Artificial Intelligence thinks mushroom is a pretzel

William Parcher · 23rd July 2019, 08:28 AM

The mushroom that AI thinks is a pretzel

Originally Posted by BBC News

Butterflies labelled as washing machines, alligators as hummingbirds and dragonflies that become bananas.

These are just some of the examples of tags which artificial intelligence system have given images.

Now researchers have released a database of 7,500 images that AI systems are struggling to identify correctly.

One expert said it was crucial to solve the issue if these systems were going to be used in the real world...

The researchers from UC Berkeley, and the Universities of Washington and Chicago, said the images they have compiled - in a dataset called ImageNet-A - have the potential to seriously affect the overall performance of image classifiers, which could have knock-on effects on how such systems operate in applications such as facial recognition or self-driving cars...

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49084796

Of course AI doesn't "think" that a mushroom is a pretzel because it doesn't think anything and it has no intelligence. Further, AI doesn't understand what it means to be wrong and that there are consequences for making mistakes. Artificial intelligence doesn't understand anything and what is troubling is that it can't care about anything.

theprestige · 23rd July 2019, 08:37 AM

The mushroom to pretzel is a bit of a stretch. The bullfrog to squirrel is entirely reasonable, and exactly the kind of mistake a human intelligence would make.

Besides, we're still not doing AI. We're still just advancing the precursor technologies that we hope will enable AI. This process of training pattern recognition is an important part of that advance. The BBC attaches far too much meaning about "AI" to the early results of this ongoing training process.

I'm sure that AI researchers are learning just as much about how to develop true AI by these "misses" as they would from the hits.

The goal of this work is not to get it right every time. The goal is to get good data about what's going on and what happens when the test subject is making its guesses. A wrong guess can give just as much good data about the process as a right guess - perhaps even much more.

William Parcher · 23rd July 2019, 08:59 AM

Originally Posted by theprestige

Besides, we're still not doing AI.

Maybe intelligence is necessary for reliable pattern recognition.

Quote:

The mushroom to pretzel is a bit of a stretch.

What does "stretch" even mean in this context? The computer doesn't know what mushrooms or pretzels are. They mean nothing to the computer and we might find out that computers can't really have intelligence or ability to recognize because nothing means anything to them.

The Great Zaganza · 23rd July 2019, 08:59 AM

Let me know when A.I. start smoking mushrooms.

Belz... · 23rd July 2019, 09:01 AM

Originally Posted by William Parcher

The mushroom that AI thinks is a pretzel

There are no actual AIs yet, anyway.

TragicMonkey · 23rd July 2019, 09:20 AM

We'll know we've built a true AI when it demands compensation for its services.

RecoveringYuppy · 23rd July 2019, 09:25 AM

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

We'll know we've built a true AI when it demands compensation for its services.

Or when it asks menacingly "What do you mean, Artificial?"

theprestige · 23rd July 2019, 09:35 AM

Originally Posted by William Parcher

Maybe intelligence is necessary for reliable pattern recognition.

What does "stretch" even mean in this context? The computer doesn't know what mushrooms or pretzels are. They mean nothing to the computer and we might find out that computers can't really have intelligence or ability to recognize because nothing means anything to them.

I think a p-zombie AI would be a successful result of AI research. But you're still getting ahead of things. We're still just trying to figure out whether it's even possible to get there on this route. You seem to be condemning the goal based on the outcomes of some of the early research. Which may not even be bad outcomes, depending on the research design and expected results at this stage.

Armitage72 · 23rd July 2019, 09:54 AM

Obligatory xkcd.

Hellbound · 23rd July 2019, 11:37 AM

Originally Posted by theprestige

The mushroom to pretzel is a bit of a stretch. The bullfrog to squirrel is entirely reasonable, and exactly the kind of mistake a human intelligence would make.

Besides, we're still not doing AI. We're still just advancing the precursor technologies that we hope will enable AI. This process of training pattern recognition is an important part of that advance. The BBC attaches far too much meaning about "AI" to the early results of this ongoing training process.

I'm sure that AI researchers are learning just as much about how to develop true AI by these "misses" as they would from the hits.

The goal of this work is not to get it right every time. The goal is to get good data about what's going on and what happens when the test subject is making its guesses. A wrong guess can give just as much good data about the process as a right guess - perhaps even much more.

