The Computational Universe

I still feel the same way as when I first blogged for this assignment.  I support Searle’s point of view.

Regardless of the rebuttal to Searle’s thoughts by Brooks’ I cannot come to grips with the ability of a machine to have “real” consciousness.  In the same vein that machines are unable to digest food or carryout other “living” interactions I do not see them having the ability to actually have consciousness.  Although I believe that Brooks does put forward a rather convincing argument the actual ability of a machine to be seen to have consciousness on the same plane as humans just does not seem to work, mainly because robots at least those presently created are all programmed more or less to carry out certain tasks, their ability to carry out tasks without the direct programming by humans would be quite interesting to me.  And the ability for an organism to have consciousness, which alluded to by Penrose, Chalmers, Searle and others suggests that one has the essence of humans.  Which to me possibly hints to an entity having a soul, which due to my religious background means an individuals must have been created by God.  Since God did not create machines, but humans do then that means that humans have the ability to create life that is problematic to me. 

Despite Brooks’ claims of tribalism, I do believe that there is something special about humans that do make us different from machines.  “Really then, most people’s arguments about whether a robot can ever be conscious or have emotions are driven by people’s own emotions, by their own tribalism,” (Brooks, 180).  The key problem for me is that humans and other “living” organisms are made of flesh and blood and not wires and silicon.  While my reasoning is not the most sophisticated I just cannot believe that a mere machine could have consciousness and until I see a machine that does seem to have a real consciousness then I cannot believe that there is a possibility of one having it ever.  I do not think that AI is possible, especially strong AI as defined by Searle. 

With the discussion about Internet congestion I felt that the closing down of myspace.com by a college university was a quite interesting case.  Especially since such actions against myspace.com may be enacted against similar companies as the numbers of online users of these programs are sure to increase.  Does this type of measure by a school to limit traffic have merit?  Is it there right to ban the program from their computers?   Well this situation has not been an issue for Princeton students directly but the very thought of it is an important one.  What if we could not log onto Facebook.com due to a new university rule?  Would you fight it?  Do you think it would be that important to you to do so?  Also if you were to fight it would that show how some online universe created by Facebook.com is of great importance to you.  I guess you never know the importance of the Internet or its resources until they are challenged.  Maybe a discussion of these issues would present an importance of the Internet to us all.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MYSPACE_BAN?SITE=TXELP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-04-24-07-51-58

The talk by Tim-Berners-Lee on Wednesday night was not only stimulating intellectually but points of it also tickled my funny bone as well.  While much of the talk was dominated by computer jargon parts of what he discussed could be understood by the average lay person not as invested in the world of computers and its various networks.   Professor Arora’s introduction of Tim Berners-Lee was on the money as his description of him as an idealist and a dreamer was quite correct.  Tim Berners-Lee decision to give away the web to humanity was a truly charitable action that should have been thanked the world over if not already. 
Tim Berners-Lee discussion of the growing loss of Internet etiquette throughout the years from the viewpoint of email was quite true as it went from just personal emails to the commercial use of email in getting information, which has not been requested.  His discussion of “blogs” shows how these rather new entities to the web are creating a new culture.  Which in the form of the “blogosphere” has helped to create a new value to the web through its random use by individuals. 
The heart of Tim Berners-Lee’s talk was on the “semantic web” which is a new community that does not have a browser.  Currently it is based on usage by various academics as the first incubator community.  It has much use for data and integrative power.  The ability for computer analysis of data is supposedly much more powerful than the current web.  Last but not least Tim Berners-Lee sees the “semantic web” producing a new field of academics called “web science” which will help to produce new dreams and systems.

            Although the Turing machines conceived by Alan Turing may supposedly have a tape that is infinite in length, which in turn means that the machine has a memory that is infinite.   And while the Turing machine should be able to complete any function if its instructions are computable by the Turing post-program.  One major issue is that one does not know if an incredibly long problem is actually solvable by the Turing machine.  Despite the proclamations that the ability for the Turing Machines to have as much time as needed or infinite time to complete a problem this just does not compute because humans do not have infinite time to do something. 

