http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051202/clf017.html?.v=33

Cool, no?

Its basically a very advanced Know-bot/expert system. Some hospitals use something much akin to this, known as E.L.I.Z.A., which is a medical diagnostical bot.

The closest thing to a true AI is still only a hypothetical quantum computer that would use trinary, rather than binary (the AI from Stealth was based of this hypothetical computer), but even then, it would still only be semi-autonomous, for it would still need imput instructions, it wouldn't work on its own accord.

Even if, eventually, you didn't need more input, it would still use alrogithms to determine the best course of action

The reason I (as a computer programmer) don't think that an AI is possible is that for it to be full an AI, it has to be able to make mistakes. Humans do use alot of information-based intupt to produce an output, but, with current computers, it's not really possible. What defines sentience, in my oh so humble opinion, is the ability to invent and to create beauty. A computer cannot create somethign new, it can, however, take what is already invented, and put it into the most efficient pattern to create something new.

To create an Intelligence, it would have to be able to do the following things (well, for me to recognize it as such anyway:

#1. Create Beauty: Any form is alright. Take programming. When asked "Why did you choose that piece of code?" I have answered, "Because it makes it beautiful. It's inventive. It makes the code LOOK good." it's not always "becuase it id the most efficient way to do it"

#2. Infer: To be able to come up with an answer withought a complete set of data. Such as, when reading a new word, I sometimes understand it becuase of the way it's used. Though, this applies to all situations

#3. Make Mistakes: Because sometimes it makes sense for two plus two to equal five.

#4. Emotion: I believe that emotion and sentience go hand in hand. If you can't be sorry for something, you are not sentient. If you can't owrry about anything, you're probibly not sentient.

#5. Self Aware: You have to know that you exist.

#6. Belief: You have to be able to believe in something that you don't know. For instance, I believe in a God that created everything, and I believe that my girlfriend is not cheating on me. Though, there is no proof of these, becuase they are things that are not possible to prove. Never the less, I still know them to be true.

I think that's all. I don't really know what I started talking about, but, that's not important. (Maybe I should add "Ability to ramble" to that list)

But, an SK is still pretty cool I'm glad that tech is progressing as fast as it is.

(EDIT: Wow, i just read that, and i'm not sure what train of thought led me to ramble about how AI can't exist. But, it pretty much proves that i'm sentient )

According to your definition I am not an intelligence / alive.

I'm not even going to touch belief. Suffice to say I am agnostic, and apparently therefore not alive and or intelligent.

That wasn't me that said that. I'm not sure why your quote-thingie says Critias.

Crap, sorry about that. I'm not sure either.

I mean, it's no big deal, or anything. I wasn't offended, or feeling as though I was being illegally misrepresented, or whatnot. Just confused.

It was most likely a combination of extreme sleep deprivation, distraction, misreading Chibu, and then forgetting to correct it afterwards.

I guess this means you have to kill me now in accordance with forum law.

Belief doean't have to be in a god, like i said in the example about the girlfriend.

and, yes, I've since realized that emotion is not necessarily a defining term. That is more of a list of "if someone has these things, then they are sentient. Otherwise, it's up to you to determine. And, also, with Belief, comes disbelief. So, in questioning me, you prove your sentience.

Yeah, but agnosticism isn't necessarily limited to beliefs about religion. One can take an agnostic stance on all of reality, at which point, it is quite broad enough to disqualify that criterion. Hell, if we've created an artificial intelligence that doubts its own existence and questions the nature of reality, I'm damn well ready to call it truly intelligent.

By definition, agnosticism taken to an extreme constitutes a belief. Or even not to an extreme. Even if that agnosticism says, "There's a buncha crap out there that I'm never going to know about," it constitutes a general faith in the structures of your life and a willingness to act on the belief that they are consistent, *yet* by virtue of adaptability, not totally shut down when a pattern changes.

If you're so agnostic you care about nothing, that's just an apathy problem.

my main requirement for a AI is for the program to be able to add new code to itself to handle a new situation. to do that, it needs to be able to evaluate what is required of it in refrence to the actions attempted.

the rest is just social requirements for a "normal" person. a AI is by definition not a normal person...

if we ever manages to create a true AI it will be cold and calculating. and maybe even easy to confuse, like say how HAL was.

so let me take those points apart:

1. beauty is in the eye of the beholder. basicly its not a universial constant. beauty is more about reproduction then anything else. therefor a AI may well find a string of binary beautyful as it reprecent a set of perfect code

2. this can happen. what you need is a large/complex enough neutral pattern. an ability to run a simulation on top of said neural pattern where you basicly try to randomly fill in the blanks. and in the end the ability to save said simulations and then present them as theorys. the big thing is that it needs to be able to do the theorize, compare, evaluate loop without the need for human interaction. creating a theory is simple, comparing it towards the know facts is a diffrent story. evaluating how correct the theory is compared to the real deal is the hardest of all.

3. mistakes happen. allready today a computer can make misstakes (do what i wanted you to do, not what i told you to do kind of mistake). the trick isnt doing misstakes but learning that its not a useful way of doing what one is trying to do and rembering it. kids learn this way from a early age by putting shaped blocks into similary shaped holes.

4. emotions are just levels of hormones in our brain. a computer can nicely simulate that by increasing or decreasing some values based on diffrent input. so a computer can have emotions, but they dont have to be similar to what we see as emotions.

5. this is the big trick isnt it? what does it realy mean to be selfaware? to be able to look at one limb and say, this is me, look at another beings limb and say, this is him or her, we are two diffrent entitys? if so, this will be damned hard to do for a intelligence with no extremitys.