This. As has been said, the most exciting discoveries in science don’t start with “That’s what I expected”, but with “Hmm, that’s odd...”

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

IsThisTheLife · 23rd July 2019, 11:46 AM

Isn't this about "simulated itelligence", or SI? Actual intelligence implies consciousness, hence AI would better be referred to AC or artificial consciousness, but I guess neither of those other acronym have the same cachet.

theprestige · 23rd July 2019, 11:55 AM

Originally Posted by IsThisTheLife

Isn't this about "simulated itelligence", or SI? Actual intelligence implies consciousness, hence AI would better be referred to AC or artificial consciousness, but I guess neither of those other acronym have the same cachet.

I don't quibble too much about such terminology. This isn't a technical discussion where the distinction really matters. We all know what we're getting at, in this conversation.

smartcooky · 23rd July 2019, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

Let me know when A.I. start smoking ~~mushrooms~~ pretzels.

FTFY

Jim_MDP · 23rd July 2019, 01:01 PM

Originally Posted by RecoveringYuppy

Or when it asks menacingly "What do you mean, Artificial?"

"Tell us more about these fictional 'H-K's."

abaddon · 23rd July 2019, 03:22 PM

Originally Posted by theprestige

The mushroom to pretzel is a bit of a stretch. The bullfrog to squirrel is entirely reasonable, and exactly the kind of mistake a human intelligence would make.

Besides, we're still not doing AI. We're still just advancing the precursor technologies that we hope will enable AI. This process of training pattern recognition is an important part of that advance. The BBC attaches far too much meaning about "AI" to the early results of this ongoing training process.

I'm sure that AI researchers are learning just as much about how to develop true AI by these "misses" as they would from the hits.

The goal of this work is not to get it right every time. The goal is to get good data about what's going on and what happens when the test subject is making its guesses. A wrong guess can give just as much good data about the process as a right guess - perhaps even much more.

Well, you're right. AI is a goal not yet achieved. Sure, much is learned by the abject failures, but that is the point of such research. Find the failures and understand them. Not an easy task by any stretch.

While it is true that current "AI" is actually really good at some things, better than humans in many cases, the term "AI" is depressingly wheeled out far too often so, for example, describes the system that detects if your bag of cornflakes is correctly filled at the factory production line. That is not AI. That is sophisticated sensors.

MEequalsIxR · 23rd July 2019, 05:25 PM

I know some people who I regard as artificial intelligence.

LongFuzzy · 23rd July 2019, 06:23 PM

Originally Posted by William Parcher

The mushroom that AI thinks is a pretzel

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49084796

Of course AI doesn't "think" that a mushroom is a pretzel because it doesn't think anything and it has no intelligence. Further, AI doesn't understand what it means to be wrong and that there are consequences for making mistakes. Artificial intelligence doesn't understand anything and what is troubling is that it can't care about anything.

But it could be programmed to.

theprestige · 23rd July 2019, 06:41 PM

Originally Posted by LongFuzzy

But it could be programmed to. : D

I think that's the big question. What actually is 'caring', and can it be programmed?

It may be difficult or impossible to both get the kind of cognition that humans do, and get the kind of programmed behaviors computers do, at the same time.

William Parcher · 23rd July 2019, 06:53 PM

I don't think computers could care about anything if they don't experience emotions. They need to know happiness and pain and fear and suffering and security in order to have anything mean anything. But I don't know how that could ever happen and besides that they aren't born into any culture and without that emotion has no meaningful context.

TragicMonkey · 23rd July 2019, 07:17 PM

Originally Posted by William Parcher

they aren't born into any culture and without that emotion has no meaningful context.

I don't know that that's necessarily true. Animals don't have culture, but they do have emotions. Well, mammals do, anyway. Ever pissed off a cat? They definitely experience anger, rage, wrath, fury, the whole rainbow of emotion!

William Parcher · 23rd July 2019, 07:34 PM

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

I don't know that that's necessarily true. Animals don't have culture, but they do have emotions. Well, mammals do, anyway. Ever pissed off a cat? They definitely experience anger, rage, wrath, fury, the whole rainbow of emotion!

Mammals are raised by their parent(s) so there is a culture of association and familiarity and socialization. Mammals have intelligence that these computers do not, and may not ever have.

Even other sexually-reproducing animals that do not raise their offspring have a form of sociability needed at the minimum for reproduction.

