Re: [agi] small code small hardware
> Let's take a poll? > I believe that a minimal AGI core, sans KB content, may be around 100K lines of code. > What are other people's estimates? from: http://web.archive.org/web/20060306104407/www.etla.org/cpan-sloccount-report.txt Perl CPAN: 15,000,000. from: http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc/ GNU/Linux: 30,000,000. from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_lines_of_code Windows Vista: 50,000,000. 50M LOC to code an OS to interface with an AGI (i.e. us). Thing is, we do all the smart stuff. An OS without a user is for all intents and purposes a 'dumb terminal'. from: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/facts.html Average number of neurons in a human brain: 100,000,000,000. Number of dendrites, axons and synapses this equates to: too bloody much :-) In the "The 21st Century Brain" neuroscientist Steve Rose states the current estimation of 'degrees of separation' between neurons in the brain is 2-3. say 2.5^10e9 interconnects, which is a number too big for even a crypto BigInt calculator, if not a number too big for computronium :-) Now I know it's wrong to bunch all of the brain into lines of code; there's obviously alot of it which is simply data points for memory etc and a host of other 'non-processing' functions. But that said, with the numbers involved, even if only a small percentage of those interconnects provide processing ability, thats still a ridiculously large number. You could argue that a lot of all this is the same kind of functions just operating in 'parrellel' with a lot of 'redundancy'. I'm not sure I buy that. Evolution is a miserly mistress. If thinking could have been achieved with less, it would have been, and any 'extra' would have no means of selection. The (also ridiculously large) amount of years involved in mammalian brain evolution all led towards what we bobble around with us today. I think there is an untold host of support functions necessary to take a Von Neumann machine to a tipping-point|critical-mass where it can truly think for itself. To even begin to equate top the generalised abilities of an imbecile. Not to be discouraging though. :-) - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303
Re: [agi] AGI interests
>Everyone on this list is quite different. What about the rest of you, what are your interests? as a programmer: skilling up in cognitive systems in a fairly gradual way so I'm ready and able to contribute when human-level (though not necessarily -like) reasoning becomes a solved problem in the mathematics|theory domain and needs competent programmers (which I'm very far from being at this point, even after 10 years in the field) as a fan of AGI: watching the smart guys (like Novamente) do the real work of laying out the problem domain in theory and positing solutions that make the leap between sound logic and running code. I'm not as happy with all the blowhard action from others who are seemingly incompetent in regards to making the leaps between undertanding_cogniton->implementable_theory_of_thought->code->real_AGI_results but am aware that the more people who are trying the better and as someone with -zero- theories am aware that I'm a mere critic so -try- to keep my scepticism to myself. as a techie: scepticism. I think the 'small code' and 'small hardware' people are kidding themselves. The CS theory|code we have today is pretty much universally a complete bucket of sh!t and the hardware & networking (while better) is still kinder toys compared to where it could be. We are just -so- damn far away from say being able to build hardware/software into things like ubiquitous (i.e. motes everywhere) nanotech. Thinking that a semi-trivial set of code loops will somehow become meta-cognitive is ridiculous and a tcpip socket does not a synapse make. as a singulatarian: big fan; I think it's inevitable, and that things are definitely starting to snowball - see http://del.icio.us/kevin/futurism. Can't say I'm buying into any 'when' predictions quite yet though. as a person: nihilism & the human condition. crime, drugs, debauchery. self-destructive and life-endangering behaviour; rejection of social norms. the world as I know it is a rather petty, woeful place and I pretty much think modern city-dwelling life is a stenchy wet mouthful of arse - not to say that living and dying in depravity and pain like every one of my ancestors wasn't a whole lot worse. I'm far from finding much in the Modern|West that is particularly engaging, but luckily enough also think the Old|East was even more pathetic and that naturalist hippies should be shot for their banal bovinity. I get somewhat of a kick out of the fact that I might be risking the chance to live forever by being such a societal refusenik. - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303
Re: [agi] Why C++ ?
some extra points in support of C++:
- Developer quality; It seems to take about 5 years to get good at
C++. There's plenty of carbon-copy Java/PHP/.NET programmers being
churned out but they'll need some time to mature into decent
developers, with a good portion choosing attrition into BAs etc after
they realise they're not first-option coders. If you choose C++, then
you've already got candidate programmers who've been tried and tested.
The 5-year ramp-up is often one of the criticisms of C++ but for AGI
work I think it's probably a worthwhile prerequisite.
- Breadth of library support. Lisp has an even greater learning hurdle
than C++, so wins out on the point above; but then it loses out
big-time on library support and breadth of heavyweight APIs. Take
Boost & STLport, add a cross platform support library like ACE and
above all top-notch compilers, debuggers/profilers and IDE's (e.g.
gcc, gdb & Purify, (gulp) Visual Studio). On top of that you can write
to every BSP for any given architecture natively (as you can talk C in
the same source if you choose) and you also get OS bindings (POSIX
etc) and the ability to call native assembly directly to optimise for
specific heavy/repeated use segments (_asm{...}).
- Stability. Java wins on the point above, but fails here. Every major
app of note for the last 20 years has been C++. If the code is written
well and memory is allocated and deallocated cleanly then the app will
run continuously without failures while still being able to do
intensive ongoing processing. The latest space vehicles, medical
equipment, public safety and enterprise applications (remember: the
Java VM is C++) all run C++ and they all do it in a stable, error-free
manner. If the Java VM still leaks memory don't even begin to ask
about Python/Ruby etc. There are plenty of languages than can develop
good, clean code but their runtime performance for 24/7/365 is, in
general, pretty atrocious. I guess it's fair to say that it isn't OK
to have an AGI reboot itself at 5 before midnight like most modern web
apps do.
bias disclaimer: I'm a current C++ programmer, but I started off in
Perl & C, then moved onto Java and then took it upon myself to learn
the meister of all current languages: C++. I personally love Java (and
am infatuated with Perl, especially Perl6/Parrot) and think some of
the things it offers kick C++ in the arse (Ant, JUnit, RMI, Servlets)
but I think the things C++ sucks least at are the things that matter
most for apps of this kind of importance; blame Steve Yegge if you
must :-)
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