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Ethical trap: robot paralyzed by choice of who to save

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dream_weaver

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All true, as long as you allow for the possibility of artificial life forms who fit that description.

True again, as long as you mean this specific robot, not all potential forms of artificial intelligence.

Again, you're using stolen concepts.  If something is alive, it is not artificial.  intelligience is a function of consciousness, not of non living things.

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To my layman mind, Hawkins references what the neurons of the brain, the layers in the brain and then what he is trying to do with the software and hardware - the similarities are striking to me.

Hawkins is modeling how he perceives information to be stored in the cortex (a specific region of the brain) by introducing the variable of time and a hierarchical distribution of quantized data .  The brain is comprised of many different, and substantially autonomous, systems which are primarily controlled by the brainstem at a sub-attentive level (until something needs attending too such as: thirst, hunger, stubbed toe, over-heating, pH or salinity imbalance, low blood sugar, seeing a hot chick, etc.).  He is not trying to model the entire brain.

 

Add Edit:

Where I state "hierarchical distribution of quantized data" this can be best understood by an Objectivist as he is trying to create software that can distinguish between genus and species, i.e. streaming data that resembles a schnauzer and data that resembles a retriever can be lumped together as "dogs" without "programming" per se but rather by the form of the incoming data itself and how/where it is stored.

Edited by New Buddha
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Hawkins is modeling how he perceives information to be stored in the cortex (a specific region of the brain) by introducing the variable of time and a hierarchical distribution of quantized data .  <snip>  He is not trying to model the entire brain.

One has to start somewhere. :)

 

Hawkins has been referenced on OO many times. I am rather fond of the analogies between his work and concept formation.

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Again, you're using stolen concepts.  If something is alive, it is not artificial.  intelligience is a function of consciousness, not of non living things.

What does being alive have to do with being not artificial? Intelligence without consciousness is a stolen concept, but living without being natural is not.

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Please define "life" in its biological sense.

At it's most basic, it is a single cell organism that has enough information about it's environment, and acts works to acquire energy from a source exterior to itself, and has information about how to put that energy to work to achieve homeostasis with the end goal of reproduction.

 

And likes watching football.

Edited by New Buddha
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At it's most basic, it is a single cell organism that has enough information about it's environment, and acts works to acquire energy from a source exterior to itself, and has information about how to put that energy to work to achieve homeostasis with the end goal of reproduction.

 

Single-celled organisms know information?

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Single-celled organisms know information?

DNA, Genes.  On several posts I've tried to communicate to you that INFORMATION EXISTS - I'm not just being metaphorical.  It can be measured, quantified, amplified, transduced  sent and received.  It exists every bit as much as a bricks, trees, dogs, 247 pennies, etc. exist.

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Please define "life" in its biological sense.

I'm discussing the concept in an epistemological sense, not a biological sense.  The issue is one of the hierarchy of concepts.  "Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action."  "Only a living entity can have goals or can originate them. And it is only a living organism that has the capacity for self-generated, goal-directed action."

 

As conciousness is an attribute of living organisms, intelligence is an attribute of consciousness. 

Edited by A is A
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Again, you're using stolen concepts.  If something is alive, it is not artificial.  intelligience is a function of consciousness, not of non living things.

Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. I fail to see how that's inconsistent with it being artificial. I used the concept just fine.

But, even if there is an inconsistency, you make no attempt at showing that it exists.

We're debating whether life can be artificial, and your big argument in favor of your position is that using the phrase "artificial life" is a stolen concept because if something is alive, it's not artificial.

Edited by Nicky
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DNA, Genes.  On several posts I've tried to communicate to you that INFORMATION EXISTS - I'm not just being metaphorical.  It can be measured, quantified, amplified, transduced  sent and received.  It exists every bit as much as a bricks, trees, dogs, 247 pennies, etc. exist.

What difference does it make? Are you now arguing that humans will never be able to reproduce the defining functions of ANY life forms in robots?

We can probably do that now. We could build robots that act and function the same way simple life forms do. How hard could it be to build an artificial sponge, really?

Edited by Nicky
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Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. I fail to see how that's inconsistent with it being artificial. I used the concept just fine.

But, even if there is an inconsistency, you make no attempt at showing that it exists.

We're debating whether life can be artificial, and your big argument in favor of your position is that using the phrase "artificial life" is a stolen concept because if something is alive, it's not artificial.

I'm sorry for using words with precise meaning.  You may resume your metaphorical discussion without me.

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"Information" refers to knowledge and "knowledge" exists only in our minds (or some conscious mind, somewhere).  There are measurable things that exist, and there are things which we can inform ourselves of, but to say that "information exists" in any literal sense could only refer to knowledge without a knower.

 

"Life" has multiple layers of meaning, which are being used interchangeably without the slightest attention.

 

"Living" as in moving around, eating, reproducing; life as a process of self-generated action does not apply to most of the things that biologists study.  Roombas, on the other hand, do demonstrate self-generated action without a single biological function (and without the slightest bit of awareness, either), and it's inescapably obvious that their existence is not metaphysically given; they do not grow on trees.