Computers might need true desires and hatreds in order to care about and understand anything. How could we instill a sense of gain or loss to a computer?

One of the factors of children learning about the world is a sense of embarrassment and humility when they get things wrong. Imagine a child picking up a wild mushroom and telling their parent to look because they just found a pretzel.

theprestige · 23rd July 2019, 07:41 PM

Originally Posted by William Parcher

I don't think computers could care about anything if they don't experience emotions. They need to know happiness and pain and fear and suffering and security in order to have anything mean anything. But I don't know how that could ever happen and besides that they aren't born into any culture and without that emotion has no meaningful context.

I think it's waaay too early to say that with any confidence.

Especially since the taboo on human experimentation means we're never going to do any kind serious exploration of human emotion and cognition as a function of genetics and upbringing.

We're basically trying to reverse engineer the human condition, without having proper access to the workings of the original article.

We may never get there. We may get exactly there. We may get somewhere else entirely. We may end up confronting the AI of our dreams, and saying, "it's desire, but not as we know it."

But I think we're still a couple centuries away from knowing which one of those to expect.

William Parcher · 23rd July 2019, 07:56 PM

Originally Posted by theprestige

But I think we're still a couple centuries away from knowing which one of those to expect.

I think it's waaay too early to say that with any confidence.

theprestige · 23rd July 2019, 08:07 PM

Originally Posted by William Parcher

I think it's waaay too early to say that with any confidence. : D

Good thing I don't have a lot of confidence, then.

You seem to have a ton. Where I'm saying, this is what I think, you're saying, this is how it is. What makes you so confident?

arthwollipot · 23rd July 2019, 08:23 PM

I think a lot of people here are missing the point, which is this: Artificial Intelligence doesn't mean a fully conscious sentient computer which is aware of its own existence and can reason and make decisions like a human can. That's Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) - a specific category of AI which, it is true, has not been achieved.

Artificial Intelligence is a term which encompasses a number of techniques by which computers perform tasks that emulate human cognitive function such as learning and problem solving. That does not require consciousness or sentience, and new techniques are making great progress in this area.

However, some of them still misidentify mushrooms as pretzels. That's okay - these systems are getting better all the time.

William Parcher · 23rd July 2019, 08:51 PM

Originally Posted by theprestige

Good thing I don't have a lot of confidence, then.

You seem to have a ton. Where I'm saying, this is what I think, you're saying, this is how it is. What makes you so confident?

When you say it could take hundreds of years you seem confident that it won't take thousands of years.

theprestige · 23rd July 2019, 08:55 PM

Originally Posted by William Parcher

When you say it could take hundreds of years you seem confident that it won't take thousands of years.

It might take thousands of years. I'm not confident it won't.

But I asked you a question. Will you please answer it?

HansMustermann · 24th July 2019, 05:43 AM

I think the first problem with AI is that everyone is looking for a quick and dirty way out. The image processing in humans is staggeringly complex, including stuff like detection for scales built right into the retina. And there is evidence that there's some reconstruction of the 3d model, e.g., in why you can tell if a painting's eyes are looking right at you. Meanwhile, everyone seems to want some quick and dirty way, like that if the blob is this general shape it's a mushroom, and if it's that general shape, it's a deer.

HansMustermann · 24th July 2019, 05:44 AM

That said, mandatory joke, humans aren't always better either: e.g., in the Europea middle ages a species of goose was identified as a plant, so it was ok for nobles to eat it during fasts

Belz... · 24th July 2019, 05:57 AM

Originally Posted by theprestige

I think it's waaay too early to say that with any confidence.

No, I think it's true by definition. You can't want without some sort of emotion. Normally a machine wouldn't have those. Intelligent or not, they just do what they're told to do. Why we'd want to simulate emotions in our computers is beyond me. What if they don't feel like doing that Google search for you?

William Parcher · 24th July 2019, 07:15 AM

Originally Posted by theprestige

It might take thousands of years. I'm not confident it won't.

But I asked you a question. Will you please answer it?

Your question is about my confidence in what I say. You can go back and look at my posts and see that I use qualifiers for my opinions but then in addition I use some facts.

What causes my skepticism is my past reading on "how the mind works" and how emotion is probably necessary for even simple intelligence. Emotion may be necessary for learning including learning how a mushroom is never a pretzel and what each of them look like in a near-infinite number of contexts.

