DailyDirt: Thinking Machines

Computers

from the urls-we-dug-up dept

Tue, Apr 26th 2016 5:00pm — Leigh Beadon

It's a source of wonder and excitement for some, panic and concern for others, and a whole lot of cutting edge work for the people actually making it happen: artificial intelligence, the end-game for computing (and, as some would have you believe, humanity). But when you set aside the sci-fi predictions, doomsday warnings and hypothetical extremes, AI is a real thing happening all around us right now — and achieving some pretty impressive feats:

AlphaGo has already conquered the game many thought a computer never could, but can it master the more "human" game of poker? The statistics it can handle, but what about the behavioural cues? [url]
Can machines be as creative as humans? Or moreso? There's plenty of reason to believe they are already well on the way. [url]
This cluster of IBM chips mimics 16-million neurons and 4-billion synapses to provide an insanely fast platform for neural network applications. The Lawrence Livermore National Lab is seeing if it can replace more traditional supercomputers. [url]

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Filed Under: ai, algorithms, alphago, artificial intelligence, creativity, game algorithms, games, lawrence livermore national lab, machine learning, neural network, poker, supercomputers
Companies: google, ibm

12 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 26 Apr 2016 @ 6:12pm

Alphago vs human playing Starcraft
I'm looking forward to seeing Alphago play humans on Twitch.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/4c4vqr/from_wcs_shanghai_tim_morten_confirms_that _the/
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Apr 2016 @ 7:43pm

Let's see, AI has been on the cards for what 50 odd years. And for all the hype, still not there yet. We don't understand what intelligence is or what sentience is - so how the hell would we ever be able to design an artificial intelligent sentient machine form?

What we call AI is not intelligent.
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Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 26 Apr 2016 @ 8:07pm

Re: Let's see, AI has been on the cards for what 50 odd years. And for all the hype, still not there yet.
And humans have been on the planet for, what, 300,000-odd years. When will we get there, do you think?
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Apr 2016 @ 8:46pm

We all seem to keep wondering about machines being smarter and more creative than us in achieving some sort of perfection, a Platonic ideal form. But that kinda makes me wonder if they could ever manage to out-stupid us? I mean, it'd take a one magnificent mechanism to come up with anything to match the concept of something like a 'President Trump'. Suck it, Skynet: credo quia absurdum est.
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Hiro Nogano (profile), 26 Apr 2016 @ 11:02pm

Thinking machines?
I'm still waiting for thinking people.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Apr 2016 @ 2:57am

Re: Re: Let's see, AI has been on the cards for what 50 odd years. And for all the hype, still not there yet.
Well, if you are the typical example then probably never. But I have hope that some day we'll see a change for the better. Maybe when Aotearoa is globally recognised as the intellectual and artistic centre of the planet.
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Ninja (profile), 27 Apr 2016 @ 3:52am

AlphaGo can't beat humans. It can't die because it played too much.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Apr 2016 @ 4:15am

Re: Re: Re: Let's see, AI has been on the cards for what 50 odd years. And for all the hype, still not there yet.
Ya know, Larry has a point.

The human race has and continues to demonstrate their lack of intelligence on a large scale. This will eventually lead to its downfall if not corrected - yet this whole time there are those among us that think humans are really smart and have figured out everything.

The more you know, the more you realize you don't know shit.
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Udom (profile), 27 Apr 2016 @ 9:44am

The article uses an extremely narrow definition of "creative". Creativity in the brain is an extremely complex dance involving multiple specialized brain parts, most of which are in the right hemisphere where very fuzzy logic rules. Cognitive science has been learning enormous amounts about the workings of this system in the last dozen or so years thanks to fMRI machines. Its very clear that creativity needs the rational side of the brain to be idle to have a good outcome. Computers only have rational to work with. Those finding creativity in the output of computers are reading creativity into it, as children do seeing giants and horses in clouds.
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Alien Rebel (profile), 27 Apr 2016 @ 10:42am

Re:
We don't understand what intelligence is or what sentience is - so how the hell would we ever be able to design an artificial intelligent sentient machine form?

So said the multi-cellular creature; a mass of billions of cells that individually have no real understanding of the whole organism, yet when combined and organized can do amazing things-- like operate a keyboard and make simplistic pronouncements about AI on the internet.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Apr 2016 @ 10:59am

Re: Re:
And your point?

Claiming emergence doesn't suffice. The economy is made up of millions of individual people who need not understand the whole system for it to function, but it would be silly to call the Economy an intelligent, sentient lifeform.

Likewise with weather systems. Music too. Just because things are organized in a way that they can accomplish more than the sum of their parts doesn't magically bring them to life.

It seems like the modern idea in AI circles is that they'll just throw a bunch of shit together and magically the machines will be alive. No wonder our brightest minds have fled to working on better ways to get people to click on links.
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Alien Rebel (profile), 27 Apr 2016 @ 11:38am

Re: Re: Re:
the modern idea in AI circles is that they'll just throw a bunch of shit together

Yup, that's all that they're doing, those f'ing eggheaded morons.
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