What I cannot create, I do not understand

This excellent blog post draws parallels between Feynman's observations regarding the Challenger disaster and current trends in Software Engineering. Makes for a rather interesting read and is worth checking out. In particular, I appreciated the bit about unit testing and 'step by step' increases -- things I believe good programmers should constantly strive for in single-author programs... but which may become increasingly difficult/expensive in larger endeavors.

(via Slashdot)

We’re not lost, we just need a map...

MIT’s Technology Review has an article written by a Yale Computer Science Professor who is awfully pessimistic about the possibility of creating a conscious artificial intelligence. It seems to me, however, that his arguments against conscious AI are grounded in our inability to achieve success in the past 50 years and classical notions of subjective experience. But if the Wright Brothers had been deterred by previous failures they would have never built their flying machine, and if Magellan were bound to ancient concepts of a flat earth he would have never circumnavigated the globe.

Professor Gelernter frames the discussion around the differences between what he describes as "a ‘simulated conscious mind’ versus a ‘simulated unconscious intelligence’" and the mysterious "stuff" that makes us human. The professor has a special distaste for "conscious" AIs. He makes unsupported assertions that consciousness cannot be reproduced in software, simply because he believes this to be so. These arguments remind me of those of John Searle and others who contend that conscious AI is impossible because it is utterly inconceivable italic to them italic. The language of these philosophical arguments is often heavily-weighted with emotional triggers and sentimental definitions, rather than the cold, empirical judgment of hard science. Yet we can use the same philosophy to defend our science. I demonstrated the fallacy of many of these arguments (or at least attempted to do so) in my undergraduate honors thesis, "In Defense of Artificial Intelligence." Indeed, Gelernter points to Searle’s famous "Chinese Room" rebuttal to the Turing Test, which is addressed at length in my aforementioned thesis.

He also lumps emotions together with consciousness, and claims that since a machine cannot have emotions or a ‘sense of beauty,’ it therefore cannot have an ‘inner mental life’ or consciousness. Despite the fact that it has not been determined that emotions cannot be duplicated with software, it is not difficult whatsoever to envision a fully-conscious artificial intelligence completely devoid of emotional sensation. Indeed, sci-fi writers have had much success creating believable stories of conscious robots with no emotions at all. Although many AI researchers hope to recreate human intelligence, it is not the only conceivable model for intelligence. We may one day encounter a form of extraterrestrial intelligence completely unlike our own, but if it acts conscious, we will describe it as such.

The author ties the possibility of conscious AI to the performance of digital computers. He claims that consciousness is one of the many incomputable problems of the universe. This may be the case, but our present definition of computability may be as incomplete as our knowledge of that universe. Perhaps in the future we will build non-digital computers that are not bound by these limitations. This is another example of using current shortcomings to predict future failures.

Furthermore, how could an objective observer discern the difference between a ‘simulated conscious mind’ and a ‘simulated unconscious intelligence’? If consciousness is subjective, and one has no method of observing the subjective experience of another entity, then it is impossible to determine whether or not a given individual possesses a subjective conscious experience. The only method of observation available would be based on behavior, and if the behavior of a given system is indistinguishable from that of a conscious entity, then we have no other logical option but to ascribe consciousness to that system. We cannot know with certainty whether our fellow human beings possess the same type of consciousness we experience, but since we can observe that their behaviors are consistent with how we believe a conscious being would act, we do not hesitate to assign the attribute of consciousness. AI should be judged by the same standard.

The reason we’ve failed at using our biological brains as the model for AI development is precisely because we have very little understand of how our minds actually work. If you don’t know how something operates, its awfully difficult to recreate it. This does not, as Professor Gelernter suggests, imply an insurmountable technological hurdle, but merely a contemporary inability to implement our ideas. History is filled with examples of insufficient knowledge causing temporary roadblocks to progress, which are later overcome via persistent, hard work and breakthroughs.

Again, past failures are not good predictors of future results and traditional wisdom is often wrong.

World's First Robotic Murderer?

It's the same old story: idiot accidentally kills himself with robot, media blames 'unsafe killer robots,' we all laugh at 'Skynet became self-aware' jokes. Expect to see more of these in the future... blaming artificial intelligence for human stupidity.

Hubris Spells Doom for Grandmaster

Sophisticated AI chess programs are continuing to beat the world’s greatest human players, and the humiliated Grandmasters are continuing to gripe & complain. First, Deep Blue defeated world champion Gary Kasparov in 1997, and just five months ago the current champ was beaten in a one-move checkmate by a new AI program.

"I rechecked this variation many times and analyzed quite far ahead," Kramnik protested. "It seemed to me I was winning."

Indeed. Chess had been long regarded as a game requiring much creativity & ingenuity to excel, something that machines would never dominate. But as Deep Blue and others have shown us, our unabashed confidence was no match for the brute force mapping of all possible outcomes. Eventually, human players adapted their game play to try to throw off the computer programs, but the AI have adapted as well, going so far as to invention previously unknown variations, to maintain their chess supremacy.

