Programming Pioneer Grady Booch on Functional Programming, Web3, and Conscious Machines (infoworld.com) 76
InfoWorld interviews Grady Booch, chief scientist for software engineering at IBM Research (who is also a pioneer in design patterns, agile methods, and one of the creators of UML).
Here's some of the highlights: Q: Let me begin by asking something "of the moment." There has been an almost cultural war between object-oriented programming and functional programming. What is your take on this?
Booch: I had the opportunity to conduct an oral history with John Backus — one of the pioneers of functional programming — in 2006 on behalf of the Computer History Museum. I asked John why functional programming didn't enter the mainstream, and his answer was perfect: "Functional programming makes it easy to do hard things" he said, "but functional programming makes it very difficult to do easy things...."
Q: Would you talk a bit about cryptography and Web3?
Booch: Web3 is a flaming pile of feces orbiting a giant dripping hairball. Cryptocurrencies — ones not backed by the full faith and credit of stable nation states — have only a few meaningful use cases, particularly if you are a corrupt dictator of a nation with a broken economic system, or a fraud and scammer who wants to grow their wealth at the expense of greater fools. I was one of the original signatories of a letter to Congress in 2022 for a very good reason: these technologies are inherently dangerous, they are architecturally flawed, and they introduce an attack surface that threatens economies....
Q: What do you make of transhumanism?
Booch: It's a nice word that has little utility for me other than as something people use to sell books and to write clickbait articles....
Q: Do you think we'll ever see conscious machines? Or, perhaps, something that compels us to accept them as such?
Booch: My experience tells me that the mind is computable. Hence, yes, I have reason to believe that we will see synthetic minds. But not in my lifetime; or yours; or your children; or your children's children. Remember, also, that this will likely happen incrementally, not with a bang, and as such, we will co-evolve with these new species.
Here's some of the highlights: Q: Let me begin by asking something "of the moment." There has been an almost cultural war between object-oriented programming and functional programming. What is your take on this?
Booch: I had the opportunity to conduct an oral history with John Backus — one of the pioneers of functional programming — in 2006 on behalf of the Computer History Museum. I asked John why functional programming didn't enter the mainstream, and his answer was perfect: "Functional programming makes it easy to do hard things" he said, "but functional programming makes it very difficult to do easy things...."
Q: Would you talk a bit about cryptography and Web3?
Booch: Web3 is a flaming pile of feces orbiting a giant dripping hairball. Cryptocurrencies — ones not backed by the full faith and credit of stable nation states — have only a few meaningful use cases, particularly if you are a corrupt dictator of a nation with a broken economic system, or a fraud and scammer who wants to grow their wealth at the expense of greater fools. I was one of the original signatories of a letter to Congress in 2022 for a very good reason: these technologies are inherently dangerous, they are architecturally flawed, and they introduce an attack surface that threatens economies....
Q: What do you make of transhumanism?
Booch: It's a nice word that has little utility for me other than as something people use to sell books and to write clickbait articles....
Q: Do you think we'll ever see conscious machines? Or, perhaps, something that compels us to accept them as such?
Booch: My experience tells me that the mind is computable. Hence, yes, I have reason to believe that we will see synthetic minds. But not in my lifetime; or yours; or your children; or your children's children. Remember, also, that this will likely happen incrementally, not with a bang, and as such, we will co-evolve with these new species.
I dont get why his answer re functional prog is so (Score:2)
Re: I dont get why his answer re functional prog i (Score:2)
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am I missing sthg obvipus o everyone?
Yes.
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FP harder to debug (Score:2)
Functional programming has been around for approximately 60 years, and keeps failing to become mainstream.
I believe the main reason is that it's harder to debug. The "intermediate state" that FP philosophy slams is actually great for debugging. While FP can emulate state, it's usually not as good. For example, with procedural programming, your intermediate state has labels, such as variable names. Emulated state won't, leaving you guessing intent.
Maybe FP fans make less bugs, and/or are better at reading co
Is the Mind Computable? (Score:4, Informative)
"My experience tells me that the mind is computable."
I wonder what experience tells him this is so. As near as I can tell, we don't understand what consciousness is. We don't know how human memory works. We certainly don't have anything like a usable theory of general intelligence.
At the moment, what we don't know pretty much overwhelms what we do know. That being the case,, I think he'd be on more solid ground if he said something like he believes that the mind is computable. That's exactly the kind of faith that a rationally religious person has. Based on what they know of the world, they believe that the mind is computable, even though they cannot see it directly at the moment.