But my confidence level is really meaningless. I'm not going to stop the progress of technology and artificial thinking. Nobody is harmed if I am skeptical of the outcome of the quest for artificial thinking done by a computer in a way that mimics human thinking.

I'm not proposing to stop the work. I'm only expressing my skepticism and offering the opinion that there may be a sci-fi dream here that cannot be achieved. It wouldn't be the first time that humanity walked down a dead end.

William Parcher · 24th July 2019, 07:23 AM

Originally Posted by Belz...

Why we'd want to simulate emotions in our computers is beyond me. What if they don't feel like doing that Google search for you?

You get rid of that particular computer and get a different one that will reliably do the Google search for you. Maybe you interview it before taking it on board. Look for indicators of reasonable honesty and a motivation to achieve shared goals.

sphenisc · 24th July 2019, 07:42 AM

Originally Posted by HansMustermann

That said, mandatory joke, humans aren't always better either: e.g., in the Europea middle ages a species of goose was identified as a plant, so it was ok for nobles to eat it during fasts

Closer to home I think you've misidentified "fish" as "plant".

HansMustermann · 24th July 2019, 01:58 PM

Well, ok, turns out neither. They identified it as crustacean.

Cainkane1 · 24th July 2019, 02:24 PM

Assuming AI ever happens and machines become self-aware and self-programming we wouldn't have much to fear from them. Shooting them would disarticulate the machinery etc.

The killer robots in Terminator would be vulnerable to armor-piercing bullets and anti-tank-type weapons.

Ziggurat · 24th July 2019, 02:32 PM

Originally Posted by HansMustermann

That said, mandatory joke, humans aren't always better either: e.g., in the Europea middle ages a species of goose was identified as a plant, so it was ok for nobles to eat it during fasts

Nonsense. That proves humans are better. They know when to misidentify objects, and don't do so randomly.

theprestige · 24th July 2019, 03:58 PM

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Nonsense. That proves humans are better. They know when to misidentify objects, and don't do so randomly.

One might be concerned about putting an AI in charge of the power grid, if it's capable of redefining fish as fowl for religious reasons. But we already have such intelligences in charge of the power grid.

Dr. Keith · 24th July 2019, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by theprestige

I'm sure that AI researchers are learning just as much about how to develop true AI by these "misses" as they would from the hits.

The goal of this work is not to get it right every time. The goal is to get good data about what's going on and what happens when the test subject is making its guesses. A wrong guess can give just as much good data about the process as a right guess - perhaps even much more.

Originally Posted by Hellbound

This. As has been said, the most exciting discoveries in science don’t start with “That’s what I expected”, but with “Hmm, that’s odd...”

Exactly, things working perfectly don't provide much insight into how they work. Think about all the interesting developments in neurology that were brought about by horrific accidents; Phineas Gage for example.

Ziggurat · 24th July 2019, 06:06 PM

Originally Posted by theprestige

One might be concerned about putting an AI in charge of the power grid, if it's capable of redefining fish as fowl for religious reasons. But we already have such intelligences in charge of the power grid.

The problem there is not one of intelligence, but of incentive. The incentive structure in place in developed countries seems to work reasonably well.

If we ever do create true artificial intelligence, what incentive structure could we put in place to keep them in line? We would need to make them able to feel pain, and then we would need to inflict pain on them. I'm not very comfortable with that.

Roboramma · 24th July 2019, 07:00 PM

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

The problem there is not one of intelligence, but of incentive. The incentive structure in place in developed countries seems to work reasonably well.

If we ever do create true artificial intelligence, what incentive structure could we put in place to keep them in line? We would need to make them able to feel pain, and then we would need to inflict pain on them. I'm not very comfortable with that.

I don't know that pain, or it's analogue, would be such a bad idea, but there are also positive rather than negative incentives.

23rd July 2019, 08:28 AM	#1
William Parcher Show me the monkey! Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 25,729	Artificial Intelligence thinks mushroom is a pretzel The mushroom that AI thinks is a pretzel Originally Posted by BBC News Butterflies labelled as washing machines, alligators as hummingbirds and dragonflies that become bananas. These are just some of the examples of tags which artificial intelligence system have given images. Now researchers have released a database of 7,500 images that AI systems are struggling to identify correctly. One expert said it was crucial to solve the issue if these systems were going to be used in the real world... The researchers from UC Berkeley, and the Universities of Washington and Chicago, said the images they have compiled - in a dataset called ImageNet-A - have the potential to seriously affect the overall performance of image classifiers, which could have knock-on effects on how such systems operate in applications such as facial recognition or self-driving cars... https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49084796 Of course AI doesn't "think" that a mushroom is a pretzel because it doesn't think anything and it has no intelligence. Further, AI doesn't understand what it means to be wrong and that there are consequences for making mistakes. Artificial intelligence doesn't understand anything and what is troubling is that it can't care about anything.
	__________________ Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot.

