Could Deep Blue play a smarter AI ?

[MxxPwr]

It's the brains tiny impulses that trigger the powerfull reaction of a muscle contraction in the first place. And that tiny impulse yeilds a powerfull reaction. Why wouldn't that effect be present in other interactions?

Distance...

...and the type of medium certain signals must travel through.

But, Ah! Distance. The bane of all communication and energy transfer.

Good thing too, else our 12,000 degree solar mate would cook us alive.

 

[NapoléonPremier]

I'm fascinated by the String Theory and other aspects of quantum physics. And I can't help but wonder if ancient societies were, by necessity, more in 'tune' with the world they lived in, and so were able to utilize aspects of nature that modern society would dismiss as pure fantasy. I wonder....

I completely agree with you. Although I made a bit of fun (amicably) earlier about your indian origins, I truly think that most cultures were/are very superior to the Western culture when it comes to the relationship with nature and a holistic understanding. They felt and understood that nature was an alive body, full of spirits, and they had that connection. I mean, I suppose the goal of Lakota sun dance and other things of this sort is precisely to get this connection going. Also, if you watch this year's movie "The New World", from Terrence Mallick, I think it conveys pretty well this feeling of unity between man and nature in the indian tribes. The only superiority of Western thinking, and it's colossal, is the use of technical rationality which requires an objectification of things. It has allowed the Western man to conquer the world. But it has also made him miserable, because he has lost this sacred connection to Nature and to the spiritual. He lives in a dead world. Dead to him.

Who knows what other mysteries await the open and seeking mind? I for one give some credence to the possibility that the human brain can effect changes in our bodies and to our enviroments. I have some limited personal experiance with matters of mind over matter which really makes me wonder what other abilites may be locked away in our prejudiced minds.

This is going to make "pure materialists" jump, but I can tell you that it's already been there for ages : psychokinesis, telecrux (seeing things far away from outside of your body...), instantaneous healing etc, etc... The true Indian (from India) masters can even materialize objects at will. And I'm not talking about a magic trick. Of course, it would seem heretic to classical science. But it's all possible because matter is only an apparency, a form of illusion. Only the spirit is real. It's all a question of things vibrating at different frequencies. Slow frequencies come off as matter. High frequencies as spirit. But it's all one big web. Everything is alive. Separation is an illusion. In time, Western science will get to this. Quantum science is a first step in this direction.

 

[NapoléonPremier]

Thanks... I think. Care to elaborate on "your insufficiently rigorous grasping (or maybe exposition) of logic and the founding principles of modern science"? If I'm missing something, I would truly like to learn.

Don't bother learning, it's much overrated. I was reffering to the controversies about logic and logical fallacies in which you were involved way back in that thread. It would be too burdensome to sift through it all again. Of course, now it may seem like an unfair criticism but hey, what do you know, life is unfair. I'm sure you'll have many more occasions to demonstrate it again in the rest ot the thread.

I can't believe people are falling for this "stay open-minded, with science anything is possible" idea. Take a video-tape of a car accident. Then watch it in rewind. Or video a cup of coffee cooling to its surroundings... then watch it in rewind.

See ? This, for example. What is this supposed to mean, exactly ?

And from what I hear from current living missionaries, if you go to Brazil, Haiti, or parts of deep Africa, you will find convincing proof of witchcraft and voodoo.

You don't have to believe it, but don't deny it unless you've been there.

Oh I believe you, alright. Voodoo, magic, and all that stuff work very well. I don't advise you to ever mess with a Vodouno (voodoo sorcerer), 'cause he can make your life very miserable. Most magic, past or present, black or white, from whatever culture, is based on the harnessing of powerful spiritual forces (often bad ones, thery're easier to reach) through different processes, some of which have been frequently reffered to in popular fiction. The "plus" of Voodoo is an extremely detailed science of poisons in all their forms. A true voodoo sorcerer would be able to give you substances that can kill your "target" in a minute or in a month, in horrible suffering or almost invisibly, according to your wishes.

Now a completely stupid question I've been wanting to ask you for some time :
Do you have Sioux in Sioux Falls ?
Do you have Falls ?

 

[NapoléonPremier]

Here again we have misinterpretation of words. Religion is a philosophy, because 'a philosophy' is a system of thought. Religion is not philosophy, because 'philosophy' (without the indefinite article) is a way of trying to discover truth/wisdom.

I would call that argumentative. But yeah, sure, why not. Although I'm not sure every system of thought qualifies as "a philosophy".

