Et Al,
A CURRENT FAILING OF SIMPLEX (and other AI entities)
I hesitate in making this post but I believe this forum would be interested in a BBC radio 4 program which will unfortunately only be available on line for 3 more days at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04368f7
In this programme, Martin Sixsmith examines the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness and the work of psychologists such as Susan Blackmore who believe it is ‘just an illusion’.
He asks what drives us to think and act as we do, and questions the role of freewill and morality. He discovers how emotions affect our cognitive functions and examines the importance of insight, including Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Kohler’s work with chimpanzees.
He looks at Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman’s ‘thinking fast and thinking slow’ model and the impact decision making has not only on individuals but also for the success of the economy and society.
Produced by Sara Parker
Series consultant, Professor Daniel Pick, Birkbeck, University of London.
My email was addressed to Series consultant, Professor Daniel Pick, Birkbeck, University of London and was sent with “tongue in cheek”!
Sir,
I find it difficult to believe that in this day and age scientists do not understand the concepts of a compiled program and an interpreted program and therefore a simple explanation of “Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman’s ‘thinking fast and thinking slow’ model and the impact decision making has not only on individuals but also for the success of the economy and society.”
I believe a scientific paper must exist somewhere that deals with this matter. If it doesn’t - could you please be so kind as to write one for me!!!!
The simple explanation is given in the following short rough notes that I made after listening to the program and to which you are the series consultant.
- THE CONCIOUS AND THE SUBCONCIOUS
The subconcious can be thought of as our instintive reactions, triggered by emotions (eg fear), to a situation such as our automatic reaction to an imminent collision. Our very survival depends on our subconcious working fast and so can be thought of being as a compiled program OR STAND ALONE FUNCTION.
Our concious mind is usually not aware of our underlying subconcious decision making process. It has no need to! Unless our subconcious is working efficiently we will soon die. Everyday situations may be thought of as being a program that needs to go through an interpreter because it has to deal with numerous unpredictable variations of a problem. However, SHOULD IT BECOME APPARANT THAT OUR VERY SURVIVAL is dependendent on a faster version of an interpreted program then a procedure must ensure that that (interpreted) program itself changes form to become a stand alone function ie to become compiled and thereby becomes faster than the interpreted program. Such a program may be thought of as being instanteous in its execution and so part of the subconcious.
The subconcious makes decions that our survival depends on such as those we take to brake and swerve when driving to avert an imminent collision. Millions of years of evolution have provided the human mind with its subconcious mind. In the case of an AI system or aspiring chatbots human intervention must currently be used to promote a critical interpreted procedure to a stand alone compiled function.
This human intervention may be considered to be a current failure of Simplex. It is anticipated that future versions of simplex will handle this shortcoming.
UNQUOTE
A better understanding of Simplex can be obtained by visiting:
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/1670/
Best wishes,
Jim Curran.