Comments on: Why “just” simulating animal intelligence? http://www.neurdon.com/2009/05/02/why-just-simulating-animal-intelligence/ We put the sci in sci-fi Fri, 03 Sep 2010 22:46:10 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Internet Banking http://www.neurdon.com/2009/05/02/why-just-simulating-animal-intelligence/comment-page-1/#comment-4978 Internet Banking Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:09:49 +0000 http://www.neurdon.com/?p=604#comment-4978 Just killing some in between class time on Digg and I found your post . Not typically what I like to learn about, but it was absolutely worth my time. Thanks. Just killing some in between class time on Digg and I found your post . Not typically what I like to learn about, but it was absolutely worth my time. Thanks.

]]> By: Massimiliano Versace http://www.neurdon.com/2009/05/02/why-just-simulating-animal-intelligence/comment-page-1/#comment-3262 Massimiliano Versace Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:47:22 +0000 http://www.neurdon.com/?p=604#comment-3262 Hi Zeev, thanks for the reply! You say above that "personally, it think ray is 100% wrong. i don’t think we will have machines as intelligent as animals for quite some time." When do YOU think this will happen ;) Max Hi Zeev,

thanks for the reply! You say above that “personally, it think ray is 100% wrong. i don’t think we will have machines as intelligent as animals for quite some time.”

When do YOU think this will happen ;)

Max

]]> By: zeev kirsh http://www.neurdon.com/2009/05/02/why-just-simulating-animal-intelligence/comment-page-1/#comment-2992 zeev kirsh Sat, 22 Aug 2009 19:02:33 +0000 http://www.neurdon.com/?p=604#comment-2992 ray kurzweil has gone form being a genius engine. er/programmer to becoming a a demogogue. one can speculate why he left inventing for politics, but presumable he did so for the same reason most engineers who choose to go to politics do so, because he recognizes that creativity and inventiveness come from society at large and that affecting and influencing the entire organism in this direction may be perhaps more interesting, more productive for science, and more fun than sitting around in a lab all day inventing things in isolation or with a small team. ray is leveraging his prominence and personal fortune to gain influence as a policy maker and promoter (albiet so far on a mostly private level). he is , much like al gore, persuading the public of an imminent event of importance to everyone coming in our future. the singularity/global warming whatever........ the bottom line is that you can't predict weather, nor can you predict technology. those who do so are trying to get attention to further their goal. for ray , it's the goal of getting society to care more about investing time and money and effort into techonology. i think this is a worth goal. for al gore, it's getting people to care about conerving our environement and eliminating pollution. while both goals are worthy, both men are approaching these goals in a faulty way. you cannot convince people to approach a goal with a promise of something untrue, because in the end, the truth is discovered, and in their dissolution, soceity at large forgets the worthiness of the ultimate goal that is being pursued. what if ray is wrong and there is no singularity.....and then all of his institutes and investors walk away. it would be a shame , because they are probably working on worthy projects , and yet, the promise of the golden singularity does not need to be the thing that keeps people working towards the positive ends of building intelligent machines. personally, it think ray is 100% wrong. i don't think we will have machines as intelligent as animals for quite some time. to be as intelligent as animals, they have to have sensory systems , emotional systems, and many other systems all working in concert with some all powerful distributed processosor. i just don't see it happening. what seems to be more likely is that machines will continue to expand their sphere of activity towards those marginal areas where they can be used most successfully in replacing human beings. i.e. where robotics can be combined with intelligent machine computing to develop 'expert machines' that can learn with experience to complete basic tasks with an acceptable margin of error. i can think of a few....dogwalkers, coal miners, subway clerks,etc.... i'd say that is a mmuch more conservative prediction than ray kurzweil's singularity. ray kurzweil has gone form being a genius engine. er/programmer to becoming a a demogogue.

one can speculate why he left inventing for politics, but presumable he did so for the same reason most engineers who choose to go to politics do so, because he recognizes that creativity and inventiveness come from society at large and that affecting and influencing the entire organism in this direction may be perhaps more interesting, more productive for science, and more fun than sitting around in a lab all day inventing things in isolation or with a small team.

ray is leveraging his prominence and personal fortune to gain influence as a policy maker and promoter (albiet so far on a mostly private level). he is , much like al gore, persuading the public of an imminent event of importance to everyone coming in our future. the singularity/global warming whatever……..

the bottom line is that you can’t predict weather, nor can you predict technology. those who do so are trying to get attention to further their goal. for ray , it’s the goal of getting society to care more about investing time and money and effort into techonology. i think this is a worth goal. for al gore, it’s getting people to care about conerving our environement and eliminating pollution.

while both goals are worthy, both men are approaching these goals in a faulty way. you cannot convince people to approach a goal with a promise of something untrue, because in the end, the truth is discovered, and in their dissolution, soceity at large forgets the worthiness of the ultimate goal that is being pursued.

what if ray is wrong and there is no singularity…..and then all of his institutes and investors walk away. it would be a shame , because they are probably working on worthy projects , and yet, the promise of the golden singularity does not need to be the thing that keeps people working towards the positive ends of building intelligent machines.

personally, it think ray is 100% wrong. i don’t think we will have machines as intelligent as animals for quite some time. to be as intelligent as animals, they have to have sensory systems , emotional systems, and many other systems all working in concert with some all powerful distributed processosor. i just don’t see it happening. what seems to be more likely is that machines will continue to expand their sphere of activity towards those marginal areas where they can be used most successfully in replacing human beings. i.e. where robotics can be combined with intelligent machine computing to develop ‘expert machines’ that can learn with experience to complete basic tasks with an acceptable margin of error.

i can think of a few….dogwalkers, coal miners, subway clerks,etc….

i’d say that is a mmuch more conservative prediction than ray kurzweil’s singularity.

]]> By: Neurdon » Neuroscience is hard (for some people) http://www.neurdon.com/2009/05/02/why-just-simulating-animal-intelligence/comment-page-1/#comment-165 Neurdon » Neuroscience is hard (for some people) Mon, 04 May 2009 12:54:34 +0000 http://www.neurdon.com/?p=604#comment-165 [...] Max’s recent post brings up the issue of Ray Kurzweil, a polarizing figure if there ever was one. First, I try to take his musings with a truckload of salt, but his proclamations about the progress of neuroscience seem to go so far beyond the pale that its shade has surpassed the visible light spectrum. He seems to completely trivialize the daunting task set before neuroscience: create a biologically and mathematically precise functional characterization of the human brain. In other words, how does it do what it does with what it has? It seems like Ray is fixated, naturally, on the exponential growth of information technology and its implications for the field. I’ll summarize his thesis, based on the 7 minute video linked by Max, thusly: computers will become insanely powerful, along with ways to measure the brain, and so we’ll have a brain simulation by 2020, or 2029, or sometime in the next fifty years. [...] [...] Max’s recent post brings up the issue of Ray Kurzweil, a polarizing figure if there ever was one. First, I try to take his musings with a truckload of salt, but his proclamations about the progress of neuroscience seem to go so far beyond the pale that its shade has surpassed the visible light spectrum. He seems to completely trivialize the daunting task set before neuroscience: create a biologically and mathematically precise functional characterization of the human brain. In other words, how does it do what it does with what it has? It seems like Ray is fixated, naturally, on the exponential growth of information technology and its implications for the field. I’ll summarize his thesis, based on the 7 minute video linked by Max, thusly: computers will become insanely powerful, along with ways to measure the brain, and so we’ll have a brain simulation by 2020, or 2029, or sometime in the next fifty years. [...]

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