Tag Archives: consciousness

Teaching Computers How Not To Forget Is The Answer To Building Artificial Intelligence

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An article in The Atlantic which argues the achievement of artificial intelligence is impossible until we can teach computers how not to forget. Humans learn new skills while retaining old ones. Computers in contrast tend to forget easily.

To me one of the major factors (perhaps the most significant factor of all) which separates human intelligence from that of computers is that we humans are conscious beings who understand the reasons for our actions. Of course there are those who behave in ways which demonstrate crass stupidity but this does not, in my view invalidate my contention that we are different from machines in that we possess the ability to comprehend. Computers and robots can learn and their ability to do so is increasing. However they can not, unlike humans comprehend the reason for such learning. They are not self-aware.

Even if we can teach a computer not to forget will this lead to true artificial intelligence? In my admittedly unscientific view (my degree is in history and politics, not science) the answer is no for to have true intelligence one requires consciousness and the ability to comprehend/analyse one’s own actions.

 

For the article please visit http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/04/teaching-a-computer-not-to-forget/389727/?utm_source=SFTwitter

Would I Know?

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The sound of the clock, each tick bringing it a little closer

An owl hoots in the park

A fox barks

Cars pass outside

The bed is warm

Somewhere a couple laugh

Time creeps onwards

I roll over

Sleep envelops,

I dream

Is death one long dream from which we never wake? And, if so would I know the difference between the state of dreaming and that of death?

Waves

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Cars, like waves swish past.

Distant sound of engines forever passing, here then lost, tossed on the tides of time and space.

A horn sounds, a driver going somewhere perhaps.

 

My study. Books in cases stand. A poster on a wall, the dolphin swims, forever caught on paper.

 

The night is dark. Outside engines rev and die. In my room the dolphin looks down from the picture. A fish on a wall, how strange.

 

Thoughts travel with vehicles along endless roads, while I sit, the dolphin looking on, swimming perpetually on a wall.

London Wind

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Last night the wind buffetted my windows drowning out all other sound. Lying in bed I felt the raw power of nature – not the sanatised picture of nature with lambs gambling in sunlit fields, a gentle summer breeze carrying the scent of new mown hay – rather a feeling of desolation, of the insignificance of man filled my soul. Lying warm in my bed my thoughts where cold like the great wind battering my window panes.
Now sitting at my computer in this familiar room, a warm blue carpet under my bare feet and surrounded by books I feel cacooned in the warm embrace of what we call civilisation. We cling to the solid, to material things but forever on the periphery nature stands laughing at our pretenciousness. She was here before we came and when we go she will remain.
As I stroked my labrador comfortably ensconced in his basket I pondered whether it is better to live in the moment with no conception of mortality as he does or if it is preferable to feel and think as we humans do. It is an interesting question but, ultimately an unanswerable one. We are what we are and my four legged friend is what nature, evolution or god (take your pick) designed.