Steve, Yes it's good to acknowledge that you recognize the importance of in-the-field investigation and hands-on experimentation to creative problem-solving.
But you have yet - and, as you more or less indicate, everyone in AI and AGI - has yet to show me (or, I think, the world), that they have gone any way to producing a general/creative intelligence. For example, how is it going to be able to completely redefine the problem - a fairly standard requirement for an awful lot of creativity - say in relation to disease-diagnosis. How is it going to have the capacity to question whether what looks like the result of a potential virus, may actually be due to lifestyle, and life style in a sense that no one has yet defined it? (I'm being really cussed here :) but it's valid) How is it going to have the imagination to conceive of an altogether new kind of invasive organism, or a standard organism behaving in a way never thought of before? How is it going to be able to say - wait a minute, what if neuronal memory works something like that funny metal that can remember its old shape when heated? A truly creative program is an AWESOMELY hard problem. Just getting a basically adaptive program that pace Ben's could develop something like hide-and-seek independently, after learning to fetch, is hard enough - or a maze-running creature that could, say, learn to climb over maze walls and not just run round them.. Mike, On 4/24/08, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Steve:What is a novel solution?! Since THIS question seems to be driving much the current AGI efforts, I think that this should be completely wrung out.My program will identify the parts of the problem that ARE known and direct effort to the "missing pieces". You're right that creativity, small and large, is at the centre of AGI. But I've never met an AGI-er who really does want to "wring it out" - even say Minsky. Because the conclusion is painful. And that's that a program can only do so much. It can't normally identify "the missing pieces" in creative problems. Much of my working career has been as a high-tech consultant of last resort - someone that an investor brings into a failing company just before "pulling the plug". Since in a real sense I must compete creatively with those who preceded me - and who probably know more about the problem domain than I do, I have had to develop a general approach to creativity in these situations. The one that seems to work best is to set about proving that there is no solution, and somewhere along the way to a proof there will emerge an insurmountable gap that points the way to a solution. The main way science does that - and science surely has to be a major paradigm of creativity - is, in part, by scientists going out into the field, and collecting fresh observations, and performing new tests, (and even touching and talking to patients). You have to, of course, if you're trying to be creative and discover something, look for new kinds of evidence and perform new kinds of experiments, But there is no substitute for going into the field. You can't just do it in the computer room, or study. And you can't just direct others, from the comfort of your computational armchair, to look for you. Actually this is fundamental to most artistic and historical discovery. And it's fundamental to technological creativity. You do have to play around with those pieces of metal and get hands-on experience. YES. One of my technical interests is longevity. Most people in this field never see anyone with gray hair! Most of my advances came from working with elderly people who were up against "age-related" disorders, and finding that many of the assumptions that "researchers" were working on were just plain wrong. Only ~1% of older people actually die from aging. The rest die of something else. My own work has been in observing and later in correcting the consistencies in the things that are actually killing older people. If you're trying to market some new product, it's vital to go out and talk to potential customers. Or are you suggesting that scientific, artistic, historical, technological & business creativity can be entirely programmed? And AGI-ers needn't talk to investors? There is SUCH a gap between the mind of an AGIer and the mind of an investor, that I doubt that anything but suspicion could be communicated. (You do realise, also, that the history of human creativity is the story of endless resistance to going out into the field and on location. Natural philosophers, for example, had to be dragged out kicking and screaming by Bacon, before they became scientists. And this has been repeated in field after field. Computer chairs are so comfy). I hadn't thought about or realized this. THIS is a VERY significant statement. This suggests an appropriate caveat right at the front of any prospectus or proposal, to guide investment money away from other proposals and hopefully to the one in hand. for example: Longevity: Investments in research efforts that do NOT involve working with elderly people to solve their real-world problems that are relevant to the research, at best can only result in elegant solutions to non-problems. AGI: R&D investments must target the markets and technology of 5-10 years in the future to produce the large and solid profits that investors now expect. Computer technology has now proceeded to the point that human-like capability should be expected from new investments, yet this is not yet available in off-the-shelf software. Hence we plan to perform some actual research (currently rare for R&D efforts) to more accurately target the future market that our competitors will be doomed to miss because of their lack of research. Is this the sort of message that you think needs to be conveyed? Steve Richfield ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ agi | Archives | Modify Your Subscription ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.5/1398 - Release Date: 4/25/2008 2:31 PM ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=101455710-f059c4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com