Re: Is the Mind Computable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Is the Mind Computable? (Score:4, Interesting)
Just look at the existing AI models. Researchers were surprised that by training it on generalized knowledge of lots of things that it was able to solve problems it wasn't specifically trained to do. That ethereal unexplainably complex set of interactions could very well be what consciousness is. The culmination of a lot of tiny parameters interacting in a way that they suddenly becomes a feedback loop that creates consciousness. We don't even know when that occurs. It's very possible that consciousness spark doesn't happen until after birth or even later. Why can't we generally remember things before a certain age? How can we be sure that we have a consciousness at that point?
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Researchers were surprised that by training it on generalized knowledge of lots of things that it was able to solve problems it wasn't specifically trained to do.
Nope. Nobody competent was actually surprised. This is a base-function of statistical models.
That ethereal unexplainably complex set of interactions could very well be what consciousness is.
Nope. You are advocating that consciousness is spontaneously created from nothing. That is about as sophisticated as the way Frankensteins monster was brought to life.
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>Nope. You are advocating that consciousness is spontaneously created from nothing. That is about as sophisticated as the way Frankensteins monster was brought to life.
You're just so easily able to dismiss it. Who's right? We don't know
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You are correct, "there's no reason to think it would be functionally identical to biological organisms". In fact there is zero reason to believe so. Also note that we cannot even create a single living cell.
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Yes, the experience of "what's it like" is unlikely to be computable at least with present tools and methods.
How does hardware/software feel pain? Sure, you can read a temperature and assign callbacks to react when certain thresholds are met - but that would be akin to a philosophical zombie.
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Q: Do you think we'll ever see conscious machines? Or, perhaps, something that compels us to accept them as such?
The forward operation of neural nets is inspired by biological neurons, but how biological nets are trained is something of a mystery. In my experience, valence (experience of pleasant and unpleasant) is related to learning (e.g. I've only touched glowing hot metal once!). So, perhaps it's possible to achieve the same result as a human mind, even though the training mechanism to develop that mind doesn't rely on qualia.
That would fit the definition of psychological
Re:Is the Mind Computable? (Score:5, Insightful)
"My experience tells me that the mind is computable."
I wonder what experience tells him this is so.
We understand the general function of the fundamental building block of the brain, the neuron. What it does can be broken down into an algorithm and thus computable.
As near as I can tell, we don't understand what consciousness is. We don't know how human memory works. We certainly don't have anything like a usable theory of general intelligence.
The only way these things could NOT be computable is if they are based upon something other than matter. The brain is an amazing bioelectrochemical organ but if it's only made of matter then it's functionality can be quantified and thus is computable. So, unless you are prepared to declare that the soul is the source of consciousness then there is no reason to believe the human mind cannot be broken down into mathematics.
At the moment, what we don't know pretty much overwhelms what we do know.
Historically, that hasn't stopped us from progressing toward our goals.
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You're assuming that all matter is quantifiable.
Actually, no, I'm not. I'm assuming that interaction of the molecules that make up the human brain can be quantified. There is no reason to assume they cannot be and you should be ashamed of yourself for not thinking this problem through.
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There is no reason to assume they cannot be...
[except for Quantum theory]
Incorrect. The probabilistic nature of matter only occurs when it is isolated and therefore unobserved. Since we are talking about molecules, no part is probabilistic. Unless you have something specific to contribute, this conversation is over.
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there is no reason to believe the human mind cannot be broken down into mathematics.
There is no reason to believe the opposite. For example, the halting problem is unsolvable using computers, consciousness could fall in the same category (and it doesn't imply there is a soul thing). Plus, tech bros are notoriously know to downside the complexity of biological life and even physical laws for some reason. We all know the Dunning-Kruger effect but we still fall for it
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Describe beauty with mathematics.
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There is an (inherently not provable) general theorem for Mathematics, namely Incompleteness. It says that there are always true things in any mathematical theory of sufficient complexity that cannot be proven within that theory. Hence even Mathematics cannot be fully described using Mathematics.
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Do you have an example of a device that can solve the halting problem?
Because I have an example of a device that solves the mind problem.
There's a reason uncomputable problems are all pretty abstract math problems and not physical phenomena.
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We understand the general function of the fundamental building block of the brain, the neuron.
Nope, we actually do not for human neurons. Too complex and there will be a ton of effects in there we do not know about.
