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Artificial Intelligence |
by:
Kenneth J. McCormick |
Artificial Intelligence
By
Kenneth J. McCormick
Webmaster
Http://Aboutfacts.net
Artificial Intelligence ishot topic on many boards today. It is alsohot topic in many laboratories and software houses. The military is trying to harness it to replace humans,game houses are trying to control it to make games more realistic andappliance makers and homebuilders are trying to perfect it to make our lives easier. One ofgreat questions is, is artificial intelligencegood thing? It sure seems like it, doesn't it? Imagine coming home fromrough day atoffice and your intelligent washer and dryer have not only washed and dried your clothes, but folded them as well. You meal is waiting for you but it was not prepared by human hands, instead your intelligent refrigerator has sent food to your oven which cooked it for you. You TV has turned itself on and switched to your favorite station so you might enjoy your meal with your favorite program. When you are done eating,dishes are collected byrobotic machine and put intodishwasher. An intelligent vacuum cleaner comes out and cleansarea where you were eating so that any crumbs that might have fallen were picked up immediately. You decide you want to talk tofew friends, so you tell your television that you want to make some phone calls and it connects you to several people atsame time creatingconference call, except you can see each person insquare onTV. You talk forwhile and then hang up. You feel like playinggame so you tellTV and it replies,” Name of Game Please and Play Human or Me?" If you decide to playhuman you are immediately connected tointernet, if not, you are about to play one oftoughest opponents,computer which is integrated into your TV. Oh look here comesdog,dog you never have to feed. It isSony dog,slick little robotic dog that acts much likereal dog. You play with it forwhile, but you geturge. Intobathroom you go. The toilet will examine all your waste products and if anything is wrong it will contact your doctor right away. Now you decide to go to bed and enterroom where clouds sail overceiling. You lay down andsoothing voice asks "What time shall I wake you and what sounds would you like to hear?" You tellvoice (it really is part ofcomputer in your tv) to wake you at seven:zerozero am and to play ocean sounds for onezero minutes.
Does all this sound good? Much ofabove exists already. As we create smarter and smarter devices are we getting near creating life? At what point does something become aware? Cancomputer ever become so smart that it isliving being? Some people think that we are nothing more than organic computers that were programmed and offer our genes as proof. One ofproblems that exist today is how to tell if something is truly alive. If we were to buildperfect robot that could interact with humans without being detected asmachine, would it be considered alive? Many would say yes and many would say no. The yes people would say that becauserobot can make decisions on its own that areequivalent of decisions thathuman would make than it must be alive. The no people would argue that it is simply followingprogram created by man and it ismachine withoutsoul.
If we taughtanimal to reactcertain way under certain conditions would this mean he was programmed and not alive? If we offer our dogbone but only give it to him if he sits up and begs does this mean he is not alive but programmed? It seems that programming is not exclusive to life or self-awareness. Some says that computers are justbunch of electrical circuits. I would have to remind them that without electricityhuman body would be justpile of skin, bones and organs. It seems that we have now eliminated electricity as beingreason to deny life to machines. Then there are those that say that computers are not alive because they only know what is programmed into them. I would have to remind these people that there are dynamic programs out there that allow machines to learn on their own. After all, is not thatway we learn, we are programmed (school) and we also learn some things on our own (dynamic programming)? Neural networks are developing that mimicbehavior of our human brains. Computer 'creatures' have been created that can learn, age, procreate and finally die. Of course these creatures are very primitive by our standards.
Life certainly is not easy to define. Webster's Dictionary states that life is "The quality that distinguishesvital and functional being fromdead body." It would seem thatWebster people considered only organic beings as being capable of life since they decided thatdead body was necessary for non-life. Yet there issecond definition by Webster that states that life isprinciple or force that is considered to underliedistinctive quality of animate beings. Being animate is now maderequirement for life.
BothSoviet Union andUnited States had built, duringcold war, what attime were considered super computers that could make split second decisions on whether to launch missiles against countries which had launched missiles against them and both systems proved to be flawed. This proved that it is not so easy to teachmachine how to be able to plan for every contingency. We have advanced quitebit from those days. Now many of us have more powerful computers on our desks then those super computers of old. At some point we are going to be able to communicate with our computerssame way we communicate with another human. When this happens, what will we have? If we can actually getintelligent conversation out of our computer, then at least, some people may begin to wonder what we have created. Imagine that someday you want to removepart fromcomputer for use somewhere else andcomputer complains. Will you feel that maybecomputer is becoming self-aware?
Now here isquestion that really shakes things up. If we are able someday to downloadcontents ofhuman brain intomachine, will that machine become self aware, in other words, will it be alive? Just think of it,machine that acts just like you. This may be much more far fetched, but what if we could downloadcontents ofintelligent machine intohuman brain, would that person cease to be human and living? We would probably still have to consider him alive sinceorganic functions were still operating. I guess as time goes by we are getting closer and closer to machine life and someday someone will have to decide if machine life is really life at all.
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