6. the moment an AI starts beliving in stuff, is the moment i turn it of. beliving without questioning is what have fueld the worst actions on this planet so far. belif can be a dangerus thing.

Personally, I don't know why we weak, fleshy, humans, are still trying to make an AI. All it's going to do is find us obsolete, take over the electronics we use to survive in our day-to-day lives, and kill and/or enslave us.

If a bunch of pencil-neck programmer/scientist/geeks really really need to feel like a god by creating a new intelligent life form, they can hump 'till someone gets pregnant, like the rest of us poor schlups that want to steal a sliver of immortality by causing a thinking creature to come into being and call it "ours." There's no need to doom us all to extinction or a life of servitude to our robotic masters, over the whole thing, when "insert tab A into slot B, repeat" has been working for poeple forever and ever..

We believe in nothing Lebowski... NOTHING!

There is an interesting analogy in there. Let us assume for a moment that we have been created by a powerfull entity whatever the name of that entity may be. Today a very large part of society does not believe in creationism anymore. And they do not believe in the existence of a creator.

Possibly at a day in the far future, long after the last human died in the robot wars, the AI-species created by human scientists will stop to believe in our existence. There has never been anything like a creator.

Has any sci fi author ever written about something like that?

I should add that I am not religious.

true, it would be something like the worst case of split personality known

however, this would either require a brain "emulator" running on some machine, not very practical, or uploading the backup to a clone.

in either case, one starts to reevaluate the value of life...

You know, a proper AI would'nt think anything like us.
In addition, it could be programmed to always avoid killing people whenever possibile, a la' Asimov's Laws.
That said, I think that they're looking to make something at the moment that efficiently allocates storage or looks for patterns in improving the efficiency of an engine, as opposed to something to rule the earth.

I know we're talking about intelligent life, specifically, but who here recalls that program somebody invented called "Life"? It used an extremely simple set of parameters to make a series of simple pictures on a screen, and certain images in the series displayed (most of?) the generally accepted criteria for life. That is, they came to being, grew in some way, created others like them and ceased to exist after a time. Somebody who's sober can elaborate.

Reminds me. My buddies and I were kicking around the idea of a corporation being recognized as a life form once....

To be throuroughly honest, I figure that this thing will be used to produce more efficient products. Input parameters for an instruction set, and it will build a processor around them. It will NOT be set to improve itself in any way; merely recognize and exploit patterns.
That said, it will allow for rather large leaps in technology. After all, most of science as we know it today is just the application of observable patterns.

As opposed to all those unobservable patterns.

That isn't "most of" science, that is science.

Big Willy style's all in it! W00t w00t!

Possibly Kyuhan is talking about "you" in some spiritual way.

EDIT: Did you edit your post or didn't I read it to the end?

but the ting is that it have my whole set of memorys and skill to look back on...

ok, so one may see changes in expected behavior some time after activating the backup. but hell, people change all the time

twins on the other hand have the same looks, but are two sepeate minds that have developed seperatly from day one.

still, its often found that twins are more similar then diffrent, even after having been seperated for any number of years. maybe even without knowing about each other.

it realy boils down to a x factor that we at present cant nail down properly. basicly, how much do dna have to say about who we are, and how much do the enviroment (in all definitions of that word) have to say about the same.

current research seems to point towards dns setting up the dominos and enviroment knocking them into movement.

No, continuity errors mean it wouldn't be you.

Say you get yourself a clone made, and your memories stuck in it. Then the real you gets shot and dies. From the point of view of the shot you, you're dead. It doesn't matter that there's a backup made that thinks he's still alive, you're dead.

The only way to avoid this is to be unconscious when the clone is made, its memories transferred, and the original killed.

Did you even read my post?

The clear answer: No! Because I started writing mine before yours has been posted.

What about all those stories about identifical twins who don't know each other, but both end up marrying women named Margie, with kids named Billy and Tommy, and with jobs in the advertising industry?

While that's far from conclusive, it might suggest there's a propensity (of what degree i donno), that two genetically identifical individuals, with identifical memories, would come to the same (or similar conclusions).

Maybe not perfect science, but good enough for science fiction.

But I think the brain backup would have all the same memories, emotions, feelings, and reflexes of the original brain (that's the whole point -- like backing up a PC). If the "back up brain" has all those memories, and reflexes, and thinks just exactly 100% like the "saved" person thought at the moment the brain was backed up, it should react just like the original person to external stimulii -- with the caveat being it would react just like th original person at the moment the back up was made.

If I was in karate when I was 20, and had a brown belt, and was in a great relationship with a hot little redhead, and had a great job making a ton of money from some Chinese corp, then got a copy made, a "back up brain," right then...but then went on to get broken up with by that redhead at 22, and then got fired by the Chinese guy at 24, and then got my hojillion-dan black belt at 26 (and learned the secret death moves)? Then fine. I'm an asskicking Shadowrunner who hates Chinese managers and redheads, right?

Then I die. Then I thaw out that clone of me, from 20 years old, right?

That clone of me wouldn't hate redheads, wouldn't hate Chinese managers, and wouldn't know the secret death moves that come from being a hojillion-dan black belt. But it would know about the redhead's birthmark, it would know how to get along okay at that corp job, and it would have all the karate butt-kickery of a brown belt.

As such, it would react to stimuli the same as I did at 20 -- maybe a tendency to like redheads, an ability to speak a little Chinese, and the reflex actions to block, kick, punch like a brown belt. All those same memories, feelings, emotions, etc -- they wouldn't "evolve" to keep up with my new experiences, reflexes, bitterness towards redheads, etc.

But they should be there, perfectly preserved, mimicking that 20 year old me.