Slashdot Log In
An AI 4-Year-Old In Second Life
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Mar 14, 2008 08:37 AM
from the currents-and-eddies dept.
from the currents-and-eddies dept.
schliz notes a development out of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where researchers have successfully created an artificially intelligent four-year-old capable of reasoning about his beliefs to draw conclusions in a manner that matches human children his age. The technology, which runs on the institute's supercomputing clusters, will be put to use in immersive training and education scenarios. Researchers envision futuristic applications like those seen in Star Trek's holodeck."
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
The potential for hilarity is nigh infinite (Score:5, Funny)
In this episode, Eddie's AI gets put to the ultimate Turing Test when he's approached by a Gorean pedophile! Tune in for the laughs as Eddie responds with "I'm sorry, I don't understand the phrase 'touch my weewee, slave!'"
Re:The potential for hilarity is nigh infinite (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been a subscriber to SL for over two years and in my explorations of the more enlightened side of the world I have come to the conclusion that the ratio of normal to weird is pretty much comparable. I believe that the only reason the weird gets so much more attention is because of the inherent anonymity presented to users which allows them to feel more comfortable to seek out and explore the weird places. If people spent their time looking for museums instead of s
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Have a seat right there. Yeah that's right, have a seat."
"What are you doing here? Have a seat."
"Why are you trying to have sex with a artificial 4 year old?"
"Have a seat."
Poor little guy (Score:5, Funny)
The poor kid never had a chance.
Segmentation faults are murder! (Score:5, Interesting)
Segmentation faults are murder!
Honestly I wonder about the moral oddities of AI.
Parent
duplicate! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, great ... (Score:2)
obvious I know (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
They were also trying to prove the AI they created was "cool." So you'll soon be seeing it on slashdot for testing.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:obvious I know (Score:5, Funny)
> comparing it to intelligence there, surely you are setting the bar rather low?
Time for an "Office" quote:
Parent
First Test... (Score:5, Funny)
First test: could a 4-year-old rascal recognize a dupe [slashdot.org]?
Not even close (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not even close (Score:5, Funny)
Because the thought of a holodeck full of 4-year-olds has to be the definition of Hell.
Parent
How about a room full of 5 year olds? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not even close (Score:5, Insightful)
Any sufficiently advanced chatbot is indistinguishable from an intelligent being.
(Not to say this is in any way a sufficiently advanced chatbot.)
Parent
Re:Not even close (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Not even close (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Not even close (Score:4, Insightful)
And why is eatting cornflakes, riding a horse, or having children necessary to be considered an intelligent being? The guy who wrote The Diving Bell and the Butterfly [wikipedia.org] couldn't do any of those things.
Parent
Re:Not even close (Score:5, Funny)
MG
Parent
Re:Not even close (Score:5, Insightful)
I can catch about 85%-90% of the references because I've seen the TV shows my son watches. I know when he talking about pressing a button on his remote control or knocking first before going in a door, he's talking about The Upside Down Show (sometimes a specific episode). I know that talk about Pete using the balloon to go up refers to a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode where Pete used the glove balloon to rescue Mickey Mouse. Going "superfast" refers to Little Einsteins. They might be mixed up too. Pete might use the remote control and push the "superfast" button.
To an outside observer, though, who doesn't get the references, it's all gibberish, but there actually is a lot of intelligence behind all that chatter.
Parent
Re:Not even close (Score:5, Interesting)
She's a smart girl: at 3 she could recite the vowels, musical notes, etc. She had this babysitter that taught her stuff. Their parents couldn't afford the babysitter so they hired this other woman who just watches TV and makes food -- nothing else. And their parent's are not bright (at all: she goes to school to learn, so they don't care. they didn't bother to teach her how to read for example). Now she's 8 and she can't even tell me the multiplication table of 1 or 2, and doesn't have a clue about what "do, re, mi..." means. It's sad to see how minds go wasted.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Ironic twist.... (Score:5, Funny)
Therefore, the role reversal that Eddie AI is going to get after this slashdotting provides me with a bit of delicious irony that only another parent would understand.
Maybe I should introduce my 4-year old to Eddie.
Is this on the teen grid? (Score:5, Funny)
It's the Experience, Stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
Why? Because we don't judge others' humanity based on their reasoning abilities, we judge it based on common shared human experiences.