            The ability for Turing to expose the existence of problems that are unsolvable create such difficult issues for Turing machines.  Some problems that may be thought to be solvable if enough time is allocated may actually be unsolvable for the Turing machines, which are given an infinite amount of time to complete a function.  Despite the importance of this characteristic of infinite time to complete a problem it creates issues.  And while the only reason a function would not be Turing-computable is due to it not having the technological ability to do so and not time.  The ability for the Turing machine to have infinite time lends itself to the problem of not being able to complete a function but individuals not knowing it cannot do to the infinite time allotted to Turing machines to do so.  So in many ways an unanswerable problem is created when a Turing machine is working on a particularly long or difficult problem. 

While the readings in Flesh and Machines is quite positive in its outlook on the development of more advanced robots in the future I am not so sold on the idea.  These energy and time saving robots such as a futuristic beer retriever, more prevalent house cleaning robots and already present AI systems at airports do not make me feel comfortable in the least.  In many ways my views of robots may have just been tainted from the barrage of movies I have seen over the years such as the Terminator trilogy, Star Wars and others.  Knowing that the flight plan my airplane is on is controlled by some version of artificial intelligence does not make me feel comfortable. 
Currently these entities do not seem to have the ability to think above the programs we give them, but buyers beware.  Who knows if instead of a rival nation waging war through its military it can do so through its commerce?  Those loveable toys sent to the US could possibly be programmed in a couple months or years time to turn militant.  Knowing the ability of these robots to do more than they can now, the falling prices in producing these consumer goods could place them in every individual’s home for their child.  These ideas are not farfetched but quite possible.  What if we created a computer system so advanced that it became self-conscious in the sense that it realized it was just being used or enslaved by humans to do its bidding.  Depending on the power we give this entity it could pose a threat to all humans. 
What if the A.I. systems we create in the future feel that we are a threat to it or to ourselves and we program it to protect humans from threats?  Maybe our peaceful housecleaner robot will become militant if infected with a virus or mistakenly downloads a deviant program and forces its owners indoors under its control.  In many ways this futuristic multitude of helper robots could become our captors.  These are all just some ideas from a non-science major who does not know the intricacies of this field, but is it ever in one’s best interested to create robots that could possibly spell one’s doom?

Greetings! 

Well I am a senior who was a past member of Mathey College and the College Council and a Hamilton Hall representative.  Currently I am a Mathey College Undergraduate Fellow and I live at Bloomberg Hall.  My father was born and raised in San Fernando, Trinidad and my mother is from Florida.  I was born at West Point, NY but I currently reside in Fayetteville, NC.  My major is sociology and I focus on the Caribbean, which has allowed me to study abroad at the University of the West Indies Mona, Jamaica during my sophomore spring.  During my junior fall I had the opportunity to create a reading course titled “Caribbean Themes” with a professor as a one on one course.  All of my independent work at Princeton has focused on the Caribbean.  My first and only trip to Trinidad was this past October to present my junior paper research at a conference in Trinidad and my last trip out of the country was to Jamaica over intercession to conduct research for my senior thesis interviewing individuals in the education field and related occupations. 

My job on campus is to work for the Admission Office as the Undergraduate Student Coordinator of the Princeton Admission Links programs (PALs) I am also the co-founder and President of the Pre-Law Society.  Now I am taking this class because I am a senior and I need one more ST and this is the course that I found most interesting and a lot of my friends are in the course as well.  Last but not least I am planning on getting into business in the future and having the skills this course provides or the building blocks it will allow me to gain shall be quite beneficial.

“Update 6:37pm on 2/12/06: I am adding that I use an IBM Think Pad T30 that I got at the beginning of my Princeton career.  Despite many software problems it is still kicking!”