The Computational Universe

Upon reading Searle’s article, I do feel that artificial intelligence is possible only to a limited extent. I was impressed by some readings on the extent to which robots have become capable, but ultimately I do not believe that artificial beings will ever be able to have real thought.

Searle makes a number of good points about the limits of artificial intelligence and why the Strong AI thesis is wrong. He talks about syntax versus semantics – the fact that syntax is a set of formal rules and semantics involves meaning attached to those rules – and I feel that these are all very valid points. Mechanically and methodically doing a simple process does not alone imply thought; that is to say, obeying simple rules of syntax does not imply thought, and without some other meaning, there is no thought. That is where semantics comes in. Furthermore, I really thought that his mention of the brain as biological hardware included a lot of good points. People do tend to view the mind as “something formal and abstract, not a part of the wet and slimy stuff in our heads,” but in fact the mind is “just as much a biological phenomenon as digestion.” Like the digestive process depends on the structure and organization of digestive organs, the thinking process relies on the complex biological structure of the brain. It cannot be separated from the hardware and made into a program, workable on all computers.

Perhaps what makes this study so controversial is that the Strong AI thesis prods at a widely thought unanswerable, controversial question: Can we create life? If real thought is what distinguishes humans from other life forms, and if we can create thought on a machine, then it is as though we have created some kind of life form, which can independently act and think. I personally don’t feel that we can put into machines true thought processes and complicated emotions.

Well I never though I’d be voluntarily posting on our blog, but due to my recent obsession with understanding everything we talk about in class so that I don’t fail the final I have spent many a night googling the terms we discuss. After trying to figure out the “traceroute” question on the lab that asked why the route from Princeton to Yale would go through Philadelphia, I did some investigating and came across this diagram/image of how our university is connected to other networks. I found it on the website for “magpi”, which apparently serves institutions of higher education in the Mid-Atlantic. Check it out…

http://magpi.net/topology.jpg

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

When we studied the Rumor Mill problem, we looked at the “social network” amongst the students in the class. Some of you were (correctly) reminded of our earlier discussion of web search.

Here is a recent Business Week article on the uses of social networks. You may also be interested in a course called Networked Life at U. Penn.

Cheers, SA

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 I can see from my fellow classmates’ blog entries, I was not the only one who felt as though they did not understand a great deal of what Tim Berners-Lee was talking about. I feel as though he could have made more of an impact if he had catered his speech more toward a relatively lay audience. However, I understand that such a request is difficult to fulfill given the highly technological topic. And who am I to judge? I mean the man did create the World Wide Web…

Confusion aside, I thought it was a very interesting talk. For me, the most amazing part was getting to see the person responsible for technology that so directly affects my daily life! Of the very limited things I could understand from the discussion, I found a few of the concepts highly fascinating. Mr. Berners-Lee’s thoughts about the future of the web were what I came away from the talk thinking about. The web already seemed so highly advanced to me. I thought boolean logic and search engines were unbelievable; now I can see that was only the beginning.

What struck me as most intriguing was Berners-Lee’s focus on Internet responsibility. At first, I thought this odd. Why would a man who had created something so astounding want to place limits on his creation? After turning this question over in my brain, however, the answer became utterly apparent. Tim Berners-Lee is a bit like Doctor Frankenstein: he is a man who has pioneered the unimaginable. Unlike the mad doctor, however, Berners-Lee realizes the ramifications of unleashing a potential monster on society.