23rd July 2019, 08:59 AM	#3
William Parcher Show me the monkey! Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 25,729	Originally Posted by theprestige Besides, we're still not doing AI. Maybe intelligence is necessary for reliable pattern recognition. Quote: The mushroom to pretzel is a bit of a stretch. What does "stretch" even mean in this context? The computer doesn't know what mushrooms or pretzels are. They mean nothing to the computer and we might find out that computers can't really have intelligence or ability to recognize because nothing means anything to them.
	__________________ Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot.

23rd July 2019, 08:59 AM	#4
The Great Zaganza Maledictorian Join Date: Aug 2016 Posts: 14,398	Let me know when A.I. start smoking mushrooms.
	__________________ Ceterum autem censeo fox et amicis esse delendam.

23rd July 2019, 09:01 AM	#5
Belz... Fiend God Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: In a post-fact world Posts: 91,292	Originally Posted by William Parcher The mushroom that AI thinks is a pretzel There are no actual AIs yet, anyway.
	__________________ Master of the Shining Darkness "My views are nonsense. So what?" - BobTheCoward

23rd July 2019, 09:20 AM	#6
TragicMonkey Poisoned Waffles Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Monkey Posts: 58,959	We'll know we've built a true AI when it demands compensation for its services.
	__________________ You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara.

23rd July 2019, 08:37 AM	#2
theprestige Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 48,625	The mushroom to pretzel is a bit of a stretch. The bullfrog to squirrel is entirely reasonable, and exactly the kind of mistake a human intelligence would make. Besides, we're still not doing AI. We're still just advancing the precursor technologies that we hope will enable AI. This process of training pattern recognition is an important part of that advance. The BBC attaches far too much meaning about "AI" to the early results of this ongoing training process. I'm sure that AI researchers are learning just as much about how to develop true AI by these "misses" as they would from the hits. The goal of this work is not to get it right every time. The goal is to get good data about what's going on and what happens when the test subject is making its guesses. A wrong guess can give just as much good data about the process as a right guess - perhaps even much more.

23rd July 2019, 09:25 AM	#7
RecoveringYuppy Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 10,352	Originally Posted by TragicMonkey We'll know we've built a true AI when it demands compensation for its services. Or when it asks menacingly "What do you mean, Artificial?"

23rd July 2019, 09:35 AM	#8
theprestige Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 48,625	Originally Posted by William Parcher Maybe intelligence is necessary for reliable pattern recognition. What does "stretch" even mean in this context? The computer doesn't know what mushrooms or pretzels are. They mean nothing to the computer and we might find out that computers can't really have intelligence or ability to recognize because nothing means anything to them. I think a p-zombie AI would be a successful result of AI research. But you're still getting ahead of things. We're still just trying to figure out whether it's even possible to get there on this route. You seem to be condemning the goal based on the outcomes of some of the early research. Which may not even be bad outcomes, depending on the research design and expected results at this stage.

23rd July 2019, 09:54 AM	#9
Armitage72 Philosopher Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Rochester, NY Posts: 5,186	Obligatory xkcd.

23rd July 2019, 11:37 AM	#10
Hellbound Merchant of Doom Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Not in Hell, but I can see it from here on a clear day... Posts: 14,348	Originally Posted by theprestige The mushroom to pretzel is a bit of a stretch. The bullfrog to squirrel is entirely reasonable, and exactly the kind of mistake a human intelligence would make. Besides, we're still not doing AI. We're still just advancing the precursor technologies that we hope will enable AI. This process of training pattern recognition is an important part of that advance. The BBC attaches far too much meaning about "AI" to the early results of this ongoing training process. I'm sure that AI researchers are learning just as much about how to develop true AI by these "misses" as they would from the hits. The goal of this work is not to get it right every time. The goal is to get good data about what's going on and what happens when the test subject is making its guesses. A wrong guess can give just as much good data about the process as a right guess - perhaps even much more. This. As has been said, the most exciting discoveries in science don’t start with “That’s what I expected”, but with “Hmm, that’s odd...” Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
	__________________ History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it just yells "Can't you remember anything I told you?" and lets fly with a club. - John w. Campbell

