Artificial Intelligence I: The Limitation Game.

I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?" This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms "machine" and "think."

Alan Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence

On Christmas Eve, I attended an afternoon showing of The Imitation Game, the heavily fictionalized but well acted biopic regarding the life of Alan Turing, the noted mathematician, computer theorist and World War II cryptographer whose life ended in disgrace and presumed suicide following his arrest for homosexuality in 1952.*  As a science fiction fan, I was surprised by the title, which has nothing whatsoever to do with cryptography. "The Imitation Game" is a reference to what is more commonly known as the Turing Test, as detailed by Turing in his 1951 paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence. 

For those of you unfamiliar with this touchstone of artificial intelligence theory, the Turing Test is very simple.  A judge sits in one room, and in two other rooms are a human being and a computer.  The human being and the computer can only communicate with the judge via text displayed on a computer screen. (I believe that in the original version, the questions and answers were paper based, but monitors and keyboards certainly speed things up.) It is the judge's job to decide which one of the communicants is the computer, based on their interaction.  It is the human's job to be a human, and the computer's job to imitate a human**.

Turing's simple experiment for establishing artificial intelligence is a standard reference for science fiction authors: there are Turing scales for degree of AI, Turing certifications, and more threateningly, William Gibson's Neuromancer introduces the idea of the Turing Police:  an international organization responsible for the elimination of unauthorized or rogue AIs.

Science fiction aside, real-world computers have miserably failed the Turing Test, as demonstrated by the annual Loebner Prize competition, originated by American inventor Hugh Loebner in 1990.  To date, no computer - or more accurately, no computer program -  has managed to win the $100,000 award by successfully convincing the judges of its humanity.  Several smaller prizes have been awarded to the best program, but so far it's really been to acknowledge the best of a poor lot.

However, it's an interesting conceit to demand that a computer convince someone that it's a human. Why should the ability to mimic humanity be a requirement for consciousness or sentience?

It's easy to say that artificial intelligence would need to be based on the human mind, what else do we have to use as a model?  On the other hand, there's no other area of technology that follows this path: cars run on wheels rather than mechanical legs, and cranes don't feature huge arms with hands and fingers to pick up cargo.  Technology has always been used to exceed the limitations of the human form rather than imitate them, and artificial intelligence might do well to take the same approach.

Maybe we need to come up with a new name for the game.

- Sid

*  At that point in time, homosexuality was a criminal offense in England.

** Based on the way that people react to tests, I actually suspect that in practice they both end up trying to imitate a human.

Perhaps not a bad description of the performance, either.

And now, my lovely and talented co-worker Christi modeling her new chibi-C'thulhu hoodie, a piece of swag from one of her favourite local groups, the H.P. Lovecraft tribute band The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets.*  She's accessorized her look with her plush C'thulhu doll, the perfect gift for anyone looking for a puffy elder god toy.

I certainly appreciate the sentiment expressed by the design, but maybe let's not rush into this whole "worship" thing, given the manner in which C'thulhu's cultists traditionally celebrate their deity:

In a natural glade of the swamp stood a grassy island of perhaps an acre's extent, clear of trees and tolerably dry. On this now leaped and twisted a more indescribable horde of human abnormality than any but a Sime or an Angarola could paint.

Void of clothing, this hybrid spawn were braying, bellowing, and writhing about a monstrous ring-shaped bonfire; in the centre of which, revealed by occasional rifts in the curtain of flame, stood a great granite monolith some eight feet in height; on top of which, incongruous in its diminutiveness, rested the noxious carven statuette.

From a wide circle of ten scaffolds set up at regular intervals with the flame-girt monolith as a centre hung, head downward, the oddly marred bodies of the helpless squatters who had disappeared.

H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of C'thulhu

I realize that everyone needs a hobby, but Christi, seriously, maybe stick with your personal band project instead. After all, isn't "braying, bellowing, and writhing" a pretty good description of what your audience is doing anyway?

- Sid

* I'm so pleased by the number of obscure references in this sentence.

Adventure Time.

 

I've discussed my love for travel in previous blog postings, but I don't think that I've discussed how much it scares me.  My family didn't travel at all when I was a child, and as such I had to teach myself how to go on trips, an experience which took me completely out of my comfort zone.  I've done enough travel now that I've become competent at the various mechanics involved, booking plane tickets and hotels, going through airport security, finding my luggage, that kind of thing, but it's still very much an adventure for me.

2013's trip to Scotland proved to be an excellent source of blog content:  visits to Monty Python castles, found objects like police boxes and Tron churches, and of course a winsome geek or two.  2014 was a much less ambitious year for travel, but 2015 should turn out to be far more interesting, with travel destinations that will combine both the past and the future.

In April, my friend Colin and I are heading to Florida for a week in the sun, with the Kennedy Space Center prominently featured on my list of requested site visits.  This is where it all happened, this where they made history: the Saturn rocket, the Mercury and Gemini missions, Apollo, Skylab, the space shuttle, the ISS, and now that NASA is returning to a more active role with the new Orion rocket, it's going to be a central part of the next stage of space exploration.

My friend Terry is moving to Japan in a few weeks, and I've decided to pay him a visit in September.  In my mind, Japan is an idealized window into the future, with Tokyo in particular a Gibsonesque silicon metropolis that's just a little bit ahead of the rest of the world.  In addition, Japanese geek culture, in the form of manga and animé, has become a strong alternative to the Western superhero and Disney-dominated approaches to comics and animation. 

 

As an example, the life-sized* Mobile Suit Gundam statue and theme site located in Tokyo's Odaiba district has become a popular geek pilgrimage, but I also plan to make the more traditional pilgrimage to Kyoto, Japan's cultural and spiritual centre. Visiting Kyoto is like a trip into Japan's past, a glimpse of a time and a place which is almost the opposite of Tokyo's fast-forward vibe.

I have to admit that I'm a bit nervous about Japan, even nine months in advance.  I managed to survive a week in Paris in 2011 with my limited French, but travelling in a country where I can't even read the street signs** is going to be a real challenge, even with a locally based tour guide. But what would life be without an adventure now and then?

- Sid

* "Life-sized" is perhaps an odd way to describe a 60 foot tall recreation of a giant battle robot from an animated series, but you know what I mean.

**  This is a joke - apparently there are no street signs.