All debates very easily turn personal. If you destroy someone else's argument you are, deliberately or entirely innocently, showing them up as more stupid than you are. At least, it's very easy for someone to feel as if you are. That's almost a personal insult... and so we have flamewars. It's harder to have a truly friendly, warm, lovey debate than it is to devise the cunning arguments that form part of the debate.

Whaddya say, m*****f*****? You talkin' to me ?

If you postulate some hidden ingredient, how does it get there? Why would it not go into our AI? An important part of science is taking the simpler theory. If you won't do that, why accept any of the principles of science? At the moment the theory of an invisible soul giving awareness is as sensible as an unknown process in the complex organ that is the brain. However, if we create a similarly complex imitation then it should have the same awareness, whether it be through a soul or a mechanistic process..

Well, that's because you suppose we could "manipulate" this soul (if there is one) just as we can manipulate cells or chemical compounds. What if this "soul" will only enter the body in the very exact conditions of natural reproduction (even if it's in vitro) and not by growing a brain independently ?

We're dealing with a scientific problem, of creating intelligence. We can see a brain growing, we know some of how it develops. Eventually, we may be able to imitate this precisely. This imitation must function as the original does. If it does not, then we must rewrite science and our understanding of the world. Thus, if you accept the principles of science (and consequently, share our current understanding of the world as defined by science) then you must believe that there is the theoretical possibility of creating AI..

I completely do, but I don't think it can be done by "doing it the same way nature does". But I don't see why we couldn't implement all the brain functions (which aren't the soul, if there's such a thing) in a machine, even a brain-cell based machine, and particularly learning which is the key to the next step. You would have a scaringly efficient AI, and you don't need a soul for that.

Maybe his example was bad, but the general statement that 'Some things are impossible' is a true one. We can prove that some things are impossible; a mathematician should be able to recall some sort of proof that something can't be proven, although a suitable example to demonstrate the statement eludes me.

Maths can never tell you that something is impossible, because it is a formal system disconnected from the physical world (although it describes it astonishingly well, another subject to meditate). However, it has been shown that in a formal logical system, some things can not be proven even if they are true. That's Godel's "incompleteness theorem". We've been through that before on that thread, just check the appropriate posts.

Can someone tell me how to do multiple quotes?

Based on your inabilty to discover how to post multiple quotes.. Would you have thought it impossible if you had not seen others do it? What if people had also told you that it was impossibile.. would you have believed them? Would you have then passed on this erroneous info to the next guy?

He's making fun of you, but that's very very true, and all the proponents of the "some things are impossible" stance in this thread should meditate on this striking example. Basically, "impossible" is how we label the things we don't know how to do yet. And as soon as we find a way, we move the tag onto another thing.
But again, to be precise : I'm not saying it's possible or will be possible to do everything. I'm just saying it's impossible to affirm otherwise with certainty, since our knowledge/vision of the world and the related possibilities resulting from this knowledge/vision are in constant evolution.

 

[NapoléonPremier]

There are 4 basic forces governing atoms and everything else in the universe. Electricity is not one of them. The forces are electromagnetism, gravity, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force. All of them affect atoms, though gravity has very little effect because of the small masses involved.

The concept of electromagnetism has been created after Maxwell's work has shown that electricity and magnetism were two variants of the same force. So electricity is definitely one of them. And I think the strong and weak nuclear forces have an electrical nature as well (although I wouldn't bet my hand on it...)

 

[NapoléonPremier]

Now that would be novel and interesting. Create an AI that plays the game better than most people do. Then give the player the handicap bonuses. Might be tough on peoples ego, but it would diminish the accusations of AI cheating.

The problem with creating a perfect AI and then giving the human bonuses is that for a human it doesn't feel quite the same. People like to be able to pounce on mistakes, exploit them and cover up their own. An AI that makes no mistakes and that you only beat because of your bonuses isn't fun. It may well be the same really, but it feels like rather than playing an opponent you're competing with yourself not to make enough mistakes to overcome your bonuses.

A very welcome return to the topic subject.
I have the view that AI can be programmed in a way that beats any human player with even odds (of course, AI discount levels like Emperor would be out of the question).