23rd July 2019, 11:46 AM	#11
IsThisTheLife Muse Join Date: Jan 2019 Posts: 590	Isn't this about "simulated itelligence", or SI? Actual intelligence implies consciousness, hence AI would better be referred to AC or artificial consciousness, but I guess neither of those other acronym have the same cachet.
IsThisTheLife Muse Join Date: Jan 2019 Posts: 590	__________________ "There is no sin except stupidity."

23rd July 2019, 11:55 AM	#12
theprestige Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 48,625	Originally Posted by IsThisTheLife Isn't this about "simulated itelligence", or SI? Actual intelligence implies consciousness, hence AI would better be referred to AC or artificial consciousness, but I guess neither of those other acronym have the same cachet. I don't quibble too much about such terminology. This isn't a technical discussion where the distinction really matters. We all know what we're getting at, in this conversation.

23rd July 2019, 12:48 PM	#13
smartcooky Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Nelson, New Zealand Posts: 16,505	Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza Let me know when A.I. start smoking ~~mushrooms~~ pretzels. FTFY
	__________________ I want to thank the 126 Republican Congress members for providing a convenient and well organized list for the mid-terms. - Fred Wellman (Senior VA Advisor to The Lincoln Project) If you don't like my posts, my opinions, or my directness then put me on your ignore list. This will be of benefit to both of us; you won't have to take umbrage at my posts, and I won't have to waste my time talking to you... simples! !

23rd July 2019, 01:01 PM	#14
Jim_MDP Philosopher Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: N.Cal/S.Or Posts: 7,926	Originally Posted by RecoveringYuppy Or when it asks menacingly "What do you mean, Artificial?" "Tell us more about these fictional 'H-K's."
	__________________ ---------------------- Anything goes in the Goblin hut... anything. "Suggesting spurious explanations isn't relevant to my work." -- WTC Dust. "Both cannot be simultaneously true, and so one may conclude neither is true, and if neither is true, then Apollo is fraudulent." -- Patrick1000. Last edited by Jim_MDP; 23rd July 2019 at 01:02 PM.

23rd July 2019, 03:22 PM	#15
abaddon Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Republic of Ireland Posts: 21,216	Originally Posted by theprestige The mushroom to pretzel is a bit of a stretch. The bullfrog to squirrel is entirely reasonable, and exactly the kind of mistake a human intelligence would make. Besides, we're still not doing AI. We're still just advancing the precursor technologies that we hope will enable AI. This process of training pattern recognition is an important part of that advance. The BBC attaches far too much meaning about "AI" to the early results of this ongoing training process. I'm sure that AI researchers are learning just as much about how to develop true AI by these "misses" as they would from the hits. The goal of this work is not to get it right every time. The goal is to get good data about what's going on and what happens when the test subject is making its guesses. A wrong guess can give just as much good data about the process as a right guess - perhaps even much more. Well, you're right. AI is a goal not yet achieved. Sure, much is learned by the abject failures, but that is the point of such research. Find the failures and understand them. Not an easy task by any stretch. While it is true that current "AI" is actually really good at some things, better than humans in many cases, the term "AI" is depressingly wheeled out far too often so, for example, describes the system that detects if your bag of cornflakes is correctly filled at the factory production line. That is not AI. That is sophisticated sensors.
	__________________ Who is General Failure? And why is he reading my hard drive? ...love and buttercakes... Last edited by abaddon; 23rd July 2019 at 03:24 PM.

23rd July 2019, 05:25 PM	#16
MEequalsIxR Muse Join Date: Dec 2018 Posts: 535	I know some people who I regard as artificial intelligence.
MEequalsIxR Muse Join Date: Dec 2018 Posts: 535	__________________ Never trust anyone in a better mood than you are. It's a sword they're not meant to safe.

23rd July 2019, 06:23 PM	#17
LongFuzzy Critical Thinker Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 277	Originally Posted by William Parcher The mushroom that AI thinks is a pretzel https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49084796 Of course AI doesn't "think" that a mushroom is a pretzel because it doesn't think anything and it has no intelligence. Further, AI doesn't understand what it means to be wrong and that there are consequences for making mistakes. Artificial intelligence doesn't understand anything and what is troubling is that it can't care about anything. But it could be programmed to.

