Hi, Folks -

Clif wrote in his newsletter in the above post:

There are many, otherwise intelligent people, who have no technical grasp, especially of digital technology, and therefore make many, very wrong assumptions. One of these glaringly wrong assumptions is that ‘AI’ in the sense of a general purpose artificial intelligence computer program actually exists. There are people, in academic circles, who believe that AI exists, and further that “Alien AI” could come here to earth and infect our computers to our detriment. People can be sold any form of misinformation about such things as digital technologies if they are not technically inclined.

I think AI can be nothing more than a huge, elaborate, complicated "decision tree":

If A, do B; else, do C.

Ponder for just a moment all the "decision tree" moments you have in a day, and all the values for "A" you might run into. Wake up; throw covers back; put on slippers or not? go to the bathroom; brush teeth today or not? dress - which clothes? have breakfast - what to eat? who's to prepare it? find car keys; exit house; open car door; start car; begin driving...and respond appropriately to whatever road conditions and actions by other drivers one might encounter.... etc., etc. :)

Then there's the matter of inputs and outputs - what shall we decide about? and how shall we manifest the decisions we arrive at?

All of that has to be thought about ahead of time and encoded in making an artificially 'intelligent' something-or-other.

But ... why do it? :) A friend once told me that she and a group she was involved with would sit in a circle and focus on levitating ashtrays. "Kinda cool," I thought, but I could do that already...by using my hand to pick it up. :)

--hobie

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