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More than that. For a physical phenomenon to be non-computable, at least in the strong sense, it needs some kind of inaccessible input from somewhere else. Descartes' inter-dimensional portal or the literal hand of God.
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Based on what they know of the world, they believe that the mind is computable, even though they cannot see it directly at the moment.
Creating an artificial mind is essentially a reverse-engineering problem, since it's basically a matter of implementing something that evolution has already accomplished. This isn't warp drive where you need to rewrite the laws of physics, nature has already done it.
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"Creating an artificial mind is essentially a reverse-engineering problem"
One has to admit, however, that Materialism has some genuine weaknesses as an explanation for consciousness. Sure, you can mimic the human mind at work, but that's not a working mind, it's just a mirror. "Evolution" doesn't explain origins, it only explains downstream adjustments and modifications.
I remember well when "the singularity" was just around the corner. Futurists would extrapolate the number of computations per second to the
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Sure, you can mimic the human mind at work, but that's not a working mind, it's just a mirror.
Why do you believe that? It's an awfully strong statement that needs justification. If we created a completely accurate reproduction of a human brain in silicon, and if it behaved exactly like a human, why would you think it wasn't a working mind? Why would you think it wasn't conscious?
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Good example with the pizza and the doughnuts. Quantity is not quality. Far too many people are not smart enough to see that though.
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This isn't warp drive where you need to rewrite the laws of physics, nature has already done it.
Following your logic, it doesn't seem hard to rewrite laws of physics. One universe with a set of specifics rules already emerged in the past, what is stopping us from creating other universes?
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That's an absolutely terrible analogy. People are already creating sentient life the old fashioned biological way. No one is going around giving birth to universes.
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Only if you are a Physicalist. Which is religion, not Science.
Obviously Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder what experience tells him this is so.
Basic common sense. The human mind is a physical machine, albeit the most complex one we have ever encountered. It stands to reason that given sufficiently advanced technology we could build a similar machine simply because it is possible. Anything that is possible in nature is something we can do ourselves given enough effort and knowledge.
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Re: Obviously Yes (Score:1)
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Nonsense. That is a quasi-religious belief (Physicalism) which has no scientific or even rational basis. You just pray to the machine God and then ascribes unlimited power to it.
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Nonsense. That is a quasi-religious belief (Physicalism) which has no scientific or even rational basis.
You might want to look up the definition of science before making statements like this that make you look silly.
His arrogance says so... (Score:1)
I wonder what experience tells him this is so. As near as I can tell, we don't understand what consciousness is.
Any blowhard who thinks they can predict anything based on the baseless knowledge we have "accumulated" in 200 years is a moron and egoist.
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It depends whether we mean, mind or consciousness. I think mind in the sense of a structure, which processes inputs, and creates outputs, like being able to recognise something edible in nature, and engage in behaviours to obtain food, or following the social rules of the tribe, and behaving appropriately, then all of that is effectively just computation in wetware.
The distinction with consciousness, that consciousness is separate to mind as a computation, is illustrated in the philosophical notion of the z
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Computation can continue regardless, but just to emphasise the point, there's absolutely no need for any human entity to be sentient. We could all be zombies and from the outside Earth and human civilisation could be exactly the same.
That seems unlikely. One question: Why would the zombies be discussing consciousness?
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Computation can continue regardless, but just to emphasise the point, there's absolutely no need for any human entity to be sentient. We could all be zombies and from the outside Earth and human civilisation could be exactly the same.
That seems unlikely. One question: Why would the zombies be discussing consciousness?
I like the question. If you search "philosophical zombies" there's lots of material, mainly David Chalmers who wrote about it. I don't know if he answers that question.
But it reminds me there's other things we seem to have concepts for but which aren't experienced, like "god" or "invisible hand of the market".
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Actually, that we can discuss consciousness is a rather ttring indicator that consciousness can influence physical reality. And hence there is rather strong need for at least a number of humans throughout history to be conscious. Does not apply to all of them, and by such inane arguments as yours I guess you may not qualify. But still. There are other mental qualities only a faction of the human race has. For example only about 10..15% are independent thinkers, the rest believes what they are told or make u
Re:Is the Mind Computable? (Score:4, Interesting)
I love the circularity.
"Machines can not be conscious."
Me: Can you please define what you mean by consciousness?
"We have no idea what consciousness is."
Me: So how can you say machines cannot be conscious?
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I love the circularity.
"Machines can not be conscious."
Me: Can you please define what you mean by consciousness?
"We have no idea what consciousness is."
Me: So how can you say machines cannot be conscious?