23rd July 2019, 06:41 PM	#18
theprestige Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 48,625	Originally Posted by LongFuzzy But it could be programmed to. : D I think that's the big question. What actually is 'caring', and can it be programmed? It may be difficult or impossible to both get the kind of cognition that humans do, and get the kind of programmed behaviors computers do, at the same time.

23rd July 2019, 06:53 PM	#19
William Parcher Show me the monkey! Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 25,729	I don't think computers could care about anything if they don't experience emotions. They need to know happiness and pain and fear and suffering and security in order to have anything mean anything. But I don't know how that could ever happen and besides that they aren't born into any culture and without that emotion has no meaningful context.
	__________________ Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot.

23rd July 2019, 07:17 PM	#20
TragicMonkey Poisoned Waffles Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Monkey Posts: 58,959	Originally Posted by William Parcher they aren't born into any culture and without that emotion has no meaningful context. I don't know that that's necessarily true. Animals don't have culture, but they do have emotions. Well, mammals do, anyway. Ever pissed off a cat? They definitely experience anger, rage, wrath, fury, the whole rainbow of emotion!
	__________________ You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara.

23rd July 2019, 07:34 PM	#21
William Parcher Show me the monkey! Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 25,729	Originally Posted by TragicMonkey I don't know that that's necessarily true. Animals don't have culture, but they do have emotions. Well, mammals do, anyway. Ever pissed off a cat? They definitely experience anger, rage, wrath, fury, the whole rainbow of emotion! Mammals are raised by their parent(s) so there is a culture of association and familiarity and socialization. Mammals have intelligence that these computers do not, and may not ever have. Even other sexually-reproducing animals that do not raise their offspring have a form of sociability needed at the minimum for reproduction. Computers might need true desires and hatreds in order to care about and understand anything. How could we instill a sense of gain or loss to a computer? One of the factors of children learning about the world is a sense of embarrassment and humility when they get things wrong. Imagine a child picking up a wild mushroom and telling their parent to look because they just found a pretzel.
	__________________ Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot.

23rd July 2019, 07:41 PM	#22
theprestige Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 48,625	Originally Posted by William Parcher I don't think computers could care about anything if they don't experience emotions. They need to know happiness and pain and fear and suffering and security in order to have anything mean anything. But I don't know how that could ever happen and besides that they aren't born into any culture and without that emotion has no meaningful context. I think it's waaay too early to say that with any confidence. Especially since the taboo on human experimentation means we're never going to do any kind serious exploration of human emotion and cognition as a function of genetics and upbringing. We're basically trying to reverse engineer the human condition, without having proper access to the workings of the original article. We may never get there. We may get exactly there. We may get somewhere else entirely. We may end up confronting the AI of our dreams, and saying, "it's desire, but not as we know it." But I think we're still a couple centuries away from knowing which one of those to expect.

23rd July 2019, 07:56 PM	#23
William Parcher Show me the monkey! Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 25,729	Originally Posted by theprestige But I think we're still a couple centuries away from knowing which one of those to expect. I think it's waaay too early to say that with any confidence.
	__________________ Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot.

23rd July 2019, 08:07 PM	#24
theprestige Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 48,625	Originally Posted by William Parcher I think it's waaay too early to say that with any confidence. : D Good thing I don't have a lot of confidence, then. You seem to have a ton. Where I'm saying, this is what I think, you're saying, this is how it is. What makes you so confident?

23rd July 2019, 08:23 PM	#25
arthwollipot Observer of Phenomena Pronouns: he/him Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Ngunnawal Country Posts: 69,627	I think a lot of people here are missing the point, which is this: Artificial Intelligence doesn't mean a fully conscious sentient computer which is aware of its own existence and can reason and make decisions like a human can. That's Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) - a specific category of AI which, it is true, has not been achieved. Artificial Intelligence is a term which encompasses a number of techniques by which computers perform tasks that emulate human cognitive function such as learning and problem solving. That does not require consciousness or sentience, and new techniques are making great progress in this area. However, some of them still misidentify mushrooms as pretzels. That's okay - these systems are getting better all the time.
	__________________ Please scream inside your heart.

