Oops, I clicked SEND prematurely... > I suggest you review the history of Babbage's Analytical Engine > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine > > "The Analytical Engine was a proposed mechanical general-purpose > computer designed by English mathematician Charles Babbage.[2] > It was first described in 1837 as the successor to Babbage's > Difference Engine, a design for a mechanical computer. The Analytical > Engine incorporated an arithmetic logic unit, control flow in the form > of conditional branching and loops, and integrated memory, making it > the first design for a general-purpose computer that could be > described in modern terms as Turing-complete.[3][4] > Babbage was never able to complete construction of any of his machines > due to conflicts with his chief engineer and inadequate funding.[5][6] > It was not until the 1940s that the first general-purpose computers > were actually built."
Note here that Babbage's core ideas were not only correct, but now seem OBVIOUS to nearly anyone with a university education in computer science... Note that he failed to get the analytical engine built during his lifetime, not because of any core problem with the ideas or the design, but simply because it was tricky to accomplish using the component technologies available, and he ran into various human-management and funding problems... Note this page, titled "Babbage's Analytical Engine, 1834-1871. (Trial model)" http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/computing_and_data_processing/1878-3.aspx If you had asked Babbage in 1840, 6 years after conceiving the idea of the Analytical Engine, when he would have a complete Analytical Engine, what would he have said? Maybe he would have projected completion of the Analytical Engine by 1845 or 1850. He would not have predicted that the thing would still remain incomplete at the time of his death in 1971.... But nevertheless, his failure to correctly foresee the pragmatic, non-scientific obstacles he would run into in trying to get his Analytical Engine created, tells you NOTHING about the validity of his underlying design -- which is now considered obvious and trivial. In my view, the situation with OpenCog is similar. The basic validity of the design will look obvious and almost trivial to any AI undergraduate of 2050. Given the code libraries and hardware of that time, the implementation of something like OpenCog will be an undergrad course project..... Given the code libraries and hardware available NOW, it's a lot of work to get something like OpenCog implemented and tested.... This is the sort of practical problem frequently confronted by people with ideas that are "ahead of the times" relative to the available technical infrastructure. One thing that is different now than in Babbage's time, though, is that the exponential advancement of technology is further along the curve. When five years of Babbage's life passed, the underlying technologies needed to support his Analytical Engine advanced only a little. When five years of my life pass, the underlying tech needed to support OpenCog advances quite a bit ;-) ... To counterbalance your mocking of my prior, conditional positive predictions, I'd like to remind you of the long list of incorrect negative predictions made in the past, regarding various incipient technologies: http://www.merkle.com/badPredictions.html The folks making these incorrect negative predictions were just as superior-sounding, self-confident and high-handed as you are, in their dismissal of various technologies and approaches that now seem obvious. Generically speaking, humans aren't great at either positive or negative prediction, and we need to consider each case carefully rather than evaluating situations glibly. In the case of AGI, I prefer to evaluate someone's AGI approach via actually looking at the conceptual and scientific and technical ideas underlying their work, rather than based on shallow considerations such as the ones you are applying to OpenCog.... Your solution to the difficulty of achieving adequate funding for AGI R&D, is to work on narrow AI and count on it gradually becoming more and more AGI-ish.... You have repeated this message dozens, perhaps hundreds of times during the years I've been intersecting you online. (I am actually amazed at your patience for repeating essentially the same arguments in different words, month after month and year after year.) You believe that by incrementally improving a variety narrow-AI products like text compressors, it will be possible to eventually achieve human-level AGI. I doubt this will work. I understand how convenient it would be if this WERE a workable path, because of course it's easier to leverage resources toward practical projects with near-term, high-probability commercial payoffs for investors. But I'm not going to modify my scientific/conceptual understanding of intelligence, based on criteria of economic convenience. You will proceed with your R&D according to your own understanding, and I'll proceed with my R&D according to mine. Research is always risky, because it's always based in part on uncertain knowledge and intuition. Success in AGI requires a number of things to go right: the right core ideas, the right technical implementation choices, and the right practical situation (team/funding/etc/). Failure in AGI requires only one of these things to go wrong.... And to make AGI work, you have to do all these difficult things right, in the midst of a bunch of trolls and nay-sayers screeching annoyingly in your ear "You might fail!! You might fail!! You may be wasting your time!! Are you sure you shouldn't just get a garden-variety job and have an easier life??" ..... But somehow, I manage to enjoy myself working on AGI anyway -- I guess mainly because the subject matter is just SO damn important and fascinating ;-) ... Merry Christmas ;) Ben G ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