 

I ask for a definition of biological life, by the way, as a rhetorical point; all of the best and brightest minds in that field have yet to do so, which should give you a few moments' pause before you begin to syllogize with it.

 

"Information exists" is a reification.  To deny that artificial entities can engage in "life" in its philosophical sense is both arbitrary and in directly demonstrable contradiction to reality.

 

You're wrong and I'm tired of being polite about it.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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"Information" refers to knowledge and "knowledge" exists only in our minds (or some conscious mind, somewhere).  There are measurable things that exist, and there are things which we can inform ourselves of, but to say that "information exists" in any literal sense could only refer to knowledge without a knower.

 

<snip>

 

"Information exists" is a reification.  To deny that artificial entities can engage in "life" in its philosophical sense is both arbitrary and in directly demonstrable contradiction to reality.

 

You're wrong and I'm tired of being polite about it.

From Merriam-Webster

Information:

1 . . .

2a  . . .

 b :  the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects.

 

'Communicated,' in this definition, comes across to me as a synonym or metaphor of a causal relationship.

 

In general, I try to avoid using these terms in this context.

 

"Life" has multiple layers of meaning, which are being used interchangeably without the slightest attention.

 

"Living" as in moving around, eating, reproducing; life as a process of self-generated action does not apply to most of the things that biologists study.  Roombas, on the other hand, do demonstrate self-generated action without a single biological function (and without the slightest bit of awareness, either), and it's inescapably obvious that their existence is not metaphysically given; they do not grow on trees.

 

I ask for a definition of biological life, by the way, as a rhetorical point; all of the best and brightest minds in that field have yet to do so, which should give you a few moments' pause before you begin to syllogize with it.

Restating my earlier post, if and when man discovers how to rearrange inanimate matter into a living, moving around, eating, reproducing entity - would it be man-made, or metaphysically given?

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Restating my earlier post, if and when man discovers how to rearrange inanimate matter into a living, moving around, eating, reproducing entity - would it be man-made, or metaphysically given?

 

Manmade.

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"Information" refers to knowledge and "knowledge" exists only in our minds (or some conscious mind, somewhere).

 

If a physicist handed you a book that he wrote, full of very advanced mathematics, would you understand it?  If the physicist handed the same book to a fellow physicist, would he understand it?

 

Information and knowledge are not the same thing.

 

Information Theory is real.  That you don't know about it is irrelevant.  The fact that you may not even be capable of understanding it is irrelevant.  It's a billion dollar industry and is responsible for, not only the computer and internet that you are using, but most of the major advances that we've made in the last 70 years.  It's governed by the same laws of Thermodynamics.

 

Many in the 1950's anticipated that the future would be the Atomic Age with unlimited access to cheap power.

 

What happened is that we developed the Information Age, with a virtual unlimited access to information.

 

Edit:  The reason I approached this dialog incrementally is because it's evident that you don't have an engineering background and I was trying to explain it in steps.  If you feel this is a waste of time, so be it. 

Edited by New Buddha
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@ Harrison,

 

Just in case your curious, Information Theory (and the computer you are using) arose from a study of Cryptography.  It's not a coincidence that many of the mathematicians employed by the Government in WW II, to develop cryptic codes, were also instrumental in the development of binary computers (i.,e. what you are using).

 

What I've been interested in, the last couple of months, is what Objectivist Epistemology might contribute to Information Theory.

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What I've been interested in, the last couple of months, is what Objectivist Epistemology might contribute to Information Theory.

I am actually relatively familiar with information theory; at least enough to recognize the validity of its basis (which is sound).  Neither do I consider it irrelevant to these matters.  As a matter of fact, as the foundation of the quantification of knowledge itself, I think that Information Theory will ultimately provide us with the means of building any true AI.

 

But the fact remains that "knowledge" requires a knower.

 

If you were using "information" to mean something else entirely then I would withdraw my objection, except to say that I find such terminology misleading (specifically for the aforementioned reason).  If you mean things in reality which can be quantified then "pattern" would be clearer and more precise.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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  • 2 years later...

This reminds me of the scene in the movie I, Robot where Will Smith's character encounters a car accident and a robot comes to rescue him. Throughout the movie they show you bits of the whole scene until showing it completely. Once the scene was shown the audience would see that he said to save her. Now, I don't recall whether he meant his couple or if he meant the female driver in the other car. With this being said, the robot saves him instead of following his instructions and saving the other human. Now, reading this is interesting because at first the robot has no problem of saving the human (proxy), but when another human is introduced the robot fails to decide which to save or if to save both. Basically another problem would be that if robots were advanced as in the movie I, Robot, would they follow the instructions given to them of saving the other person or would they save the person giving the instructions instead? This is a mere question to the thousands of question we have regarding robots and artificial intelligence, but there's one thing we have to understand, even when we think we are prepared to make robots act like humans, with emotions, with actions like humans , with thoughts, etc, we are not. We never know what would happen in the beginning and with all these movies, games and series, presenting a fictitious world where robots are fully capable is just funny to me because in the real world it's going to be very different.

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