Post by markkw on Apr 10, 2011 12:09:45 GMT -5
The question was posed on a professional blog site asking: “In the near future, will we see computers that have degrees of consciousness?” Many responses referenced the near-future advancement of computers to having AI (artificial intelligence), my response is as follows:
Harken back to the “space age”, take a look at the “houses of the future” and projections for robot house maids then look around at what you have now forty years later. Sure, we’ve gone to the point of having more computing power in a cell phone that what was once available in a room-filling mainframe yet how much else has changed at all let alone for the better? Every few years there’s a new OS for your PC but is it really progress? I can put auto-run flash encoding on my website allegedly to “enrich the viewer’s experience” yet their OS and browser are so loaded full of worthless junk those viewers are left trying to figure out what’s supposed to be in the empty space on the webpage because the auto-run flash is stuck in the digital mud generated by the OS & browser.
Just how smart are the smart cars anyway? I’ve got one that can’t turn on the highbeam headlamps without connecting a $225 switch to a $650 computer module – how can anyone consider that “progress” when a basic $5 switch is all that’s required to obtain the desired results? How can we call it progress when we turn from using a simple, cheap and reliable $25 voltage regulator to a $900+ engine module that becomes worthless when just one function stops working? How can we call it progress when after more than a century we’re still building highly inefficient reciprocating engines as the “standard” and loading them up with thousands of dollars in electronics that only result in a massive waste of money and efficiency? How can we call it progress when refrigerator built in 1952 is still operating correctly yet a modern electronic-filled one almost burns your house down after just three years?
Oh, this is such an interesting topic for me considering I grew up in the so-called “space age” listening to all the banter of how robots will be doing all our work and super-computers will be running the world. Thirty years ago the PC was just coming on the scene and when I wasn’t mucking out dairy barn stalls I was learning about hex and octal because we were told at the time, “The Vo-tech curriculum is being phased out because there isn’t going be a need for skilled labor in another 10-20 years.” Here we are thirty years later and business is suffering from the lack of skilled labor. Here we are, eighty-three years later and the headlamp switch in my neighbors 1928 Chevy Sedan is still working perfectly but his 2010 required 45 miles of towing, three days of labor and $3,200 in parts because an air temperature sensor caused a fault that resulted in frying a computer module yet for more than a century later glow plugs activated with a simple switch by a trained operator is still working perfectly and if it fails, complete system replacement takes just two hours and costs less than $300 in parts and labor. The National Electric Code mandates installing a 3-conductor 4-wire supply and connectors to an electric clothes drier yet the drier manufacturer completely compromises the entire electrical system with their internal connections which means the NEC mandates are utterly worthless and serve only to increase consumer costs by generating wasted time and materials.
Some of you are concerned with creating AI while the alleged “progress” of biological-base “intelligence” still remains quite questionable. Please don’t misunderstand or take my comments out of context, the point I am making is that while we have had tremendous and very impressive progress in computing hardware and software, there is no way it can become AI. Machines are machines, they can only do and learn what the builder/programmer is capable of letting them do or learn and the so-called “learning” is limited to that which can be determined by an equation. Thus, the most defining question is not “if”, “when” or “how” but rather the most basic “WHY”. “Why” is the ultimate question and we are no close to answering the question of “why” today as Adam was. I don’t care how much clutter one chooses to interject into the discussion, the sole determining factor remains as the three-letter question, “why”. Why would one think that building a machine that is capable of responding to external inputs can somehow mimic consciousness? Consciousness comes from the soul and is the sole determining factor in answering the question of why yet the question remains unanswered. I can sit here and ask “why one would choose to use thousands of dollars of electronics to replace thirty seconds of operator instruction” or “build a $120 electric clothes drier that destroys the electrical safety integrity of an entire house” and receive a multitude of answers addressing the issues resulting in such madness ... but if I were to ask, “Why are we conscious of consciousness?” how many would even attempt to answer the question without having to admit that the answer goes well beyond any definable equation. What sets man apart from machines is our ability to “think” beyond the level of a mathematical equation, no machine will ever be capable of such thought because it has no soul.
Just as I remain quite amused at what some allege to be “progress” in the machine world, I so too remain quite amused at how some think they can reduce “conscious thought” to a mere mathematical equation capable of being processed by a machine. If one were to buy into the misguided belief that a child is merely the product of childhood input, then one would also have to maintain that the child could never go beyond the sum total of the input it previously received. Thus, the question of “why” remains the sole determining factor because when one asks “why” all mathematical equations become irrelevant and therefor it is irrelevant to even consider the possibility that a mathematical machine can achieve any level of intelligence. What are modeling programs? Are they “intelligent”? Hardly! The output of any modeling program is mere the formation of possibilities based solely upon the allowable variables contained within the program, the program cannot go outside of itself to consider possibilities it has not been previously told about because possibilities are not limited to, nor can they be reduced to a mathematical equation.
