The Computational Universe

Mr. Rodney A. Brooks seems to suggest that by simply having more and more computing power eventually the computer will be able to completely replicate human behavior, and then there will be no one to say that computers are any less authentically intelligent than humans. Brooks is talking about robots, where Searle is talking about strong AI, which refers strictly to programs.Regardless, I think Searle’s statements have strong implications for Brooke’s views. Frankly, I think Searle gets it right. A computer is not even capable of addition if we do not make it capable of addition. A program manipulates symbols, and those symbols have no significance that we do not give them. There is a difference between syntax and semantics, and Brooks does not address how this will be overcome. The fact is that a program can be instituted by several types of hardware, but consciousness is the function of extremely specific wirings of neurons, whose very simple firings go on to produce higher level mental functionings. For a robot to think like a human, its “brain” could not simply be a program. Brains have causal relationships with their neurons, which have causal relationships with their environments. They are not forced to simulate syntax through symbol manipulation. There is an underlying connection, a consciousness. To make a robot with AI would require a duplication of the human brain, which means not only simulating it through a program, but actually replicating it in some way structurally, which may or may not be possible. Brooks seems to think that simply computing power is the key to intelligence, but in fact the brain actually has a form of structure to it that has little to do with computation. Lastly, I found Brooks’s talks about discrimination towards robots, and the somewhat ridiculous statements that his kids were little more than little robots (I could not impute a soul to a robot), to be somewhat discrediting, and frankly, I took Searle far more seriously.

There are rules of computer protocol, and there are rules of society. Put them both together in a system and then macroscopic phenomena can occur. Wikipedia, Ebay, and much more all seem to arise out of the new phenomenon that is the World Wide Web. The rules of interaction are social as well as technical. As Sir Berners-Lee points out though, these rules have to be aligned. Email is a very simple system. If a computer receives an email from another computer it sends it along to another computer closer to its destination. If everyone does that and not too many people send silly emails, it works wonderfully. In academia this worked just fine, but in the commercial application of the www, spam email quickly propagated. While we here at Princeton exist in a wondrous world of university-made filters and protections, such spamming can and has ruined other people’s ability to use email and even their computers.
The implications of this are many. As W. Wayt Gibbs suggests in “Bringing the Net to the Bedroom”, the potential presence of the web in our daily lives is so great that our sleep, security, warmth, and other central aspects of our lives may one day be tied to the web. But even these future improvements (I would love to be awaken by sunlight as opposed to my infernal alarm clock) will be governed by our ability to align rules of protocol and rules of society. While it seems that many of the bloggers in this course suggest that the inexorable march of technology simply has to be accommodated, I would like to disagree and suggest that vigilance is highly necessary. While emails are incredibly useful, wedding invitations, cards of condolence, and things of that nature should probably still be sent by snail mail. As the M-generation article suggests, not monitoring how we interact with the web can have potentially stultifying effects. And Sir Berners-Lee would seem to agree. While it might seem more difficult to reengineer the social rules, it seems clear that we may be forced to do so, because the technology will demand that we do so.

The Scribbler generally impressed me. That which I found most frustrating was not really the Scribbler’s inability to understand, but the inaccuracy of its tools. The things that limited the Scribbler most was the rudimentary nature of its sensors, motor, and overall construction. I think the Scribbler could very easily be programmed to draw much more complex shapes if it was equipped with more accurate sensors and was capable of more exact movements. I think drawing from our reading of Flesh and Machines we can realize that the Scribbler is actually capable of rather complex behavior by the standards of the recent past. The robots Allen and Genghis strike me as being at least as inflexible than the Scribbler, and they really only seem more impressive in that their sensors and modes of transportation are more advanced. Allen’s ability to carry on several commands in layers seems its most distinctive advantage over the Scribbler, which processes commands in a serial nature.
The Scribbler strikes me as being particularly similar to Sony’s AIBO, the robotic pet dog. If the Scribbler had legs instead of wheels, could interpret sound accurately enough to follow vocal commands, and had the memory to store all those commands, I wonder in what respect the Scribbler would differ from AIBO. The pet dog has been increasingly programmed by its own owners, who have grown more sophisticated and started reprogramming AIBO using Sony’s R-CODE language. Because AIBO has a computer, a vision system, and modes of acting upon its environment, it is used as an inexpensive platform of artificial intelligence research. In particular, AIBO is used to compete in autonomous soccer competitions. Teams of AIBOs are programmed from the beginning of the match, and then play against the other teams.
I’m excited for the time when we have a Scribbler soccer match.

Hi, my name is Jesse Madigan. I was born in Stockholm, Sweden but I grew up largely in suburban New York, where I lived in a very Italian-American neighborhood, and played a great deal of football, so I figure that makes me pretty American. I play the alto sax, and used to be really intense about it. I have an interesting family history, one part of which was actually made into a movie, though very long ago. Elvira Madigan was my great great aunt, and she used to be a tightrope walker. She fell in love with an officer in the Swedish cavalry, he deserted, she ran away from Circus Madigan (I kid you not), and they attempted to live their lives shuttling around the countryside. It didn’t work so well, and actually ends in a real-life Romeo and Juliet kind of way.

I’m taking this course because I’m fascinated by some questions like whether or not computers can think, and the ties between molecular life and the computer. I also feel incredibly ignorant with regards to the “computational universe”, and that’s never a good feeling. I’m not very tech savvy, but it doesn’t seem so bad so as to embarrass me unduly at any point.

Update 11:50am on 2/14/06: I am going back, deleting what I first wrote about my computer, and writing it again, with perhaps slight variation. I have an iBook G4, a Mac. I like it very much. It’s simple, and I’ve also understood that since fewer people have Macs, less susceptible to viruses.