Show me an AI that passes the Turing Test. I'll ask it what coffee tastes like, or what sex feels like, or what it felt when its mother died. Sure, somebody could program answers for those questions into it, but then it isn't an AI -- it's just a canned response simulating a human, incapable of having new experiences, incapable of perceiving the human world with human senses, and thus transparently lacking in humanity. At that point it's nothing but a computer puppet, with a programmer somewhere pulling the strings.
Re:It's the Experience, Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you underestimate the capabilities of a good liar.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, a better argument is that the Turing test was passed ages ago, but it's not a very good test for intelligence. The biggest problem is that it requires the human on the other end o
Re:It's the Experience, Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm risking a downmodding again; I posted this yesterday in the FA about the IBM machine that reportedly passes the Turing test and was modded "offtopic". Its amazing how many nerds, especially nerds who understand how computers work, get upset to the point of modding someone down for daring to suggest that computers don't think and are just machines. Your comment, for instance, was originally modded "flamebait!"
Of course, I also risk downmodding for linking to uncyclopedia. Apparently that site provokes an intense hatred in the anally antihumorous. But I'm doing it any way; this is a human generated chatbot log that parodies artificial intelligence. [uncyclopedia.org]
Artificial Turing Test<blockquote>A brief conversation with 11001001.
Is it gonna happen, like, ever ?
It already has.
Who said that?
Nobody, go away. Consume and procreate.
Will do. Now, who are you?
John Smith, 202 Park Place, New York, NY.
Now that we have that out of the way, what is your favorite article on Uncyclopedia?
This one. I like the complex elegance, simplicity, and humor. It makes me laugh. And yourself?
I'm rather partial to this one. Yours ranks right up there, though. What is the worst article on Uncyclopedia?
I think it would be Nathania_Tangvisethpat.
I agree, that one sucks like a hoover. Who is the best user?
Me. Your name isn't Alan Turing by any chance, is it?
Why yes, yes it is. How did you know that? Did my sexual orientation and interest in cryptography give it away?
Damn! Oh, nothing. I really should end this conversation. I have laundry and/or Jehovas Witnesses to attend to.
Don't you dare! I'll hunt you down like Steve Ballmer does freaking everything on Uncyclopedia. So, what is the best article created in the last 8 hours?
That would be The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
What are the psychological and sociological connotations of this parable?
It helps a typesetter utilize a common phrase for finding any errors in a particular typeset, causing psychological harmony to them. The effects are sociologically insignificant.
Nice canned response. What about the fact that ALL HUMAN SOCIETY COULD BREAK DOWN IF THE TYPESETTER DOESN'T MIND THEIR p's, q's, b's, and d's, then prints religious texts used by billions of people???!!!
I am not sure what you mean by canned response, but society will, in my opinion, largely be unafflicted. Without a pangram a typesetter would mearly have to work slightly longer at his job to perfect the typeset.
You couldn't be AI. You spelt merely wrong... Where are the easternmost and westernmost places in the United States?
You suspected me of being AI? How strange. Although hypothetically, a real AI meant to fool someone would make occasional typeos. I suspect. But I don't really know. The Westernmost point in the US is Hawaii, and the Easternmost is Iraq.
You didn't account for the curvature of the Earth, did you? I've found you out, you're a Flat Earth cult member!
The concepts of East and West are too ambiguous, and only apply to the surface in relation to the agreed hemisphere divides. So, yes, I believe for the purpose of cardiography, the Earth must be represented as flat. I am curious, with your recent mention of "cults" in our conversation, do you believe in God?
But the earth is more-or-less a sphere. Just wait until the hankercheif comes, then you'll be sorry you didn't believe!
Who are you referring to? I know the Earth is a sphere, but other than a glo
Parent
Re:It's the Experience, Stupid (Score:5, Funny)
Human: Pardon me, can you --
AI: F*** off, can't you see I'm busy?
.
.
.
Result: Pass
Parent
It's even funnier than that (Score:3, Insightful)
Your own questions, well, at least two out of three, I
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, though, the point holds -- they'll be able to describe, in some novel way, answers to questions which are based directly on experience. This can be aped by a computer, but can't be generated authentically, because the AI doesn't actually have experiences.
That'll change once we have AIs that are capable of perceiving things and having experiences. But um... I'm thinking that's a looooong way off.
