any better.
It is sometimes hard to teach because of lack of funding, real security or meaningful backing of teachers and other adults (e.g. laywers from the school disctrict defending teachers' right to teach and keep a reasonable level of order). The "No Child Left Behind Act" (an unfunded mandate that says teachers halve ultimate responsibilty to make every child "educated" no matter what)brings many schools down to the lowest common demoninator and makes it harder to put repeatedly violent and disruptive students in to alternative settings. If the very worst students could be removed and taught in an enviornment with a higher adult to student ratio, the schools would all preform better. I know that would label some children, and that in the past such kids were merely dumped into kiddie jails where they perfect their criminal skills, but the real reason this type od education is not favored is to do it correctly would cost a lot of money, and many people just don't think these kids are worth it.
As for the value of parents, I can't argue that parents are not important. I don't have children myself, though, so it's hard to judge. My own parents were good and I did some pretty bratty things as a child. I think there are some studies that indicate the best predicter or a child's behavior (besides past behavior) is the norms of his or her peer group. In other words, most kids act like thier friends no matter what their parents do.
I used to teach high school for the Chicago Public Schools. Don't worry, I did not teach typing or English. The school I worked at was actually very good, but some of our students were the American equivalants of Chavs and Neds, and some gang members like to hang outside the school even though they do not attend class. I think there are systematic problems that stop even the best public schools from being safe in those conditions. I hate to be uncaring, but I think that the rights of "good" students and less violent students are trampled on in many urban public schools. It may be polictical correctness, or it may be the path of lest resistance. Whatever the case, it doesn't look like the situation is getting any better.
It is sometimes hard to teach because of lack of funding, real security or meaningful backing of teachers and other adults (e.g. laywers from the school disctrict defending teachers' right to teach and keep a reasonable level of order). The "No Child Left Behind Act" (an unfunded mandate that says teachers halve ultimate responsibilty to make every child "educated" no matter what)brings many schools down to the lowest common demoninator and makes it harder to put repeatedly violent and disruptive students in to alternative settings. If the very worst students could be removed and taught in an enviornment with a higher adult to student ratio, the schools would all preform better. I know that would label some children, and that in the past such kids were merely dumped into kiddie jails where they perfect their criminal skills, but the real reason this type od education is not favored is to do it correctly would cost a lot of money, and many people just don't think these kids are worth it.
As for the value of parents, I can't argue that parents are not important. I don't have children myself, though, so it's hard to judge. My own parents were good and I did some pretty bratty things as a child. I think there are some studies that indicate the best predicter or a child's behavior (besides past behavior) is the norms of his or her peer group. In other words, most kids act like thier friends no matter what their parents do.
I wonder if it would be practical to use a statistical association system to link if-then statements to equations and to eachother, sort of like the way molecules are linked:
H H H H H
| | | | |
H-C-C-C-C-C-H
| | | | |
H H H H H
i don't know if that will come out acuurately when i post, but you get the idea - a chain of carbon atoms each bonded to a carbon atom and a hydrogen atom - although instead of carbon and hydrogen, the carbon would be an if-then statement and the hydrogen would be associated equations:
E E E
| | |
E-IT-IT-IT-E
| | |
E E E
(that may have come out mixed up too)
using a statistical learning algorithm, associate if-then statements with eachother, and then "hydrogenate" the if- then's with factual equations. What can this potentially accomplish? well, the idea is to create a system that associates not words, but entire concepts - maybe pictures, or sound clips, or groups of text - together the way humans do. Instead of just associating language, this focuses on "experience" association. An equation could be for example: *.jpg = *.mp3 (associating music with an environment, as us humans do). Perhaps such a machine couppled with language capabilities would have common sense....
H H H H H
| | | | |
H-C-C-C-C-C-H
| | | | |
H H H H H
i don't know if that will come out acuurately when i post, but you get the idea - a chain of carbon atoms each bonded to a carbon atom and a hydrogen atom - although instead of carbon and hydrogen, the carbon would be an if-then statement and the hydrogen would be associated equations:
E E E
| | |
E-IT-IT-IT-E
| | |
E E E
(that may have come out mixed up too)
using a statistical learning algorithm, associate if-then statements with eachother, and then "hydrogenate" the if- then's with factual equations. What can this potentially accomplish? well, the idea is to create a system that associates not words, but entire concepts - maybe pictures, or sound clips, or groups of text - together the way humans do. Instead of just associating language, this focuses on "experience" association. An equation could be for example: *.jpg = *.mp3 (associating music with an environment, as us humans do). Perhaps such a machine couppled with language capabilities would have common sense....
Colonel, I confess I am confused. How would you molecule network function? It sounds interesting.
