Archive for August 23rd, 2004

A.I. For Deluded Nutcases

Monday, August 23rd, 2004

Some goon (sorry: Californian counsellor) has patented Inductive Inference Affective Language Analyzer Simulating Artificial Intelligence (including the Ten Ethical Laws Of Robotics). It’s nothing but unintelligible babble, interspersed by (inaccurate) references to artificial intelligence theory. The author (who also writes a book on family values with a distinct evangelic slant, from which most of the text of the patent seems to be taken) appears to know nothing about A.I. or computer science. In addition, I find his suggestion that ‘wooly’ and ‘vague’ rules and ‘commandments’ are sensible choices for A.I. safeguards -

While a meaningful future artificial intelligence may be more than capable of understanding rules set out in a way that a human might like to express it - indeed, for some machine intelligences (artificial or not) this capacity to understand human speech and expressions could be a very useful feature - this is not the level at which safeguards should be implemented.
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Burny Burny Firey Goodness

Monday, August 23rd, 2004

Fire 1Gareth came over this weekend, and he, Bryn, Paul, Claire and I decided to have a bonfire and a barbeque on the beach. Sadly, Matt - who’s in town for resits - couldn’t join us, as he’s busy revising (best of luck to you, Matt!).Fire 2

In any case, the food and the beer and the company was good, until it started threatening rain and spitting on us in short bursts, when we decided we’d better abandon the camp and go play some Super Monkey Ball. And I kicked arse. And then Gareth beat me.

It’s been a rich, full weekend: between a brief exercise in nudism, Troma Night (Indiana Jones-themed), Gareth’s visit, and the fire on the beach, it’s been great. And, better yet, it looks like next week won’t involve so many late work nights (fingers crossed).

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