I don't agree that mastering the AI perfectly would necessarily give an unbeatable AI if you played completely evenly. Because here again, Civ is not like chess. Because chess is more or less only a combinational calculation challenge, so it is inevitable that if you add enough computing power one day or another the AI becomes unbeatable on even odds - like it's starting to happen now (cf beginning of this thread). However, Civ cannot at all be reduced to an optimum combinational calculation, because there are too many variables and too many uncertainties. So even if you could design an extremely efficient AI, I don't see why it would necessarily be better than a very good human player. One absolutely necessary condition though : the odds must be absolutely even, meaning that the AI cannot "cheat" and have access to informations a human player could not have (exact state of the rest of the game etc...). Then even at a very good level a lot of the Civ game remains based on risk and gamble, and that's why it's fun. For instance, even with careful situation assessment, starting a war is always a gamble. You can never be sure another player is not going to backstab you or that another yet unknown player isn't starting to runaway techwise. There's not an absolute, objective evaluation of long ranging moves in Civ like there is in chess : if I do THIS, then it's guaranteed to make me stronger/weaker in 20 turns (that's not the case for short term tactical moves like military unit management in battle, that the AI could clearly do better, and maybe to "perfection"). That's why even an excellent AI wouldn't have, in my view, a decisive advantage over excellent human players.
Plus, to be fun, the AI would really have to be "as human as possible", meaning be really influenced by personality traits, resulting in further distance from "optimal move" : if a war seems reasonably feasible, even if it's not the "best possible move", then Genghis or Caesar should go for it, while Gandhi would abstain.

 

[NapoléonPremier]

Personnally, I'm happy with that thread. It has brought me many interesting elements of answer to my original question.

However, beyond Civ and on the whole, I feel that Artificial Intelligence is really the forgotten kid of modern scientific progress. All in all, it remains very primitive, and mostly based on brute force. I don't know why this is the case. It is a fascinating field. And the commercial applications of good AI would be enormous. Whaddya think ?

 

[NapoléonPremier]

This is outrageously off topic, I know, but a thought came to me from two apparently unrelated elements : we discussed chess at some point on this thread, and one of the posters seems to be of Native American descent. What's the link ? This : I don't know if you heard or read the (in)famous interview former chess genius/present insane Bobby Fischer gave to a philippino radio on 9/11. In it, among other crazy things, he said (talking about America) that "the White people should be sent back to Europe, the Black people to Africa, the Asian people to Asia and the land given back to the natives." Now that doesn't seem very realistic, but that certainly would be fun to watch. I would particulary like to see the West Coast rappers cruising the African bush with their Lamborghinis and their platinum chains. While the 30 years old Asian-American billionaire from the Silicon Valley would have to sell noodles on a cart in the cramped streets of Hong-Kong. At the same time, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (who now live in France) would have to move to some project housing in the poor suburbs of Paris because of the overpopulation from the new immigrants, and would burn down cars to express their discontentement. And the UN would have to organize a relief effort for the fat Americans nobody wants to adopt.
Of course, we Frenchmen and Europeans, who might gloat at first, would soon realize than this is also our mess : when the Germans decide to visit Paris with their Panzers again, or the Chinese decide to throw their billion guys at us, I doubt that the Sioux cavalry or the Apache hatchets, however brave, would be very useful. After throwing so much s*** at our big cousin across the Atlantic, we would come to deeply regret Eisenhower, Patton and the like (although if it rids us from rap "music", it would have all been worth it )...

I know this is as insane as Bobby Fischer himself, but wouldn't it make a good Civ scenario ?


PS : for those interested, Bobby Fischer was "refugeed" for a long time in Japan to escape an arrest warrant on his head released for playing an exhibition game in Yugoslavia during the embargo. He was about to get extradited, when the icelandic parliament gave him the icelandic nationality as a "thank you for drawing so much attention on Iceland" during the famous 1972 championship he won against Soviet player Boris Spassky. Iceland does not have extradition conventions with the USA...

 

[atreas]

I don't agree that mastering the AI perfectly would necessarily give an unbeatable AI if you played completely evenly. Because here again, Civ is not like chess. Because chess is more or less only a combinational calculation challenge, so it is inevitable that if you add enough computing power one day or another the AI becomes unbeatable on even odds - like it's starting to happen now (cf beginning of this thread). However, Civ cannot at all be reduced to an optimum combinational calculation, because there are too many variables and too many uncertainties. So even if you could design an extremely efficient AI, I don't see why it would necessarily be better than a very good human player. ... Then even at a very good level a lot of the Civ game remains based on risk and gamble, and that's why it's fun. For instance, even with careful situation assessment, starting a war is always a gamble. You can never be sure another player is not going to backstab you or that another yet unknown player isn't starting to runaway techwise. There's not an absolute, objective evaluation of long ranging moves in Civ like there is in chess : if I do THIS, then it's guaranteed to make me stronger/weaker in 20 turns (that's not the case for short term tactical moves like military unit management in battle, that the AI could clearly do better, and maybe to "perfection"). That's why even an excellent AI wouldn't have, in my view, a decisive advantage over excellent human players.

