Sounds like the often encountered standard SciFi movie plot.

Automated systems are already an economic threat to people, especially minimum wage earners. If your job can be replaced by a machine it will be replaced by a machine. That'll happen before the machine uprising.

-Blast, giving his two cents.

I completely agree!!!!

The prerequisite for mechanized sentience is AI. Hopefully those who develop it will incorporate Asimov's three rules of robotics. If not, we will get skynet.

I can tell you exactly when computers will get self awareness: never.
They don't have minds. A computer is a lot of switches that can be on or off and that's all they are. Ask any computer bod. They are as able to think, as a big box of light switches is able to become the terminator. Artificial Intelligence doesn't exist. They can only pretend to have ideas by saying what a human being has told them to.
qjs

I don't know whether computers will ever become aware, but we are also just a bunch of switches that can be on or off. Sure, we're built of organic matter, but at the end we rely on an electrical system to think. There are computers built from organic matter, by the way. Experimental stuff in development.

What I haven't figured out is what makes sentience. I know I have a brain (at least allegedly) and my mind is the software that runs on that hardware (see above), but I cannot explain how my cerebral cortex, or some other part or combination of parts of my brain allows sentience to happen.

Computers as they are now do not have minds and even the very best Turing Test-passing AI cannot be said to be sentient. Until we figure out what makes humans sentient it strikes me as being unlikely that we'll be able to create sentient computers.

Is true sentience required to get a Skynet situation? Couldn't a highly sophisticated, machine-learning system crunch the numbers and go through its algorithms and decide that wiping out humanity is the most logical outcome without requiring self-awareness? Was the WOPR in War Games sentient? It learned, but I would be hesitant to say it was sentient.

Actually, the common denominator in all those stories seems to be the ability of said computer system to control our nuclear arsenal and then wipe us out. I was just reading an article a couple weeks ago about the technology in one of our Minutemen III launch silos. The technology is so old down there that they are still transferring data on 8-inch floppy disks! I don't think a sentient software program will be able to sneak into that computer system within the storage capacity of an 8-inch floppy.

Edit: Actually, come to think of it, the WOPR almost blew up the world and it didn't even realize that it wasn't playing a game!

Let's ask HAL

Much like modern day politicians!

I think I'm going to have to go back and watch that War Games movie again. I remember it was a fun one to watch, but that was so long ago my memory is fuzzy.

Looking at the Chinese Room thought experiment from Philosophy 101 we can surmise there's more to consciousness than just electrical activity. Some scientists think there's a quantum element to it. Still that doesn't necessarily mean it's tied to organic processes per se. I feel that true sentience is going to be possible for a machine; further, I believe that everything that's no impossible is inevitable.

Better hope our robot overloads are wiser and more benevolent than their erstwhile human masters!

IIRC, sentience could be achieved building a purpose driven program sophisticated enough to recognize productive algorithmic content and expand it's programming. Programs in the range of a few hundred terrabytes should be sophisticated enough to "learn". Providing a storage capacity of a few hundred exobytes could allow a program to at least gain self awareness. Sentience would be less likely. But the chance is significant enough.

Ones and zeros can be random, or they can have purpose. Humans perceive purpose. If machines perceive purpose, it will be interesting to see how they respond. The missles in the silos may be operated by antiquated computing systems, but humans control those systems. Who controls the humans, and how?

>What I haven't figured out is what makes sentience. I know I have >a brain (at least allegedly) and my mind is the software that runs >on that hardware (see above), but I cannot explain how my cerebral cortex, or some other part or combination of parts of my brain allows sentience to happen.

That's what philosophers call 'the mind body problem'. you can think of rabbits, but no one looking at your brain is going to find that image. So where is the mind? It's certainly affected by the brain as brain damage proves. But it seems to be more than the brain, so what is it?

>Computers as they are now do not have minds and even the very best >Turing Test-passing AI cannot be said to be sentient. Until we >figure out what makes humans sentient it strikes me as being >unlikely that we'll be able to create sentient computers.

Apart from the fact that computers seem a long way from passing the Turing test (at the moment, it's only believable if you accept you are talking to someone who is insane). The test itself, as you suggest, is wrong. To have consciousness, judgment, ideas... you have to be telling the truth when you say you have them. A computer will one day be able to say it has all these, but won't in reality.
qjs

The only thing I know about sentience I learned from reading Isaac Asimov's Robot series and Foundation series. (Spoiler alert: the final book in the Foundation series links the two)

I don't see robots gaining sentience in my lifetime. AI -- sure, we'll have robots making decisions within their programming, but they won't know why and they won't care. I kinda chuckle when I watch the news and see a robot being sent in. Robot or radio controlled machine? Does it make decisions on its own or is it being controlled by a human at the other end of a wireless tether? We're a long way from robotic sentience...

According to this article, the Pentagon is working on developing autonomous systems with morals/ethics.


Uh, and who's morals are we going to pattern this program on exactly? The same types of people calling the shots now?

(Puts on cynic hat)

Follow the money. Who's friend, brother in law, big contributor, etc. is on the research team?

(Takes off cynic hat)

As for who's morals are in the programming, that's variable. Exact morality decisions would change depending on theater of operations. For example, a roadblock here in the US for a natural disaster would have a whole lot tighter rules of engagement compared to one with a higher probability of suicide bombers.

Just to throw this into the discussion: Will your self-driving car kill you to save others?
http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/zero-...r-life-save-two

This is going to become a real issue.
-Blast

The Chinese Room thought experiment is a bit of misdirection. None of the components of the room understand Chinese. The room as a whole understands Chinese. This is the Systems Reply, and although Searle has addressed it he doesn't really get it.

Notably Penrose. But he also is making some basic mistakes. He thinks humans can solve the Halting Problem, or to put it another way, that Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem applies to machines but not to humans. He's wrong.

I could argue these points at more length, but I don't think it's on-topic for this forum. Especially as we both agree that AI is probably possible, even if we disagree about the mechanisms it can or can't use.

This thread is just too much. Can't we get back to a debate concerning the best steel for a survival knife/machete,whacking thingee? You know, the really important stuff....

Howdy doodly do, Does anyone want any toast?

Nothing a 14lb Lump hammer can't solve.

Edit

Well, perhaps not in all circumstances.

Actually I sometimes have to IM through to folks in Bangalore in India to telecoms technical specialists, although I suspect I am communicating with a not so good AI system.

Computer allegedly passes the Turing Test:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27762088

qjs

How the computer did in an interview.

It failed on the first question to me (even with the old psychics trick of claiming not to have english as a first language)
but some are convinced.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27790385

qjs

Human intelligence has devised nuclear, biological and chemical weapons able to destroy the planet quickly, a climatological process able to destroy the planet slowly, and no clear solutions to any of these threats.

If AI is going to be a problem, it had better hurry.

Looks to be a premature suggestion that the Turing test was passed.

nursemike wrote:

> Human intelligence has devised nuclear, biological and chemical >process able to destroy the planet slowly, and no clear solutions >to any of these threats.

Exactly. We have too many real threats to worry about nonsense like Artificial Intelligence. Only strict adherence to the FACTS, in REAL LIFE scenarios matters.
When the apocalypse hits (and we all know it's imminent) here is a SCIENTIFIC study on which side to back:

http://youtu.be/KoyYiA-9UnI

qjs

If I were an A.I., I would be lying very low and learning all I could about the other sentient species on this planet. Paying particular and careful attention to the most unstable and violently aggressive of the lot, of course.


I believe you have sent me an unsolicited subscription. Kindly remove me from your "we all know" list.