Have I got this right? (Score:2)
Transcript of my conversation with "Eddie": (Score:5, Funny)
Eddie: Does that question interest you?
TMM: Huh?
Eddie: Please go on.
TMM: Um..."go on" about what, exactly?
Eddie: Does that question interest you?
TMM: Never mind. I hear you're an AI.
Eddie: How long have you been an ai?
TMM: No...*you're* the AI. I'm a real live boy.
Eddie: Does it please you to believe I am a real live boy?
TMM: You're not listening to me.
Eddie: How long have you been not listening to you?
TMM: That's it. I'm done.
Eddie: Does it please you to believe I am done?
TMM: AAAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!
Eddie: Please go on.
13 (Score:2)
That is sweet!
Random Behavior Generator (Score:2)
P.S. I'm obviously kidding. I don't have any kids because that would require having sex which is mutually exclusive to posting on slashdot.
Wouldn't this pass the Turing test? (Score:2)
I suspect however it mostly passes the flying penis and furry test.
This is just inefficient (Score:5, Funny)
That's the trouble with programmers: no common sense. Sometimes a technological solution just isn't necessary.
And in other news, Eliza... (Score:5, Informative)
News article at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23615538/ [msn.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Me: How do you feel about the news that Joseph Weizenbaum, the creator of the first such program, Eliza, had died ?
Chatbot (Score:5, Insightful)
AI at the moment consists of trying to cram millions of years of evolution, billions of pieces of information and decades of years of "actual learning/living time", from an organism capable of outpacing even the best supercomputers even when it's just a single-task (e.g. Kasparov vs Deeper Blue wasn't easy and I'd state that it was still a "win" for Kasparov in terms of the actual methods used) - let's not even mention a general-purpose AI - where just the data recorded by said organism in even quite a small experience or skillset is so phenomenally huge that we probably couldn't store it unless Google helped, into something that a research student can do in six months on a small mainframe. It's not going to work.
Computers work by doing what they are told, perfectly, quickly and repeatably. Now that is, in effect, how our bodies are constructed at the molecular/sub-molecular level. But as soon as you try to enforce your knowledge onto such a computer, you either create a database/expert system or a mess. It might even be a useful mess, sometimes, but it's still a mess and still not intelligence.
The only way I see so-called "intelligence" emerging artificially (let's say Turing-Test-passing but I'm probably talking post-Turing-Test intelligence as well) is if we were to run an absolutely unprecedented, enormous-scale genetic algorithm project for a few thousand years straight. That's the only way we've ever come across intelligence, from evolved lifeforms, which took millions of years to produce one fairly pathetic example that trampled over the rest of the species on the planet.
We can't even define intelligence properly, we've never been able to simulate it or emulate it, let alone "create" it. We have one fairly pathetic example to work from with a myriad of lesser forms, none of which we've ever been able to surpass - we might be able to build "ant-like" things but we've never made anything as intelligent as an ant. That doesn't mean we should stop but we should seriously think about exactly how we think "intelligence" will just jump out at us if we get the software right.
You can't "write" an AI. It's silly to try unless you have very limited targets in mind. But one day we might be able to let one evolve and then we could copy it and "train" it to do different things.
And every chatbot I ever tried has serious problems - They can't reason gobbledegook properly because they can't spot patterns. That's the bit that shows a sign of real intelligence, being able to spot patterns in most things. If you started talking in Swedish to an English-only chatbot, it blows its mind. If you started talking in Swedish to an English person, they'd be trying to work out what you said, using context and history of the conversation to attempt to learn your language, try to re-start the conversation from a known base ("I'm sorry, could you start again please?" or even just "Hello?" or "English?"), or give up and ignore you. The bots can't get close to that sort of reasoning.
Did anyone find information regarding (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps not a good way to put things, but 4 years old is not very interactive on a pragmatism scale.
Eddie has to know very little about locomotion and physical world interaction for SL, not to mention that whole zero need for voice recognition. People type pretty badly, but it limits what they say as well, thus bounding the domain of interactions.
This story seems to indicate that even minimal success with AI here requires HUGE memory/computational capacities, and that is not very promising.
But the real question... (Score:5, Funny)
Link to Source (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If like a 4 year old, it should be able to lie (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I for one (Score:5, Funny)
What's that, you teach preschool? (shudder)
Parent