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Messages - Eagleon

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1021
General Discussion / Re: Killing AI's
« on: October 12, 2010, 02:47:34 pm »
Quote from: alway on October 12, 2010, 02:35:34 pm
Modern supercomputers are still below the computation needed to run a human mind (brains are highly paralell processors), let alone enough to populate a game world.
Maybe. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20017826-264.html Kurzweil (admittedly possibly biased) estimates the human brain at 20 petaflops. That's with all the extra hardware it's running as well. We're getting there fast. It's more complicated than that, if you consider memory overhead, direction of approach (experimental consciousness will have an easier time of it than simulation-based approaches like IBM's Blue Brain), and anything extra you're adding on top of it, but...

1022
General Discussion / Re: Killing AI's
« on: October 12, 2010, 02:32:48 pm »
When it can formulate a plan, however crude, for it to stop us.

This is exactly why I think AI should be anthropomorphised from the beginning, as far as we're able. It may give the designers nightmares, but it'll make us stop to think what we're doing to it. Conveniently, this is exactly what a human needs to develop a social connection and begin learning all those useful things like language and logical association.

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General Discussion / Re: PeTA
« on: October 11, 2010, 07:40:39 pm »
Quote from: Nivm on October 11, 2010, 04:25:34 pm
  Psychology will march on without you. The scale will inevitably be changed, likely revised many times, dividing into groups and who knows what else. But you aught to start with some measure, and we do have methods of measure for single individuals of a species. Just like humans, scores will change with time and conditions.
 Or DJ's mockery, whichever you prefer.
Psychology is leaning towards useful intelligence being an artifact of sensory feedback and emotional learning, rather than a thing that can exist by itself. You can say, for instance, that a person that knows everything about calculus is smarter than a person that writes books, at any level, and be perfectly right in some models. Then you can turn around and select another that says the writer is exhibiting more advanced intelligence. The problem is, the complexity or uniqueness or whateverness of a behavior is very difficult to quantify objectively. We're better off studying the common origin of both behaviors. Trying to produce a measure for intelligence is meaningless when we still don't completely understand its origin, like trying to decide what color gravity is.

Situational analysis is far more useful for something with needs than accumulated facts (look at CYC, or any number of other expert systems, compared to just about any animal or human), and both require motive and sensation. We happen to excel at both, but you don't learn to do anything without rewards. No stimulus (internal or external) = no thought. If you're never hungry, you never eat, and if you never eat, or drink, or sleep, or feel pain, you're not alive or sapient in any sense of the word.

(sorry to derail the derailment o.o *steps aside*)

1024
General Discussion / Re: PeTA
« on: October 11, 2010, 11:38:02 am »
Quote from: Nivm on October 10, 2010, 07:42:56 pm
Intelligence (of any variety) exists in steps; you need a floating point integer (0.24, 24.98, 7.021, 90.1), not a boolean (1, 0), to begin quantifying these steps. We already have identified many signs that may suggest what relative numbers we could assign to each individual of each species.
 One of those signs mentioned here was the individuals reaction to a mirror (...), and whether or not they understand they perceive themselves and not another of their species. Humans tend to ~score high in this test; parakeets fail it almost every time.
 Another sign of intelligence is the [MEMORY_LOST] test, where you are offered a choice of 3 doors (or cups) and told (truthfully) that behind one of them is a prize, behind the others, nothing. When you make a decision, the teller opens one of the other doors (picks up one of the cups) and asks you if you want to stick with your decision or switch to the other remaining door (cup). Humans tend to fail this test about 70% time, while pigeons tend to succeed about 60%. (I found this puzzle on the xkcd forums, found the research on it afterwards.)
 In the above, what answer would you pick?

 It is true I'm totally skipping the "morals" part of this discussion because those things are usually insane and a pain to quantify.
I take issue with quantifying it at all. It's an extremely complex and derivative thing, I think a bit like defining what a 'planet' is, or trying to say which predator is best (lol Animal Face Off). Emotional and motive response is much easier to ascertain - barring the argument that it's impossible to verify scientifically whether animals have feelings, it's pretty likely they do considering they share almost everything we do and we evolved from them. From motive and sensory feedback you get behavior and learning, and from behavior and learning you get intelligence. Setting an arbitrary point of complexity for behavior that is intelligent 'enough' to be of value is just that - arbitrary. What use do most animals have for identifying themselves in reflections? What use do we have for identifying the scent of a rabbit in the grass?

The morality of it to me? I won't argue that our type of intelligence is incredibly adaptive and useful (in fact I believe it's developed to the point where it's become a new type of evolution), but so what? If usefulness, or even conversational ability were a valid criteria for life and death choices we'd have no issue with slaughtering old people and the terminally ill.
Quote from: Eugenitor on October 11, 2010, 06:31:08 am
I don't think we want to go back to the original topic, but if tigers were the ones with opposable thumbs and the neocortex, would they really have a PETA? Or would they just have a campaign to preserve endangered species so future generations would get a share of that delicious monkey meat?
Hey, we want to preserve tigers because they're pretty to us (honestly, that's the biggest thing going for AR efforts), so maybe they'd have sampler trays at their meetings instead of artfully-composed dramatic photographs. Would probably be more effective for us, too, but it'll never happen.