I don't think I said or implied that machines cannot be conscious. I think that's an open question. Especially because we don't know what consciousness is.
What I was trying to say is that, just because brains compute and machines compute, doesn't mean machines will have to be conscious, because brains don't have to be conscious to compute. Consider for example, everything that your brain and nervous system are doing to keep the body running whist you are fast asleep, not experiencing anything.
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We don't know what consciousness is, but that doesn't mean we have no idea. This article [scientificamerican.com] gives a good summary of the state of the field. We know a lot about what parts of the brain are responsible for consciousness. There are physical properties we can measure that correlate strongly with level of consciousness. We have concrete mathematical theories for what consciousness is. We don't yet know which of those theories is correct, but we have the tools to keep making progress on figuring out.
I suspect B
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Probably his experience with other sciences, where much of the rest of biology, chemistry and physics has shown to be computable. For millennia, there have persisted bizarre rumors that parts of reality simply cannot be rationally understood. But time and time again, this proves false, or at least much falser than originally believed.
For whatever silly reason, he believes that the brain is not a lone, miraculous, extremely-unexpected weird e
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As near as I can tell, we don't understand what consciousness is. We don't know how human memory works. We certainly don't have anything like a usable theory of general intelligence.
At the moment, what we don't know pretty much overwhelms what we do know.
You are correct. In fact, the current standard model of Physics prohibits consciousness except as a completely passive observer that can have no impact on physical reality at all (which it clearly is not or we would not even talk about it as there would be no reason to). There simply is no mechanism for it at all. That is a rather huge elephant in the room. Physicalists either ignore it or come up with the most ridiculously tortured "arguments" why this is not an issue. These are typically pretty similar to
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It's pretty awkward to decide something is non-computable when you have several billion devices sitting around computing it all day.
Wrong question (Score:4, Interesting)
I asked John why functional programming didn't enter the mainstream, and his answer was perfect: "Functional programming makes it easy to do hard things" he said, "but functional programming makes it very difficult to do easy things...."
The question is wrong. Functional programming has been entering the mainstream piece by piece for decades. C included parts of functional programming, for example. Almost every language now includes pieces of functional programming.
The only thing that hasn't entered the mainstream is the idea that nothing is mutable, because if nothing is mutable, then the program literally can't do anything. But the idea of using 'const' as much as possible is common.
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if nothing is mutable, then the program literally can't do anything
This is a non-sequitor.
Spreadsheet macros are a form of functional programming that many people can relate to. When you write a spreadsheet function, the "variables" (cell references) are immutable, from the perspective of the function. If you write the formula =SUM(A1:B1), you can't change the values of A1 and B1, you can only read them. But that doesn't mean the function can't do anything. It's not that the values themselves can't change, it's that the function can't change them. This is a good illustrati
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The question is wrong. Functional programming has been entering the mainstream piece by piece for decades. C included parts of functional programming, for example. Almost every language now includes pieces of functional programming.
I'm pretty sure that in C you can treat a function as a first class data object so technically... it'd be a 'functional' language from way way back!
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I'm pretty sure that in C you can treat a function as a first class data object so technically... it'd be a 'functional' language from way way back!
Intentionally. They chose the parts of Lisp that they liked (or that they thought could be implement efficiently). You can also see influence from the "functional programming language style" in Unix with the pipe operator (ie, output from one function into another function, one after another).
My faith in humanity is restored (Score:1)
Web3 is a flaming pile of feces orbiting a giant dripping hairball. etc...
Indeed.
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Isn't Web3 RedHat's raison d'Ãtre? I's sure that's going to make him popular...
Short and Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
I agree with all points, except for Booch's assertions regarding Web3: If the pile of feces were indeed flaming, there would be an output of energy in the form of warmth etc. The Web3 that I have seen, however, consolidates and consumes more than it creates.
I hereby submit that Web3 is a black hole of feces.
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Re: Short and Sweet (Score:2)
You are right and I am wrong.
I like this guy! (Score:2)
conscious machine (Score:2)
Unless someone provides a mathematical definition of consciousness, it is impossible to determine if a machine is conscious or not. Without it, the concept of consciousness is completely subjective, so what one person considers to be conscious, another might not.
The question also misses the point of AI.
See, the goal of aeronautics has never been "to fly like a bird". If it was, then all our planes would be failures because none of them flap their winds. Instead, the goal in aeronautics is to fly from
Re: conscious machine (Score:2)
Mod parent up. An important insight/reminder.