>I will agree that trying to make *predictions* at this point is thoroughly daft. As I stated ealier, we don't even have a basic model of what cognition *is* at this point. As I've also said, I think that the most important function that AI research has provided is to offer empirical demonstrations of what intelligence *isn't*.

-- 100% agreement there.

Andrew: on perceptrons, see this discussion of the controversy.

Steve: I'd be surprised if surgically-implanted computer interfaces that you plug yourself into ever take off. (On the other hand, one that's inserted via keyhole surgery, implants itself in the right place, communicates via ultrawideband radio, and has a built-in firewall is another animal. Dunno about you, but for me any lack of a firewall would be a deal-breaker :)

Incidentally, I'm pretty certain that I can guaran-damn-tee you that I can hoax any lie detector there is, or ever will be: all I need to do is to convince myself that everything I say is a lie, and it'll be delivering so many false positives the data stream is junk.

>Incidentally, I'm pretty certain that I can guaran-damn-tee you that I can hoax any lie detector there is, or ever will be: all I need to do is to convince myself that everything I say is a lie, and it'll be delivering so many false positives the data stream is junk.

-- I don't think so. The activity in question is pre-conscious; it's a product of your intention to deceive. There are a number of brain functions which flag a decision before you're conscious of making it, IIRC.

Charlie: I'd be surprised if surgically-implanted computer interfaces that you plug yourself into ever take off. (On the other hand, one that's inserted via keyhole surgery, implants itself in the right place, communicates via ultrawideband radio, and has a built-in firewall is another animal. Dunno about you, but for me any lack of a firewall would be a deal-breaker :)

-- what I had in mind was artificial sensory input -- replicating what goes into your brain through the various sensory nerves. Initially they'd be surgically implanted but eventually some other form of contact.

Essentially, you switch it on and instead of the 'real' input, you're getting either input from another location, or simulated, 'fictional' data.

It could be used for very intense teleoperation scenarios (artificial 'bodies' for soldiers, engineers in hazardous environments) and also of course for entertainment. You get to _be_ Aragorn or a Lensman or whatever.

Think of the porn potentialities, just for starters... 8-).

Edited by author 07-11-2005 04:47 PM
"The activity in question is pre-conscious; it's a product of your intention to deceive." Exactly. You make everything you say a deceptive lie, adding double meanings to it in your own mind before you let a word out. A lie detector that gives nothing but positives is useless; if you don't actually ever tell the truth then they've got nothing to calibrate it against.

(And yes, I'm pretty sure I can tell you "my name is Charlie Stross" and convince myself I'm lying to you at the same time. Now, doing it the other way round would be a neat trick ...)

Edited by author 07-11-2005 05:38 PM
Actually, since we're poking around in our brains anyway, why bother simulating the sensory input of experiences we find pleasurable, when we could bypass all that and go for stimulating the pleasure centers of our brains directly?

I'm reminded of an experiment in which a rat had electrodes implanted in the pleasure centers of its brains. In its cage two paddles were installed - on dispensing food, the other a jolt to the electrodes. The rat starved to death (or was about to anyway, before the lab techs intervened) tapping on that second paddle; Why eat, when eating is just a means to pleasure, if you can invoke pleasure directly?

Could this be an impediment to the singularity? Perhaps any sentient being that can modify its own brain/programming will just be hopelessly hedonistic..

As our host has pointed out, the AI community has spent about 50 years being fairly bogus, and grossly underestimating the processing power required to solve interesting problems.

Many introductory AI courses still focus on A* and formal reasoning, which basically have nothing to do with intelligence. But there's a lot of good work being done, too--computer vision is slowly becoming useful; statistical databases of common sense can support modest inference engines, and Kurzweil just demoed another vision device.

Give me another 1,000-fold increase in computing power (beyond current stream processors), and make it portable, and I'll give you some pretty mind-blowing wearable computers. And the accompanying advances in robotics would basically transform the economy--a few hundred cheap teraflops dedicated to vision and physics would make manual labor almost obsolete.

...Stirling, the technology required to support a direct neural interface would presumably involve: (1) serious processing power, (2) a rough understanding of a few major brain subsystems, and (3) mixed electric/biological engineering bordering on primitive nanotech. I could see it happening (late) in my lifetime, sure, but it would be an awfully exciting lifetime--more like 1900-to-2000 than the future you described.

And what's up with Bill Joy? Has he fallen off the techno-rejectionist wagon or something?

>Exactly. You make everything you say a deceptive lie

-- "And," said the interrogator, "every time the red light comes on, an extremely painful electric current will be channeled through your body. The voltage goes up with each repetition. Now..."

8-).

I don't see how you could be deceptive about your own name. Remember, the process is subconscious. If you know your name really is Charlie Stross, then saying that won't be deceptive.

Quibbles about "that's not my real name" or "I now decide I'm named Sauruman" don't count.

>Actually, since we're poking around in our brains anyway, why bother simulating the sensory input of experiences we find pleasurable, when we could bypass all that and go for stimulating the pleasure centers of our brains directly?

-- you can do that now, and I don't see any great demand for it.

OTOH, there's a very active demand for better simulated realities; huge megabillion-dollar industries already exist.

Edited by author 07-11-2005 11:12 PM
The narcotics industry in the us is worth over $2.8 billion - never mind globally. If stimulating brain centers didn't involve invasive surgery, or if having things implanted in ones brain were suddenly as commonplace as having a tooth filled, i'm sure demand for this kind of thing would explode.

>Can you imagine a political debate with a "verdicator" light >over the candidates' heads?
>
>Or during speeches?

Actually, I can't. Politicians are the ones who write the laws and I have every confidence that they would make double-sure that there were laws to prevent that usage of the technology. Like congressional pay raises, it would be one of those rare topics to get support from all sides.

>>"Invariably, the actual future will confound and frustrate
>>our expectations of it."
>
>-- "a lot of the time" rather than "invariably".
>
>Eg., I can predict how many 20-year-old people will be around >in 2025 with some accuracy (barring catastrophe) because >they've already been born.

You are being pedantic. I am referring to the future as a whole, not predictions of some particular aspects of the future.

>>"I would bet that this sort of VR technology will be one of
>>the 50-years-from-now technologies for a very long time yet
>>to come."

>-- why? We've already got proof-of-concept examples of
>artificial sensory inputs;

The AI folks had all sorts of semi-impresive proofs of concept, too. The first time you see a chess playing machine, much less something like SHRDLU, it's easy to be astonished. The devil, as always, is in the details.

>the synthetic retinas, for
>example. And there's a very strong incentive to develop
>this stuff; it'll be unbelievably profitable, for starters.

So would genuine AI, a cure for cancer, anti-gravity, and an immortality serum. I won't deny that profit is a damned fine incentive. I am skeptical that it will be feasible to clear all the necessary technical hurdles before we get to the point of deeply immersive VR.

I could be wrong, of course. Hell, I hope that I am. I don't know how old you are, so I'm not sure if you expect to be around in 2050, but I'd be happy to stake $50 on the outcome. Even if I lose, I wouldn't feel bad. :-)