In probabilistic enviroments we don't count things the way you say. For example, when two players' comparative abilities are 60%-40% in backgammon, that doesn't show whether their current game will be won by the "better" player or the "worst one" - it just shows that if they continue to play long enough, the better player will generally win. So, in a single decision anybody (even the worst player of the world) might "easily" win the world champion, and this adds fun to many game (but, of course, chess isn't one of them).

Only in this perspective you can count better and worst in such enviroments, and hasn't much to do with the result of any specific game: you need a big sample. But the AI would have on his side a big advantage - the fact that in each civ game there are usually many moves, so even a small advantage "per move" would get big enough to become very serious.

 

[dbergan]

Re: Car accident and coffee cup videos in rewind.

See ? This, for example. What is this supposed to mean, exactly ?

Physically, a car accident can only happen in one direction. You can watch a car accident in rewind via a videotape, but you would never be able to do a backward-car-accident in reality. It's impossible. These are the kind of examples usually given to demonstrate the irreversibility of entropy.

Do you have Sioux in Sioux Falls ?
Do you have Falls ?

Yup. Yup. The Lakota/Sioux were one of the major Native tribes in the area. But right now, I think the Sudanese (blackest of the black from Africa) population in Sioux Falls exceeds the Sioux population.

 

[Brighteye]

Well, that's because you suppose we could "manipulate" this soul (if there is one) just as we can manipulate cells or chemical compounds. What if this "soul" will only enter the body in the very exact conditions of natural reproduction (even if it's in vitro) and not by growing a brain independently ?

If the soul won't enter an identical object, and this leads to discernible differences in how that object functions then we will need to rethink our basic concepts of how the world works. Given that all of modern technology is based on the current concepts they seem to be quite accurate. Therefore postulating something that requires them to be rewritten is foolish

Maths can never tell you that something is impossible, because it is a formal system disconnected from the physical world (although it describes it astonishingly well, another subject to meditate). However, it has been shown that in a formal logical system, some things can not be proven even if they are true. That's Godel's "incompleteness theorem". We've been through that before on that thread, just check the appropriate posts.

He's making fun of you, but that's very very true, and all the proponents of the "some things are impossible" stance in this thread should meditate on this striking example. Basically, "impossible" is how we label the things we don't know how to do yet. And as soon as we find a way, we move the tag onto another thing.
But again, to be precise : I'm not saying it's possible or will be possible to do everything. I'm just saying it's impossible to affirm otherwise with certainty, since our knowledge/vision of the world and the related possibilities resulting from this knowledge/vision are in constant evolution.

Some things are impossible. Just as our knowledge of the world leads us to say that typing on a keyboard is possible, there are some things that are not. I brought up maths because I'm fairly sure I have heard about proofs that simply prove that something else can never be proven, whether true or not. This is an example that proves my point; all I need is one example to prove the statement 'Some things are impossible'.

I realised that he was having a laugh, but I assumed that it was just a joke rather than making a serious point, since the point is so obviously flawed. Since you take it seriously, so will I: I never suggested that doing multiple quotes was impossible. In fact, I implied that I thought it was possible. Just because I didn't have knowledge of how to do one thing does not mean that anything else that I cannot do is due to my lack of knowledge. That is incredibly stupid reasoning. I can quite easily not know how to do one thing and at the same time know that something else is impossible.

 

[MxxPwr]

If the soul won't enter an identical object, and this leads to discernible differences in how that object functions then we will need to rethink our basic concepts of how the world works. Given that all of modern technology is based on the current concepts they seem to be quite accurate. Therefore postulating something that requires them to be rewritten is foolish.

Eh, I don't think the scientific community would agree with that statement.

Because it can be said in this way:

If the speed of light is the same regardless of the state of the observer, and this leads to discernible differences in how time and space functions, then we will need to rethink our basic concepts of how the world works. Given that all of modern technology is based on the current concepts they seem to be quite accurate. Therefore postulating something that requires them to be rewritten is foolish.

Except that lead to Special Relativity.

or:

If the speed and location of a subatomic particle can never be observed; only the probability, and this leads to discernible differences in how General Relativity functions on a subatomic level, then we need to rethink our basic concepts of how the world works. Given that all of modern technology is based on the current concepts they seem to be quite accurate. Therefore postulating something that requires them to be rewritten is foolish.

That's Quantum Physics leading into String Theory.

 

[Pawel]

Napoleon, you are one funny guy! I was kind of wondering at how this thread had drifted away, but after reading about the Bobby Fisher scenario is suddenly all made sense. And yet some very important thoughts there too...

MxxPwr, do you think that string theory will ever turn into technology? I would be amazed if it ever turned into an actual theory!

