 Chris Goh's "On the Net"
Why Artificial Intelligence Is A Fake
As a young lad I was captivated by space and anything electronic – not to mention a love of Star Trek, Astro Boy and Thunderbirds.
Steven Spielberg is about to release his new film Artificial Intelligence, generating more debate about whether mankind can deliver an evolutionary coup. I'm either saddened or bemused when I read about artificial intelligence because of the arrogance of scientists offers an insight into a dour likely outcome.
What is artificial intelligence at its highest level? It's the ability to make independent choices. But what if it conflicts with our perspective, is that a flaw? We expect (probably from science fiction movies) that artificial intelligence will replicate human rationale. But to me that contradicts all that's natural about intelligence.
The plan is to 'pre-program' it – in some ways like our own DNA – with ideas and concepts that are human. Probably the first intelligent thing an artificially intelligent being will do is disconnect itself when it realises there is no reason for its existence and that it's pre-conditioned knowledge is riddled with flaws.
Humanity has evolved over thousands of years into the indecisive, paradoxical and uncertain life form it is today. And except for a few mammals we're the only ones with a concept of self, ad the desire to create something that mirrors us.
Scientists have now developed computer models that will allow machines to ‘replicate/procreate' in a form of random evolution. In addition, there are programs that allow models of evolutionary pattern to be determined by a computer, based on simple rules.
The most anticipated leap into artificial intelligence has been the OmniPuter, which is backed by the legendary futurist and author Arthur C Clarke, now aged 85. His novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, predicted the use of satellites for global communication and offered the first fictional artificial intelligent computer – HAL. The OmniPuter's Operating System goes by the same name, which, if you know the movie, is not necessarily a good thing.
At the end of the year, the Arthur C Clarke Foundation is planning to launch a new operating system that will include both speech and Lip Sync recognition, as well as other major advances like encryption.
It's so eagerly anticipated that there are already back orders in Germany and the UK.
In a recent conversation with a friend (Hi Sara!), she argued that children today don't even blink at the evolving technology – it's expected, while older people are still grappling with the speed of change. She said major breakthroughs, like the mapping of the human genome are expected, because we're living in an era of possibilities.
But the ethical platform we stand on hasn't been able to keep up with this saturation of innovation.
Just as wealthy, well-fed western society can remain immune to the plight of African people dying of famine, we are becoming desensitised to our own technological innovations.
But this desensitisation cripples a community's ability to reflect on the purpose of our evolution revolution. Artificial intelligence for its own sake is not very smart.
Hotnews
A virus named SirCam has proliferated on the Net, primarily among Outlook users. Since its detection last Wednesday, it's gone on to quickly become the number one spreading virus. It's a worm that replicates itself on other machines and pretends to be an executable driver, that instead sends documents on your machines to random users in your address book.
McDonalds has opened its first McCyber restaurant (and I doubt there's been any drop in the nutritional benefit...) So now the fast food giant's suggestive selling lines, like ‘Do you want fries with that', are now adding ‘Would you like a Cyber Surf with your burger'. The venture begins in Israel, where the thick shakes are competing against the Internet and console games. If successful the pilot will spread globally. McDonalds has also struck a deal with MSN (Microsoft Network) and are selling software (made by guess who) as well.
But don't order salt with these chips.
With Sony, Olympus and Toshiba now offering 4 MegaPixel digital cameras, the technology has finally come of age. One late comer to the digital camera market, Minolta, is about to release a 5 MegaPix camera, and has already gained a strong reputation for developing quality cameras. When printed on quality paper, they'll have a picture quality comparable to conventional photographs. But be prepared to buy expensive cards to run these cameras, as the quality of the images will mean they'll need a lot of storage space.
At least one regular reader will be happy with this news, following his recent comments on my article on ADSL and how it suffered from a poor level of service. Telstra is being taken to court by a Sydney lawyer over alleged breaches in the ADSL contracts and it seems support is growing for a class action.
After a lot of research, my next article will be about what could have been had One.Tel succeeded, why ADSL is so poor here and other opportunities looming on the horizon.
Hotsites
www.reata.org/
This site has one flash animation in various languages that have captivated 26 million visitors so far, which shows a site doesn't have to be all that grand as long as there is a meaningful message. The animation is called an ‘Interview with God'. Those who are not religiously inclined may be put off by the title, but it's not meant to preach. Enjoy.
http://translation.lycos.com
Lycos has tried to compete with Altavista recently by offering improved search facilities, including a translation engine. Curiously when I compared the Altavista and Lycos translation machines they seem to have identical translations for words and phrases and they both made the same mistakes.
www.musiccity.com
This is the latest Mp3 craze. Music City is the home to a new P2P music/video download program called Morpheus, which has become increasingly popular in the last weeks. Its claim to fame is the ability to download a song from multiple sources at the one time, making it quicker.
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