The Computational Universe

The discussion over artificial intelligence is one that I just can’t seem to make up my mind about.  Like many of my classmates, initially after reading the Searle article I was pretty convinced by his arguments.  I found the Chinese room hypothetical compelling and in general his arguments seemed to validate my previous inclinations against AI.  Yet as I have continued to ponder the possibility of AI my views have continued to fluctuate and I am not sure whether this is the result of Brooks, class discussion, or just my own changing temperaments.  While I do find Brooks’ discussion of the human mind as one big machine with many subparts to be an effective analogy, my indecision surrounding my views on AI seems a prime example of the type of “conscious” processes a machine would lack, whether it is able to pass the Turing Test or not.  Essential to human thinking and cognition is an ability to think critically, to assess and re-assess our views and to attempt to combine our emotions with logic and rational thought to reach our final views and opinions.  Again, my ever changing views on AI is one example of the quest to balance my fear that computers or machines could ever attain the same consciousness as humans and more reasoned and substantiated arguments on the issue as presented by Searle and Brooks.  Yet this incorporation of emotion and irrationality is something that I would think machines would lack, but that I find essential to human consciousness.  I guess ultimately, while my views remain in limbo and after reading Brooks I am more open to the possibility of AI, it’s this absence of irrationality and spontaneity triggered my emotion, mood, interaction etc. that really trips me up when considering the possibility of AI.  I don’t doubt that a computer can pass the Turing test, but I still question the possibility for a machine to achieve what we consider human consciousness.  Nevertheless, considering the possibility has been somewhat mind boggling and certainly put me in touch with my more erratic side.

Unfortunately, despite attending the lecture with my roomate Matt Nguyen, I thought we were to blog by tomorrow’s class which is why this post comes a bit late. Apologies. Similar to the sentiments expressed by the majority of the class, I found Berners-Lee’s talk to be a bit over my head but engaging nonetheless. Given the fact I really didn’t understand the distinction between the world wide web and the internet prior to this talk, his discussion of the semantic web opened the door to a whole new world for me. However of particular interest to me was his explanation of technical and social rules. Almost every slide was divided by technical and social subheadings which I thought introduced a new dimesion to a discipline, computer science, that I always thought of as exclusively techie. He also mentioned the prospect of a new discipline called “web science.” From my understanding this would focus on the development and future of the web, with a particular emphasis on the semantic web. I thought this was quite interesting both because the web still baffles and impresses me, but more so because it really speaks to how integral the web has become in our lives. Much like politics, art, and religion, the web has become something so indispensable to society that it merits extensive study and a potential major at a university. To be able to hear from someone so involved and knowledgable about this was pretty incredible.

As we worked out whether Ben would bike or walk to school in class using Boolean logic and a simple truth table, I immediately thought back to the seemingly complex word problems of my elementary school years…man, I wish someone had introduced me to the fundamentals of computer science back then! But on a more serious note, Boolean logic, through the use of three basic gates, AND, OR, and NOT and their simple binary representation of inputs can perform some of the most complex computations. I’ve found this realization to be most apparent in my daily life in its application to web searches. I often find myself trying a number of different search queries whether it be on the library website or a normal web search engine to narrow my search and get the information I am looking for. Indeed, my still very rudimentary understanding of Boolean logic, has helped me to more precisely craft my queries to what I am looking for.

However despite the widespread applications of Boolean logic, from web searches to programming to more abstract questions it is clear that the world can not always be reduced to binary terms, and “true” or “false” responses. Indeed, this is the central limitation of Boolean logic, its failure to account for the more qualitative, fuzzy aspects of the world. While this limitation may not render anything, or computation impossible using Boolean logic, it certainly complicates things which brings me to a second constraint. It would seem that in order to account for the many intricacies, and sometimes more qualitative aspects of a situation, many gates would be required in various Boolean expressions. In lecture, the simple examples we looked at, would often require multiple lines of Boolean expressions. While it is truly impressive that three simple gates can represent anything, I would guess that efficiency can be somewhat of a challenge when working with Boolean logic.

While I am yet to experience the joys of programming a robotic device with my very own scribbler, my experience last week nevertheless proved quite interesting.  As others have noted, the imprecision of the scribbler was certainly eye opening.  Even performing simple tasks, like moving forward and then retracing its path is difficult for the scribbler to perform accurately which makes you wonder how difficult more complex tasks must be.  Furthermore, these simple imprecisions on the part of the robot really made me realize how careful and exact the programmer must be when writing pseudocode as these errors were made without my clumsy programming skills (as I am sure future labs will show).  Yet it was also clear that there were some inherent problems with the scribbler itself, most likely due to its simple and inexpensive nature.  For example, when the lab called for us to put our hands in the path of the scribbler and see at what distance it could detect it, the robot detected my hand at a different distance from my lab partner’s etc. which makes me think that depending on the lighting, shape, pigment etc of your hand it will pick it up at different distances.  This is just one example of how the obstacle sensor on the robot is probably not that accurate.  But regardless, I find the machine to be intriguing and look forward to discovering more ways to work with the robot, imperfections and all.

Hey guys,

Sooo being the unorganized, slightly overwhelmed by my thesis, slacker senior that I am I just switched into this course on Friday dropping the infamous GEO210 and what a great decision that was. Dropping marbles into sand just didn’t quite get me going, not to hate on any geo or potential geo majors out there. Anyways, my name is Zaneta Clark and I am a senior politics major with an AAS certificate. Originally from Minne-sOHHH-tah I am just your typical down to earth midwestern girl (have to give the shout out to the midwest–there aren’t too many of us here). No, I did not grow up on a farm and yes people do live there despite the freezing cold. On campus, I am in Bodyhype Dance Company and recently relinquished all responsibility as the outgoing treasurer of Ivy. Next year I plan to work abroad either for AIG in Bangkok or an organization called Endeavor in South Africa. Both are finance/venture capital type jobs which is something I never imagined I would have been interested in prior to Princeton. However after spending a summer working at Goldman Sachs in sales and trading my interest was peaked and it is definitely a path I would like to explore for a couple years. I also always thought I would study abroad but decided not to for a variety of reasons, and so you can see how my plans for next year attempt to combine these two interests.

I am taking this class to fulfill my final ST requirement which I have clearly put off until the last second. To be honest though, having my own robot and learning how to blog are both pretty cool to me so so far this class is looking great. Also, my friend Matt and I had a master blogging scheme plan at the beginning of the year stolen from his fraternity. Somehow, of course I don’t entirely understand how, we were going to make some sort of fake blog that people would then advertise on and google would give us money. His frat was going to do this and have their pledges click on the ads to pay off their debt, but google is smarter than they are and shut down their blog. So that is about the extent of my blogging knowledge until now. I did take COS 109 with Brian Kernighan my freshman fall and really enjoyed it so I hope to finish out my Princeton experience with an equally enjoyable COS class. Looking forward to meeting you all….

Update on 2/20 at 5:47pm: I use a HP Lance Armstrong “Live Strong” special edition laptop…Yes, my friends make fun of me for this and yes, I got a bracelet with it.  I used to use a Dell but it started acting weird so my stepdad bought me a new one this summer.