How long until other domains previously described as bastions of creativity & consciousness give way to algorithms & AI? Many have spoken about the “God of the Gaps” concept, but what about a Consciousness of the Gaps?

AI as a Moral Agent

The Ottawa Citizen takes a closer look at the ideology behind South Korea's initiative to draw up ethical guidelines to govern intelligent machines (as previously covered here). The article predictably examines the influence of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, but also dismisses the "hype" surrounding the proposals as much ado about nothing. The author correctly points out the weaknesses in the Three Laws, as relating to military and sentry applications of robotics. However, despite describing himself as an optimistic Luddite, he betrays an anthropocentric egoism that human intelligence will never be surpassed, therefore, these proposed guidelines will ultimately serve no purpose.

Emotion a Prerequisite for Thought?

A group of scholars gathering at Harvard to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the “cognitive revolution,” are promoting the idea that understanding human emotion is absolutely essential to understanding human thought. The scholars go on to argue that the reason all attempts to recreate human thought in AI have failed up to this point is because AI researchers have ignored the role played by emotion in intelligence. While it is true that emotion is central to human thought, it’s awfully anthropocentric to claim the human model as the only path to intelligence.

Although minds and computers may not be completely analogous, to say that emotion is this missing link to artificial general intelligence seems rather naïve and simplistic. There is much work to be done before we can even come close to developing strong AI, and it is quite easy to imagine thinking machines completely devoid of emotion. Intentionality may perhaps be integral to any intelligent system, and emotion may be deeply-seated in human intentionality, but any number of goal-oriented schemes could be devised to replace emotion as the driving force behind an intelligent machine.

When Will It End?

Yet another article has appeared in a British newspaper forecasting the dire consequences of AI as a result of a recent public debate at the London Science Media Centre. The Daily Mail chimes in again, repeating most of what's previously been covered, with concerns that robotic caregivers could "dehumanise" patients, and citing an uneasy relationship with technology.

One ray of coherent thought shined through, however, as it was revealed that the original intent of the debate was for scientists to dispute the "silly report" on robot rights released by the UK Department of Trade and Industry. Unfortunately, all of the media outlets covering the debate chose instead to focus on vague worries of out-of-control robots running amuck. Gotta sell papers I suppose...

Here's a gem from this latest article:

I certainly wouldn't want to be a British squaddie on the sands of Iraq with robot-controlled American gunships patrolling overhead.

Umm...too late?

Let the machines target machines - not people?

Not to be outdone by her allies, the US military has decided to draft some proposals regarding the proper use of robots and other autonomous systems in combat. The basic idea of the guidelines suggested by the Naval Surface Warfare Center is that machines should be allowed to freely engage other unmanned systems and weapons, but must require human interaction for permission to fire on enemy personnel manned systems. The researchers point to precedence of this concept in the automatic engaging protocols of the Patriot Missile Battery, Aegis Auto Special "hands-off" mode, and the Phalanx ship defense system.

An interesting suggestion, but it puts an awful lot of reliance on the autonomous systems' abilities to discriminate and positively identify the enemy, leaving allies unharmed. Many video game developers can't even get simple collision detection working. So while this may be an easier pill to swallow for those who criticize the "de-humanization" of warfare (giving lethal decision authority to a machine), those folks will be the loudest to complain as soon as the first error leads to a friendly fire incident. And, of course, all bets are off as soon as we face a symmetric adversary who's systems are not bound by these same guidelines. Overly-restrictive rules of engagement created by lawyers and politicians in the "ivory tower" can be quite the disadvantage for soldiers at the front lines in a shooting war.

(via Slashdot)

Darwinian Survival Machines or Anatman?

USNews.com has a lengthy article exploring the soul’s role in human consciousness which has some interesting implications for machine consciousness as well.

The article spans a variety of subjects from psychology to philosophy, and the most interesting passage is in the midst of a discussion about the neurophysical processes behind consciousness and language with philosopher Daniel Dennett:

"This is what I've meant over the years when I've said that the brain is a syntactic engine mimicking a semantic engine." By that, Dennett presumably means that consciousness produces orderly, grammatical representations of something out there in the world that is meaningful, but it does not create meaning. It is not necessary to meaning.

This argument rejects the notion that a Turing machine is not actually conscious since it merely mimics the understanding of language by suggesting that this mechanical procedure is the only system at work within the human mind. By reducing the physical processes in the brain down to their fundamental components, we see that they are no more remarkable than the internal workings of a digital computer. Critics of AI argue that machines & algorithms cannot be conscious since we can observe precisely how they reproduce human behavior. Perhaps once human behavior itself is de-mystified to the point where our consciousness is understood completely, these people will be willing to apply the label of conscious thought more broadly.

via KurzweilAI.net