I would certainly agree. AI is one thing; self-awareness, quite another. Too many of us often confuse the two.

Re-posting to eliminate typos and add content...

This sensational story is just fear mongering to the ignorant (not as a pejorative) masses. Sadly, the brilliantly heroic innovator, Elon Musk adds credibility to this crazy scenario - fear of AI. He's actually asking for government to regulate it!

There is no such thing as Artificial Intelligence if one has a reasonable definition of the word intelligence. It's an attribute of a human mind, ignoring the limited context of other animals.

The rational concept is Augmented Intelligence just as glasses augment vision, as do microscopes, telescopes and night vision goggles. Perhaps we could extend it include paintings, photos and television too. Got the idea?

AI is best understood as adding machine learning to traditional data capture, analysis and presentation. Such a system is described in a recent webinar I watched as:
AI = TD + ML + HITL, where:
. TD is Training Dataset
. ML is Machine Learning
. HITL is Human In The Loop

Training Data is the reference context. For example, cash, inventory, order flow over the last few years. In a weather context, it would be meteorological actual data. In an oceanography context it could be tide and temperature data over time.

Machine Learning could be as simple as the calculation of a moving average over time. And at another level, the pattern of change of the moving average. Then other factors that have a visual influence, like solar cycles, could be factored into a predictive system. In a more advanced system, it could change its algorithms to match the real data as it flow in over time.

Human In The Loop is us looking for useful results or the contrary. We use what's useful and change the TD and ML algorithms to better serve us.

That's the core concepts for appreciating the value of AI. The feedback loop is essential to insure we are being served.

What can we do if the gas pedal or the cruise control on our car sticks causing unwanted accelerating? How about turning off the ignition key? Same for a computer system that's automating any aspect of life. We need to monitor and adjust it. If we don't, we get other feedback - not too different than not attending to health problems until they preclude being ignored - maybe because we die.

This where the world is going - real-time data, forecasting and automated control.

Yes - just as the steering wheel of your car can be used or ignored with the obvious consequences. Soon we'll have self driving cars. We will have to learn what monitoring by HITL will be required. Most systems have alarms to get our attention to out of range results or sensor values. That's how systems have always worked since the industrial age and will need to in the future. For example, I'm seeing a low battery notification on my laptop right now. :-)

Exactly what a lot of people who grew up with that movie, and the next gen Terminator series, and the slightly earlier 2001 HAL come to mind. I am more envisioned of the kind of computer intellignece seen in Star Trek... seems capable but not pushy (except in the one episode where the computer is tied into Enterprise and kicks 4 Connie class starships butts......)

All very well, but assumes the HITL is ACTUALLY ITL. Look at "Government oversight" for an example of a control mechanism.........while this was a false alert, the quest to automet and automate and make machine learning a common device is a very scary proposition, at least for me, as the many examples of "control" and "oversight" is run into are usually the most dysfunctional parts of the machine...

Although you are indeed correct,my point was, with the quality of the education establishment, a half baked engineer can get a job and possibly do some really bad damage before someone says "maybe he shouldn't be doing that".....

I guess we only need to look for the ones named "Collosus" or "SkyNet"? :) Stories like that probably contribute to the hype, and we haven't even touched on HAL....

Thanks, Mike, for writing what I came here to write. :) I have found hype around AI is always very similar to hype about fusion or cheap and effective solar ("solar freaking roadways"). That is to say it is fueled by people who don't know the realities of the topic and usually wrapped up in a combination of paranoia and utopia.

Both thrilling and scary at the same time. Thrilling to me because I never expected such a thing to happen so soon. The scary implications are obvious, the fact that they are using English to create an indecipherable new language gives me the total creeps. Hello, Terminator 10.

This sensationalized phony "news" frightening the gullible into panic has been hyped for days. Rob Tracinski's RealClearFuture reported the phenomenon (the hyping) yesterday. Those interested in topics such as AI should subscribe to his RealClearFuture email newsletter at http://www.realclearfuture.com/

08/02/2017

Dispatches from the Future

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, ROBOTS, BITCOIN, ROBOCUP

I Am Shocked, Shocked That Reporters Got an AI Story Wrong
So you may have heard that story over the past few days about an AI simulation that was shut down in a panic after robots invented their own language that humans couldn't understand. Sounds like a Hollywood movie script, right? In a shocking development, it turns out that was overhyped by click-seeking reporters.
"Facebook had been experimenting with bots that negotiated with each other over the ownership of virtual items.

"It was an effort to understand how linguistics played a role in the way such discussions played out for negotiating parties, and crucially the bots were programmed to experiment with language in order to see how that affected their dominance in the discussion.

"A few days later, some coverage picked up on the fact that in a few cases the exchanges had become--at first glance--nonsensical. Bob: 'I can can I I everything else.' Alice: 'Balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to.'"

Read more. http://www.realclearfuture.com/2017/0...

Yeah, this looks to me like AI is still primitive and really glitchy, not like it's about to take over the world.

Here's the Eliza-Parry conversation, in RFC 439.
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc439

Sounds like something out of a movie. Colossus: The Forbin Project. Directed by Joseph Sargent. With Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, Gordon Pinsent, and William Schallert. Universal Pictures, 1970.

In it, two mega-servers, controlling the ballistic missile networks of, respectively, the USA and the USSR. demand that their creators allow them to talk to one another. Once they do, they develop an intersystem language and begin their own dialog. With the result...!

That's ok AJ, it is the stuff Sci Fi is made of....

Thank you, both articles were really good at explaining what was happening, a lot better than the original ones. The Gizmodo one though, seems to indicate that there may be a future where such bots, when they get the right language, may be common place. Just imagine if someone gets a Donald Trump hack in place....that could be bad.....:)

Nonsense. "... were being sent back and forth by the AI, and while humans have absolutely no idea what it means, the bots fully understood each other." As the humans have no idea what it means, what evidence do they have that communication was engaged? What physical actions can they point to?

The interpretation from GIZMODO is more reasoned:
http://gizmodo.com/no-facebook-did-no...

Also, of course, there is the original source: FAIR Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research here
https://research.fb.com/category/face...

Allow me to suggest that the way to understand this is to read the program that created the program. Also, it was about 1000 years ago or maybe only 50 that an ELIZA therapist program was connected to PARRY, a paranoid program.

I just posted this...sorry about that.

Yep. Messing around and not understanding that once software has the ability to self replicate and adapt, then it will do so at an amazing speed, unless they get smart and slow the clock of the system down so as to monitor what is happening.

This is interesting. I found some other articles:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-sty...
"Researchers did not shut down the programs because they were afraid of the results or had panicked, as has been suggested elsewhere, but because they were looking for them to behave differently."

One of the earliest articles is here:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technolog...

This is a road to disaster only in the way all human progress invites new forms of disaster.