Neural Networks

I recently tried to post this information in a thread. That opportunity has passed,. so now I will post it here.


Some people claim that AI is limited because programmers are limited and the AI can never surpass it's creator.

I am a computer programmer and artificial intelligence is one of my areas of expertise. I can tell you that we do have ways of creating systems that operate in ways that well,.. ahem,.. systems that operate in ways we don't even understand.

A very simple example of this is the artificial neural net, a technology patterned to mimic the way brain cells interact. As long as we can define what it means to successfully solve a problem, and supply whatever information is neccessary, we can eventually train a neural net fill in the blanks and solve it for us. The solution that it comes up with is often beyond conscious human understanding. This is analogous to the way "chicken sexers" were trained to tell the difference between male and female chicks, even though none of the sexers could explain exactly what criteria were using. Trial and error eventually trains us to be right, thanks neural net!

This rabbit hole goes deeper still. Embedding the mathematical principles or darwinian evolution into code can be done in different ways, but it always creates the same risk, because the programmer is never really in full control. We are just trying to harness the chaos, direct it's energies usefully. Eary forms of machine learning have even been seen in the arms race of virus/antivirus.

For that reason and others some people actually consider it immoral to experiment with this kind of code, after all there is no taking the genie out of the bottle. Nevertheless, like all progress, if we stay on this path the creation of this kind of SKYNET genie is inevitable.

That may be like saying that 1 million monkeys will eventually write a Dicken's novel. My advice, though I am reluctant to give it, would be to stop using typewriters ;)