1025
General Discussion / Re: PeTA
« on: October 09, 2010, 02:57:18 pm »
Quote from: MetalSlimeHunt on October 09, 2010, 02:49:11 pm
What I meant was that we should treat species like the species they are instead of like humans (which is what PETA advocates), and this will help resolve our issues with them. Like in the example about dogs I gave. As for canibalism, very few species practice it, although with humans it has been both present and not between different societies. Suprisingly enough, using your own population as a food source doesn't tend to assist survival.
*nods* And I agree completely. The question is, how are those species to be treated when they clearly object to being killed, the same way humans do.

You can make a solid argument for cannibalism vs survival. We have a large population over reproductive age, many of whom are retired. We could potentially tap that to feed more people that are younger. Assuming we can overcome the loss of skill that would result (big assumption, I know), and lacking pressures such as prions, wouldn't it make sense to butcher and eat everyone over 50? It's just a question of logic - no one would seriously advocate it - but when you're talking about survival and bias towards intelligence I think it's interesting.

1026
General Discussion / Re: PeTA
« on: October 09, 2010, 02:37:52 pm »
Quote from: MetalSlimeHunt on October 09, 2010, 02:05:26 pm
My point? We have to treat animals like (get ready, as this might blow your mind) animals. That's it. Nothing more.
That's a bit of a strange statement to me. Humans are animals too, literally. Same biological systems, bigger brain. I think that's entirely more profound than "Omg animals can think sort of like us only not." We're really not too different when it comes down to it, we've just made systems that are relatively complex compared to other tool-users. So we have to figure out what animals (including humans) should be treated like considering this. Regardless of whether they have it wrong or right, PETA, et. al. is interesting because they've pushed us towards that. If we're willing to eat animals, and not willing to eat humans, we should look closely at that bias and figure out whether it's harmful.

I'd really like to see vat-grown meat. Not just because I like animals, but because it's awesome, and keeping large amounts of livestock in a small space is terrible in some cases for the local environment. I'd also be completely for 'uplifting' animal species, or creating new ones, because it'd be cool to have different perspectives and it's about as close as we'll probably ever get to alien life.

I have yet to find an organization with similar views. Maybe that's a good thing, considering the impact PETA has had on animal rights hurf.

1027
DF Announcements / Re: A Terror to Behold: A Threetoe Story
« on: October 09, 2010, 12:52:31 pm »
Awesome :) Eventually you guys should publish a compilation of these in dead tree form, complete with analysis and some extra DF-related stuff (maybe some nice handy references from the wiki), in a nice hardcover binding with fan-art. Would be epic, besides the gouging from self-publishing printer services.

1028
DF Suggestions / Re: Who wants a body massage? (useless jobs to enhance the lives of others)
« on: October 09, 2010, 02:14:11 am »
Quote from: Ultimuh on October 08, 2010, 11:54:03 pm
Quote from: cappstv on October 08, 2010, 11:36:18 pm
OH MY GOD
WHAT IF SONGS COULD BE READ LIKE HOW YOU LOOK AT ENGRAVINGS!
OMG OMG OMG OMG!
IMAGINE ALL THE POSSIBILITIES!

"This song is an image of circles."

Or something like that, but yes, songs of epic battles of Bronze collosi crushing dwarves.
There were threats of random poetry made before so I doubt it's out of the question. There are rhyming dictionaries available to use in programs, etc. I'd love to see some of the silly covers that would come out of the more musical members of the forums as a result.

1029
General Discussion / Re: PeTA
« on: October 08, 2010, 07:06:24 pm »
Quote from: Kagus on October 08, 2010, 04:57:59 pm
I'd also like to add something else.  If you had something in mind to post after just seeing the thread title, please don't post it.  If you saw a message forming in your mind, whatever that message may have been, before even clicking on the link and waiting for the thread to open, I implore you to discard it immediately.  One of the absolute worst contributors to a raging argument is impulsivity.  Regardless of how calm or level-headed you may feel or you may think your message is, please think it through carefully before posting.  Impulsive posts can cause equal or even greater damage than aggressive posts that were carefully thought out, and are an almost certain recipe for disaster.
It's funny because everything you said popped into my head when I saw PETA as the thread title.

I don't mind their ideology much. It's not a difficult concept for me that animals can suffer and that intelligence is not necessarily of primary concern for determining what rights something has. They're just fucking terrible at actually getting their points across with any intelligence or good poise.

That said, I am a cuteitarian. I will eat anything that is not cute or potentially friends 4eva. It's just as biased as not eating intelligent things.