 

[member66170]

This is going to make "pure materialists" jump, but I can tell you that it's already been there for ages : psychokinesis, telecrux (seeing things far away from outside of your body...), instantaneous healing etc, etc... The true Indian (from India) masters can even materialize objects at will. And I'm not talking about a magic trick. Of course, it would seem heretic to classical science. But it's all possible because matter is only an apparency, a form of illusion. Only the spirit is real. It's all a question of things vibrating at different frequencies. Slow frequencies come off as matter. High frequencies as spirit. But it's all one big web. Everything is alive. Separation is an illusion. In time, Western science will get to this. Quantum science is a first step in this direction.

Are you joking, or are you on some seriously hard drug? If you go really believe in that kind of crap then you should go and see a specialist asap. You have obviously been brainwashed by someone and are now incapable of logical thoughts. I am not even going to start telling you why you are wrong because their is so much to say that i would double the size of this thread.

I have remained polite long enough but when someone tells me that sticking a needle in a doll can kill me that I can no longer contain myself.

If you really believe what you said then you are mad. MAD. M-A-D.

 

[Pawel]

My Lord Olleus,
Thou art no scientist, I believe?

 

[MxxPwr]

MxxPwr, do you think that string theory will ever turn into technology? I would be amazed if it ever turned into an actual theory!

Well, personally, string theory lost me at 'extra dimensions.' But maybe that's just my unwillingness to let go of zero-dimensional particles.

Anyway, I suppose one can say that the writing of mathematical programs to probe the world of absurd-number-of-dimensions has advanced math/computer technology.

 

[jar2574]

If the soul won't enter an identical object, and this leads to discernible differences in how that object functions then we will need to rethink our basic concepts of how the world works.

Why? Why not just postulate that the identical object was put together in the wrong order. (i.e. the billions of nerve connections were not connected in the correct order.)

I think you're underestimating the difficulty of replicating the brain and body. The sequence of their development is as important as the matter that results from the development.

Given that all of modern technology is based on the current concepts they seem to be quite accurate. Therefore postulating something that requires them to be rewritten is foolish.

Modern technology obviously can't create the identical object you're imagining. Current concepts are inadequate. Therefore postulating that modern technology will create such an object without some concepts being rewritten would be foolish.

 

[member66170]

My Lord Olleus,
Thou art no scientist, I believe?

String theory only works at sub-sub-sub atmoic levels. Using string theory to say that some guy can destroy matter is like me saying that the random movement of air molecules might just create a vacuum on top of me, and suck me into space. Anyone who seriously believes that it is possible in practice should be shot for the benefit of the human geneome.

 

[Pawel]

I don't think that string theory in particular has anything to say about telekinesis, but science is in many ways more advanced than some people believe.

 

[MxxPwr]

Oh and to catch up on the all the topics:

IMHO -

If you just load a vanilla copy of Civ4 onto Deep Blue: no it wouldn't play a better AI. It would just be faster.

If the Civ4 AI programmers had access to Deep Blue (or it's kin); sure they could program a better AI, because there are more resources. But it wouldn't be as competent as a chess AI (because of all the reasons people smarter than me have mentioned earlier). And it wouldn't necessarily lead to a better AI for you or me because they'd have to scale down the AI programming for our machines.

Which leads to the bummer, Civ4 has to run on our machines. So unless a new computer comes with each new installment of Civ; Civ AI will always be limited to our level of resources. So in my case, my Civ AI will always be 2-3 years more stupid than anybody elses.

Uh, let's see, human level intelligence in AI: Not in my lifetime. Probably not ever. Who would want something that wishy-washy and slow anyway?

And... Humans - souls? Yes. Can AI have souls? Again; why? Trust me computer; you don't want one. They are dark, spooky, and make you say bad things about your fellow computers.

I tell my brain, to tell my hand, to move the all-in-one tool from the table to my computer desk, because Civ4 is burning up my crappy computer and I need to take the side panel off to keep it cool. So, why can't I just tell the side panel to come off and skip all the middle men? Because mankind has no supernatural powers. Why? I dunno. But we don't. Throughout history, any person who showed supernatural ability either asked the supernatural to do it (therefore had no supernatural powers of their own), was endowed by the supernatural with powers (same), was a half-breed (ergo not human), or was the supernatural (again; not human). But heck, God's blessed us with a body that can pick up an all-in-one tool, so why not use it?

Wouldn't the navtive americans have to go back to east asia?

Bobby Fisher; was Jewish; wasn't for a while; now can't make up his mind. :::sung to The Chanukkah Song:::

...I think that's all