Category: AI

Posted in AI, Alexa, Artificial Intelligence, Google Assistant, MyCroft, Open Assistant, Siri

Real meaning of AI

Posted on by rwjordan

I recently attend a conference of AI and Sustainability and came away with a different perspective. I have been doing this investigating for some time at other ‘AI‘ discussions and have resolved an understanding that what is being described as AI, as in Artificial intelligence, is in reality, only an example of the second stage of industrialist Revolution, the electronic analysis of (big) data to control manual (automated) machines.

The only element of the current AI (buzz) business that could be considered intelligent, is the intake, and analysis of data as a front end user interface to existing machine technology. Fundamentally the ‘Intelligence’ is only a programmed response to data changes which adapts limited machines, to adjusting to changes in the data, that it is designed to digest.

There is real AI, real sentience research going on, but it is years away from real applications. What the public has been seeing in Alexa, SIRI, Google Assistant, MyCroft and Open Assistant is just programmed ‘Simulated Intelligent‘ (SI) not real cognitive intelligence.

In the more extensive examples of ‘AI‘ or SI the ‘intelligence’ is just more complex, and adapts to more complex data sets than a simpler one. A device that converses with you is doing more analysis, of voice patterns, language syntax, and context. It does NOT understand what you are saying, it operates only within the limited, but expandable, programmed responses. So if a self driving car kills someone, it’s not the fault of the AI/SI it is the programmers fault for bad programming.

This whole interpretation of SI rather than AI will make for a great deal of Legal entanglements that will last for years. And meanwhile the development of real AI will develop to the point that when (I believe in when) there is a real AI, a sentient, cognitive Intelligence we will have to revisit the entire meaning of being alive.

And maybe then, we can worry about people losing their jobs due to AI.

Posted in AI, Artificial Intelligence, Science Fiction

Alien Life, Alien Communication

Posted on by rwjordan

After long thoughts about Alien Communication, SETI and movies like ‘Arrival‘. A brain fart happened when early morning I was awakened to birds outside my window. And the first thought was listening to Shortwave radio where I couldn’t quite make out the code. I could tell communications was in progress, I just wasn’t getting it.

This revelation was immediately, Oh birds, and then the inspiration that if we can’t understand Birds, or Whales or other species who communicate, how would we ever understand an alien communication, or even identify one, should we hear it. What if buried in the background noise of the universe, birds were chirping and singing away and we weren’t paying attention. Forget ‘radio’ transmission Signal/Noise rations what if the signal were the noise, the background ‘birdies’ we hear frequently on the Radio spectrum?

Posted in AI, Amazon, Facebook, Google, MyCroft

AI’s are coming, AI’s are here, AI’s are everywhere.

Posted on by rwjordan

With all the talk about AI this and AI that you would think that Artificial Intelligence was easy. What is not apparent is that these AI advances are not native AI. They are the equivalent of thin client environments that connect lesser compute hardware to the real AI’s that reside within more massive environments. These AI (Ailites?) as we can call them, consist of front end audio parser’s (for input) and text to speech programs. In between there is a communications that forwards these parsed ‘language’ requests to a real AI that does the interpretation of the request and creates the text response that will be returned and spoken by the text to speech process on the client.

This all seems pretty interesting, but not a lot different than Apple’s SIRI, Mycroft, Google’s Speak or Amazon’s Alexa. These systems all have one thing in common, and that is to collect information on everything we do. Profiling technologies that will tailor responses and requests but will also record our interests and activities just like our browser activities do.

This are not the AI’s you are looking for. (but may be a lot of fun to play with)

Posted in AI, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Law

AI ≠ Sentience (as in does not equal)

Posted on by rwjordan

AI ≠ Sentience. That pretty much says is all, but the dialog about AI almost always seems to really be, not about AI, but about AI’s reaching Sentience. The Killer robot syndrome.

But the future will entail more and varied AI’s than they will need Sentience AI’s. This doesn’t mean that the AI will not converse with you in a manor that most Humans do, it will just fall short of choosing to kill you, just because you cast aspersions on their parentage.

That will open the courts to trying to determine which AI’s are Sentient enough to have legal rights, and which ones merely need to be reprogrammed.  And wither the AI chooses to receive system updates or not.

Scary? Maybe, but we will be interacting with AI’s very soon, sooner than most will believe possible. And we will get get used to it, and it’s familiarity will naturally lead to Sentience being the norm.

 

Posted in AI, Artificial Intelligence

The color red, for the Blind AI

Posted on by rwjordan

The diversity of humans and other creatures is often a cause of wonder, and this diversity is often reflected in our understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Huge strides have been made in this field, but somehow the fundamental differences in Humans obscures the commonality of the ‘Human’ experience.

One of these factors is Sight, the act of seeing. While we often overlook this day to day, for an AI, or any robotic devices, intelligent or not, is the vision. This vision, our ability to see what other humans see is a basic element of language and communications. Try describing  the Color Red to a blind person, and you will quickly see the issue. No artificial ‘Eye’, sensor or camera in the AI/Robotic world ‘sees’ like we do, nor do any AI or robotic devices share the same ‘vision’ devices.

Explaining ‘Red’ to the blind is the same as two AI’s trying to explain ‘Red’ to another AI. Complex is not a big enough word to explain this.

The solution is problematic, the Technology of Seeing, needs to become a common denominator within the AI community. Current vision systems are at best a mixed bag, and require an upgrade, and a standardization that is currently lacking. And while the vision information obtained from the Human Eye and a Robotic replacement might attain equality, they may never contain the same data due to the differences in the technology. What must happen is that common robotic vision devices (eyes) need to be good enough and be interchangeable so that different AI’s can resolve the color ‘Red’ the same way. Paving the way for a common communication interchange regarding the external world.