Harken back to the “space age”, take a look at the “houses of the future” and projections for robot house maids then look around at what you have now forty years later. Sure, we’ve gone to the point of having more computing power in a cell phone that what was once available in a room-filling mainframe yet how much else has changed at all let alone for the better? Every few years there’s a new OS for your PC but is it really progress? I can put auto-run flash encoding on my website allegedly to “enrich the viewer’s experience” yet their OS and browser are so loaded full of worthless junk those viewers are left trying to figure out what’s supposed to be in the empty space on the webpage because the auto-run flash is stuck in the digital mud generated by the OS & browser.
Just how smart are the smart cars anyway? I’ve got one that can’t turn on the highbeam headlamps without connecting a $225 switch to a $650 computer module – how can anyone consider that “progress” when a basic $5 switch is all that’s required to obtain the desired results? How can we call it progress when we turn from using a simple, cheap and reliable $25 voltage regulator to a $900+ engine module that becomes worthless when just one function stops working? How can we call it progress when after more than a century we’re still building highly inefficient reciprocating engines as the “standard” and loading them up with thousands of dollars in electronics that only result in a massive waste of money and efficiency? How can we call it progress when refrigerator built in 1952 is still operating correctly yet a modern electronic-filled one almost burns your house down after just three years?
Oh, this is such an interesting topic for me considering I grew up in the so-called “space age” listening to all the banter of how robots will be doing all our work and super-computers will be running the world. Thirty years ago the PC was just coming on the scene and when I wasn’t mucking out dairy barn stalls I was learning about hex and octal because we were told at the time, “The Vo-tech curriculum is being phased out because there isn’t going be a need for skilled labor in another 10-20 years.” Here we are thirty years later and business is suffering from the lack of skilled labor. Here we are, eighty-three years later and the headlamp switch in my neighbors 1928 Chevy Sedan is still working perfectly but his 2010 required 45 miles of towing, three days of labor and $3,200 in parts because an air temperature sensor caused a fault that resulted in frying a computer module yet for more than a century later glow plugs activated with a simple switch by a trained operator is still working perfectly and if it fails, complete system replacement takes just two hours and costs less than $300 in parts and labor. The National Electric Code mandates installing a 3-conductor 4-wire supply and connectors to an electric clothes drier yet the drier manufacturer completely compromises the entire electrical system with their internal connections which means the NEC mandates are utterly worthless and serve only to increase consumer costs by generating wasted time and materials.
Some of you are concerned with creating AI while the alleged “progress” of biological-base “intelligence” still remains quite questionable. Please don’t misunderstand or take my comments out of context, the point I am making is that while we have had tremendous and very impressive progress in computing hardware and software, there is no way it can become AI. Machines are machines, they can only do and learn what the builder/programmer is capable of letting them do or learn and the so-called “learning” is limited to that which can be determined by an equation. Thus, the most defining question is not “if”, “when” or “how” but rather the most basic “WHY”. “Why” is the ultimate question and we are no close to answering the question of “why” today as Adam was. I don’t care how much clutter one chooses to interject into the discussion, the sole determining factor remains as the three-letter question, “why”. Why would one think that building a machine that is capable of responding to external inputs can somehow mimic consciousness? Consciousness comes from the soul and is the sole determining factor in answering the question of why yet the question remains unanswered. I can sit here and ask “why one would choose to use thousands of dollars of electronics to replace thirty seconds of operator instruction” or “build a $120 electric clothes drier that destroys the electrical safety integrity of an entire house” and receive a multitude of answers addressing the issues resulting in such madness ... but if I were to ask, “Why are we conscious of consciousness?” how many would even attempt to answer the question without having to admit that the answer goes well beyond any definable equation. What sets man apart from machines is our ability to “think” beyond the level of a mathematical equation, no machine will ever be capable of such thought because it has no soul.
Just as I remain quite amused at what some allege to be “progress” in the machine world, I so too remain quite amused at how some think they can reduce “conscious thought” to a mere mathematical equation capable of being processed by a machine. If one were to buy into the misguided belief that a child is merely the product of childhood input, then one would also have to maintain that the child could never go beyond the sum total of the input it previously received. Thus, the question of “why” remains the sole determining factor because when one asks “why” all mathematical equations become irrelevant and therefor it is irrelevant to even consider the possibility that a mathematical machine can achieve any level of intelligence. What are modeling programs? Are they “intelligent”? Hardly! The output of any modeling program is mere the formation of possibilities based solely upon the allowable variables contained within the program, the program cannot go outside of itself to consider possibilities it has not been previously told about because possibilities are not limited to, nor can they be reduced to a mathematical equation.