1030
Creative Projects / Re: In which I cook
« on: October 05, 2010, 10:21:58 pm »
Not authentic whatsoever tandoori mushroom chicken - a tongue-in-cheek culinary experience.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1031
General Discussion / Re: Genetically-engineered salmon
« on: October 04, 2010, 07:32:12 pm »
The problem is that roundup is (not yet) a pervasive strain on other plants in the environment, meaning there is no evolutionary advantage to being resistant to it besides on farmer's fields. That's a problem for farmers, not ecology - you'll have mustard (which is already a pain in the ass to get rid of, coming from working in a garden when I was younger) possibly crowding out food species. Add to that the fact that it's being crossed with a food plant that has been grown for centuries, so all opportunity has been had for the crossing of mustard with rape to mess with the ecosystem long since.

It might not be reliable, but my point still remains - he linked us to the original report on the incident. He also didn't just glance over counter arguments. There's a significant amount of weight applied to fear of GM in the Guardian's article. At least that's my subjective opinion.

1032
General Discussion / Re: Genetically-engineered salmon
« on: October 04, 2010, 06:48:53 pm »
Quote from: Phmcw on October 04, 2010, 03:21:14 pm
And way more relevant : http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/jul/25/gm.food
To those who said that gmo crop couldn't affect other species, it just did.
Er. It 'just' did in 2005 you mean? Here is an article I found on it that makes some interesting arguments. It also manages to link to the original report, something most anti-GM news articles lack, conspicuously. Does this bother anyone else? More and more, news organizations seem to trust in their reader's disinterest in the facts and forget about citing sources, even in print.

Anyway. It also has a link to an article about a coca plant that developed round-up resistance, which is particularly interesting to me - http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/columbia.html

I couldn't find anything else on the herbicide-resistant mustard in question, but I didn't look too much. Anyone else?

1033
Life Advice / Re: SO I'M CONSIDERING ENGINEERING
« on: October 03, 2010, 11:54:03 pm »
I can personally only recommend UW-Platteville, but that's because I don't trust other people to recommend schools. In my opinion it's best if you figure out what you want from a school first, visit a few that seem like good fits (there's at least one excellent guide available that has a number of features listed in review-ish format, forget what it's called, and I can't imagine Canada lacks one), talk to the professors you'd be with (if you can't, or they refuse to set up an appointment, that's a really bad sign, as you're going to be working with them for a long time)

I have the opposite experience with pricey vs. non - I was considering Northwestern, one of the best journalism schools in the US, for technical writing (I wanted to be the guy editing reports for engineers, weirdly enough), and then I visited it, and I realized I'd hate it. Then I checked out Platteville (a state school, though one of the better in general for engineering) for their engineering physics program, and it just clicked much better. Smaller campus, friendlier teachers, places to get away from people (Northwestern is interweaved with Chicago, while at Platteville you can smell horses from their music building and walk everywhere), and a promising technical advantage.

Of course I only stayed there for like a month and a half before my emerging bipolar fucked things over for me, but it's still something to consider. If you don't like your college, you hate your professors, you can't get any help from people you do like, and you're working non-stop to keep up with financial obligations, your academic experience is going to suffer, badly. Plenty of people from modest schools go on to do exceptional engineering. It comes from the heart <3<3

Forgive me, I haven't much sleep.

1034
General Discussion / Re: Prostitution leagal in Canada (soon)
« on: October 03, 2010, 11:36:15 pm »
Reconciling my aversion to supporting more sex as business with the reality of slavery is difficult. It's not really a far step to having it a prominent part of our culture. I don't want that in the same sense that I don't think basketball or football playing should be considered anything more than a well-paid hobby - people should do more interesting things, IMO. But you can't ban football, and you definitely can't ban sex, and as has been said some people will always have the desire to sell themselves (and who am I to restrict their liberty?), so I don't think I could not support this. This, alongside real sex education.

1035
General Discussion / Re: Program or be Programmed
« on: October 02, 2010, 02:27:01 pm »
Quote from: Shrugging Khan on October 02, 2010, 01:38:51 pm
Saying that the programmers are the elite of today is like saying confederate cotton slaves were the elite of back then (and there). Just because somebody provides for a society's basic needs doesn't make them powerful.
Yes it does. With the help and cooperation of every other programmer out there, they could bring the world to its knees. That is power. But it's not power that's going to be used, because the whole group does not care enough about any one thing. I can think of a couple things that I'd like to see western society's arm twisted for (couldn't we all?), but boycotts/conspiracies never last too long when there's jobs on the line. It's the difference between, say, the combined pushing power of everyone over 17 in the world, and a jet liner. The latter is a hell of a lot more likely to get you to London from New York, since the former would likely mostly be eaten up by sharks and storms in the atlantic, even though you could probably build a ridiculous amount of pyramids with the first and none at all with the second. Derp.

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