Category: Science & Technology

Super AI: Genie in the Bottle

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Super AI: The Genie in the  Bottle

By Ross Turner

Daily Life

“Artificial intelligence” is hard to get away from these days.  Not merely its mention in tech circles and popular media, but its increasing application in daily life.  From Alexa to self-driving cars, from Google Maps to the US military’s drone programs, artificial intelligence is integrating itself into the vital functions of our social, economic, and political lives.  And it’s not slowing down.  On the contrary, it is growing at a clip that has many AI researchers and scientists both excited and alarmed.  Humanity now stands on a road that inevitably leads to artificial general intelligence (AGI), but one laden with pitfalls that demand caution.  In order to understand why this is so and what worries pioneers in the field, we must first examine what artificial intelligence is, how it works, and what it can potentially do.

What is AI?

Computers and cell phones all have weak AI

Computers, cell phones, calculators are weak AG

Artificial intelligence (AI) is simply any type of non-biological intelligence; that is, intelligent outcomes produced by machines.  By far the most common and familiar type of AI is narrow AI, (also weak AI), which is used to perform a specific function or functions.  It may possess superhuman abilities in limited areas, but it has no capacity to apply that intelligence broadly to other domains outside of its expertise.  Its intelligence is not generalized.

Narrow and Safe

This can be anything as simple as a calculator, to most of the apps on your smart phone, to commercial and municipal applications such as traffic lights, aviation navigation systems, medical diagnostics, and high-frequency stock trading.  Narrow AI is exactly as safe as the outcome it is designed to produce; it will never go beyond its limitations and develop its own goals and instruments for achieving them.  While this makes it incredibly safe, it also severely limits what it is able to do and thus constrains the full benefits — and risks — of machine intelligence.

Strong AI

As with every human technology, AI brings both benefits & dangers

As with every human technology, AI brings both benefits & dangers

With AGI (also strong AI), this is not the case.  An AGI is one able to perform across the full spectrum of human cognitive abilities, or better.  This includes the ability to reason, plan, infer, communicate, learn from experience, think abstractly, solve problems, evaluate with limited information, and to use these in service of its goals. Though vastly different in architecture and “lived” experience from a human being, an AGI ought to be intellectually indistinguishable.  Researchers have realized over the decades the difficulty in this given the extreme complexity of the human brain, but new developments such as deep reinforcement learning indicate significant progress in achieving a true AGI1.

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Opinion: Choose To Re-Use and Re-Purpose

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Opinion: Choose To Re-Use

REFUSE THE REFUSE….. CHOOSE TO RE-USE

By Jennifer Troy

Organic and Natural

The amount of “wasteful waste” accumulated everyday, world-wide is staggering. Here in my corner of the world, Portland, Oregon, waste is everywhere. We have careless waste, we have intentional waste, we have good intentioned waste, we have plastic waste and we have paper waste, just to mention a few.  It is my wish to draw attention to waste that need not be wasted. Sometimes we accept a premise just because everyone else seems to accept it. Human beings are sheep.  I hope to convince you that often the things we do because we think it is the “right” thing for the environment may in fact be short-sighted and wrong. Shockingly, “organic” and “natural” may not always be the best answer.  I believe with all of my heart re-use and re-purpose in the end will be the best way forward.

Paper or Plastic?

Take as an example, the recent “Paper or Plastic” epidemic sweeping through the nation. We did it!  We finally got the public involved in saving the environment by ousting plastic and replacing it with the greener choice of paper. We’ve been so successful that half the rain forests of the Pacific NW and elsewhere are being systematically destroyed, not to mention the massive amount of paper in its many forms is now rotting in our landfills. Repeat after me, “re-use and re-purpose”.

Re-Use and Re-Purpose

Plastic or Progress?

Paper or Progress?

Natural means natural…. not sustainable, durable or reusable as it’s synthetic counterparts. “Synthetic”? “Synthetic”? That means man-made. Yes, man-made. These textiles were designed to be reused. Designed to be washed and NOT discarded. Why on earth have we put so much energy into creating, recycling and re-purposing plastic if we’re now simply going to ban it? Wake up, America there is a better way, there is progress.

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Defending Civil Liberties in the Digital World Against Trump Threats

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My friend, and super techno-geek, Jane, brought a magazine to the house and showed me an ad that had caught her attention. I thought it was interesting enough to comment on it here, at Calamity Politics. So, remember it is an advertisement, but the questions it brings up are noteworthy and in need of deeper political investigation and discussion. I will not be doing any research on the matter, and will assign that research task to my readers if they are interested. If a reader learns something interesting be sure to pass it on to us curious bystanders. To tell you the truth, I am so busy trying to keep up on the political news each day I barely have time to walk the dog.

This post was taken from an ad page by Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org/defend-users):  Although an ad, I thought the issue was serious enough to bring it to the attention of my friends and readers.

“Incoming President Donald Trump made campaign promises that, if carried out, threaten the free web and the rights of millions of people.  He has praised attempts to undermine digital security, supported mass surveillance, and threatened net neutrality.  He (Trump) promised to identify and deport millions of your friends and neighbors, track people based on their religious beliefs, and suppress freedom of the press.  And he (Trump) wants to use your servers (the technology community) to do it.”

EFF is “calling on the technology community to unite with EFF in securing our networks against this threat.

ENCRYPT:  Use HTTPS and end-to-end encryption for every user transaction, communication and activity by default.  DELETE:  Scrub your logs.  You cannot be made to surrender data you do not have.  REVEAL:  If you get a government request to monitor users or censor speech, tell the world.  RESIST:  Fight for user rights in court, on Capital Hill, and beyond. **(When you stand with users, EFF will stand with you).  EFF has fought for the rights of technology creators and users for 26 years, through four different presidential administrations.  As a nonpartisan nonprofit, we combine litigation, activism, and software development to defend civil liberties in the digital world.”

“Finally,  The future of our democracy depends on the Internet that is free from censorship and government surveillance.  Together we can ensure that technology created to connect and uplift people worldwide is not conscripted into a tool of oppression.”

Join the Resistance

Dar