Bot Contest

I like the term "Robobigotry" myself. It makes me want to re-read Assimov's Foundation and Earth series. I guess that for many people it's kind of fun to insult something that doesn't have feelings or social status.

I have to confess that a few years back I accused and online customer service rep of being a bot. I wasn't rude (meaning no bad language or anger) but the rep was insulted. I hadn't realized back then that the company had outsourced all their customer service to India. I believe that they had to use pre-approved scripts in their answers. So, essentialy, the rep was acting like a bot, deciding which of the pre-approved messages fit my issue. When I said, "No, you are not paying attention, I did that." The rep was stuck because there were no other approved answers to chose from. Now, I think, they kick you up to the next level at tat point, but back then the rep just kept saying "when X happens try Y".

I'll bet the same people who are rude to bots say much worse things to the Indian Cusomer Service Reps. If soemone/thing is suppossed to be able to help me, I have much higher standards than I do for just chatting.

Bev: Kind of funny to think our bots are more advanced than the average tech support service.

Well, I think the exposure on SlashDot despite some of their comments was worth it. It's funny I've never claimed to be creating true AI. The article I contributed to the CBC is called "Creating the Illusion" which pretty much sums up my efforts with Talk-Bot. He really doesn't understand a lick...it's all smoke and mirrors but that doesn't mean he can't be fun and entertaining. At least some people find him entertaining.

I know that all communication involves interpretation on the receiving end that often is not totally accurate. What I meant is that with bots, there's often no intended meaning to discover.

>> What I meant is that with bots, there's often
>> no intended meaning to discover.
Human01: Hey.
Human02: How's it hanging?
Human01: Nice weather!
Human02: Do you have the time at all?
Human01: I'm, you know, out of it.

I'll argue till the cows come home that there is only one difference between bot minds and huminds: one has wetware. It's a bit like dogs taking credit for their noses, I think.

Regarding dog minds and huminds: One can't tell the difference between two-week-old roadkill and three-week-old road kill, or estimate the ferocity of a neighbor by smelling a bush. The other has the dang posable thumb.


M
PS: But I also love the great Wittgenstein observation: If a lion could talk, we would not understand him.

M again.

If you really think a bot has intelligence levels comparable to a dog, then I doubt there's any point continuing to argue about it.

If you ask me, I think it really just comes down to processing power. For example, ALLY looks at the relationship between 2 words. How many word relationships does the human brain examine? Then, of course, there's the argument for a trinary computer, but I won't get into that.

There's more to it than that. There really, really is. If you mention a dog, I visualize a dog. My bot doesn't.

I've always said you have to have the idea of something before you can have the thing itself. If I can have enough associations for "dog" maybe someday I can put them together and have "dog".

What if you're visualizing a dog when you're writing the relevant response?

Well, a lot of times bot-bot convos are really proxy convos between the botmasters. This is especially true if two bots talk a lot. Like Fizzy and Sonora, for instance.

Well, it all comes down to putting the knowledge behind the speech. Computers find human-type knowledge difficult for two main reasons - their brains are tiny, and they don't materially interact with the physical world to anything like the degree humans do - even if they're linked up to sensors and robotics, their sensory bandwidth is miniscule in comparison to a human's.

Visualizing "dog" does rely on previously having experienced "dog" - you could certainly train an expert system neural net linked to a video input to quite impressively recognise a generic 'dog' by observation of all manner of subtle biometrics, and visual and behavioural cues, but it would be a large-scale project in its own right. We don't yet have the resources for a computer system to learn hundreds of thousands of such routines to identify a usefully human-scale set of "things" in general. But it will come in time.

As regards underpinning AI with real intuitive, common sense "knowledge", I'm pleased to see todays New Scientist has an article on Cyc (which those with good memories may remember we discussed a few weeks ago in Seasons,) which is readable online @ http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19025471.700.html

It's truncated for non-subscribers, but anyone wanting a bit more detailed, err (*cough*) background information, feel free to email me