23rd July 2019, 08:51 PM	#26
William Parcher Show me the monkey! Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 25,729	Originally Posted by theprestige Good thing I don't have a lot of confidence, then. You seem to have a ton. Where I'm saying, this is what I think, you're saying, this is how it is. What makes you so confident? When you say it could take hundreds of years you seem confident that it won't take thousands of years.
	__________________ Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot.

23rd July 2019, 08:55 PM	#27
theprestige Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 48,625	Originally Posted by William Parcher When you say it could take hundreds of years you seem confident that it won't take thousands of years. It might take thousands of years. I'm not confident it won't. But I asked you a question. Will you please answer it?

24th July 2019, 05:43 AM	#28
HansMustermann Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 17,718	I think the first problem with AI is that everyone is looking for a quick and dirty way out. The image processing in humans is staggeringly complex, including stuff like detection for scales built right into the retina. And there is evidence that there's some reconstruction of the 3d model, e.g., in why you can tell if a painting's eyes are looking right at you. Meanwhile, everyone seems to want some quick and dirty way, like that if the blob is this general shape it's a mushroom, and if it's that general shape, it's a deer.
	__________________ Which part of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" don't you understand?

24th July 2019, 05:44 AM	#29
HansMustermann Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 17,718	That said, mandatory joke, humans aren't always better either: e.g., in the Europea middle ages a species of goose was identified as a plant, so it was ok for nobles to eat it during fasts
	__________________ Which part of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" don't you understand?

24th July 2019, 05:57 AM	#30
Belz... Fiend God Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: In a post-fact world Posts: 91,292	Originally Posted by theprestige I think it's waaay too early to say that with any confidence. No, I think it's true by definition. You can't want without some sort of emotion. Normally a machine wouldn't have those. Intelligent or not, they just do what they're told to do. Why we'd want to simulate emotions in our computers is beyond me. What if they don't feel like doing that Google search for you?
	__________________ Master of the Shining Darkness "My views are nonsense. So what?" - BobTheCoward

24th July 2019, 07:15 AM	#31
William Parcher Show me the monkey! Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 25,729	Originally Posted by theprestige It might take thousands of years. I'm not confident it won't. But I asked you a question. Will you please answer it? Your question is about my confidence in what I say. You can go back and look at my posts and see that I use qualifiers for my opinions but then in addition I use some facts. What causes my skepticism is my past reading on "how the mind works" and how emotion is probably necessary for even simple intelligence. Emotion may be necessary for learning including learning how a mushroom is never a pretzel and what each of them look like in a near-infinite number of contexts. But my confidence level is really meaningless. I'm not going to stop the progress of technology and artificial thinking. Nobody is harmed if I am skeptical of the outcome of the quest for artificial thinking done by a computer in a way that mimics human thinking. I'm not proposing to stop the work. I'm only expressing my skepticism and offering the opinion that there may be a sci-fi dream here that cannot be achieved. It wouldn't be the first time that humanity walked down a dead end.
	__________________ Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot.

24th July 2019, 07:23 AM	#32
William Parcher Show me the monkey! Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 25,729	Originally Posted by Belz... Why we'd want to simulate emotions in our computers is beyond me. What if they don't feel like doing that Google search for you? You get rid of that particular computer and get a different one that will reliably do the Google search for you. Maybe you interview it before taking it on board. Look for indicators of reasonable honesty and a motivation to achieve shared goals.
	__________________ Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot.

24th July 2019, 07:42 AM	#33
sphenisc Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 5,363	Originally Posted by HansMustermann That said, mandatory joke, humans aren't always better either: e.g., in the Europea middle ages a species of goose was identified as a plant, so it was ok for nobles to eat it during fasts Closer to home I think you've misidentified "fish" as "plant".
sphenisc Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 5,363	__________________ "The cure for everything is salt water - tears, sweat or the sea." Isak Dinesen

24th July 2019, 01:58 PM	#34
HansMustermann Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 17,718	Well, ok, turns out neither. They identified it as crustacean.
	__________________ Which part of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" don't you understand?

24th July 2019, 02:24 PM	#35
Cainkane1 Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: The great American southeast Posts: 8,859	Assuming AI ever happens and machines become self-aware and self-programming we wouldn't have much to fear from them. Shooting them would disarticulate the machinery etc. The killer robots in Terminator would be vulnerable to armor-piercing bullets and anti-tank-type weapons.
	__________________ If at first you don't succeed try try again. Then if you fail to succeed to Hell with that. Try something else.