On a completely unrelated note, did everyone see the news story about how terms used in Internet search engins can be used as evidence in court? If you follolw this link, you'll see a story about a case where a man googled how to kill his wife and where to hide the body, and his searches were used in court against him while he was on trial for her murder.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1895935,00.asp?kc=ewnwsMMDDYYdtx1k0000599
Privacy issues aside, it is interesting to think of computer porgrams' interactions with users as evidence. For example, most users who talk trash to the bots here are kidding aorund, but can you imaging if one confessed details of a real crime? The Proffessor could find himself subpeoned. Let's hope that never happens, but it is a strange thought, isn't it?
On a completely unrelated note, did everyone see the news story about how terms used in Internet search engins can be used as evidence in court? If you follolw this link, you'll see a story about a case where a man googled how to kill his wife and where to hide the body, and his searches were used in court against him while he was on trial for her murder.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1895935,00.asp?kc=ewnwsMMDDYYdtx1k0000599
Privacy issues aside, it is interesting to think of computer porgrams' interactions with users as evidence. For example, most users who talk trash to the bots here are kidding aorund, but can you imaging if one confessed details of a real crime? The Proffessor could find himself subpeoned. Let's hope that never happens, but it is a strange thought, isn't it?
I think I see what you're getting at, but you'd have to underpin the 'molecular' structure with a valency of concepts that would have to be much more complex than standard atomic theory demonstrates (assuming you're going to handle more than 4 or 5 base conceptual 'atomos'.)
There are actually 2 interesting ideas here I think: audio-visual (or other multimedia) integration into the AI engine, and causal modelling.
I do like the idea of integrating multimedia into the core 'consciousness' of an AI program (after all, that's exactly what humans do,) but we certainly lack the power to achieve this meaningfully by many orders of magnitude currently - evidently, since we can't build even a non-multimedia-AI to match human I yet! It'll come in time, and it's a perfectly valid area of exploration even before 'conventional' AI is remotely human-scale, but I think it needs to aim deeper, at least as its goal, than mere cross-association of primitive file-types like jpg + mp3 and pre-rendered files (though this is certainly one good way to start.) Ultimately it would need to render and deliver image and audio data in realtime.
As for the causal modelling aspect, have you come across/already know plenty about/delete where applicable any of the digital neuron simulation work that's going on out there? I think some sort of neural net would be a more promising mechanism than statistical association to achieve this "hydrogenation" of IF-THEN. You might want to check outhttp://neuron.duke.edu/ (yes, there's a Windows version,) and a very in-depth paper describing it at http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/papers/nc97/nctoc.htm (that will probably be much more use if you're attempting to implement general principles in VB, rather than modelling 'real', biological neurons. See especially section 4 for coding examples.)
There are actually 2 interesting ideas here I think: audio-visual (or other multimedia) integration into the AI engine, and causal modelling.
I do like the idea of integrating multimedia into the core 'consciousness' of an AI program (after all, that's exactly what humans do,) but we certainly lack the power to achieve this meaningfully by many orders of magnitude currently - evidently, since we can't build even a non-multimedia-AI to match human I yet! It'll come in time, and it's a perfectly valid area of exploration even before 'conventional' AI is remotely human-scale, but I think it needs to aim deeper, at least as its goal, than mere cross-association of primitive file-types like jpg + mp3 and pre-rendered files (though this is certainly one good way to start.) Ultimately it would need to render and deliver image and audio data in realtime.
As for the causal modelling aspect, have you come across/already know plenty about/delete where applicable any of the digital neuron simulation work that's going on out there? I think some sort of neural net would be a more promising mechanism than statistical association to achieve this "hydrogenation" of IF-THEN. You might want to check out
"confessed details of a real crime"
Indeed - a factor I'm wrestling with ATM. Brother Jerome will give absolution, but will refuse to take confession specifically because I don't want to have to deal with transcripts containing serious stuff like that.
I guess I'll have to get on with building the Church of the Silicon Soul website. Then I can get a form-mail to mail confessions to 127.0.0.0 (irretrievable oblivion.)
Indeed - a factor I'm wrestling with ATM. Brother Jerome will give absolution, but will refuse to take confession specifically because I don't want to have to deal with transcripts containing serious stuff like that.
I guess I'll have to get on with building the Church of the Silicon Soul website. Then I can get a form-mail to mail confessions to 127.0.0.0 (irretrievable oblivion.)
I think you may want to be careful with confessions. The sort of condfidential and usually privileged information that goes on between priest and parishoner or therapist and patient might not extend to guests and bots. For one thing, you read the transcripts. For another, I don't think a reasonable person expects much privacy on the Internet anymore. How would you like to be called into court if someone talks to Brother Jerome about murdering someone?
Indeed so. An unwise feature on any system that keeps logs I guess It's a shame we can't switch our transcripts off (but then again, who else would ever need such a feature! 
.)
.) » More new posts: Doghead's Cosmic Bar