The Artificial Intelligence Thread

[rahullak]

Hello everyone!

A.I is now a fast-moving field and there are so many advancements being made big and small. Almost every year we hear of something cool. Whether it is in game-playing systems like AlphaZero, Watson etc. or new research advancements such as Deep Learning, GANs, NLP etc., or cool new applications like automated driving, text generation / chat bots, life-like robotics, medical diagnosis etc., the topic is vast and ripe for discussion.

This is also a very interdisciplinary field. A.I influences and is influenced by numerous fields such as neuroscience, linguistics, sociology, philosophy of mind, data science, general business etc. Not to mention that any field that requires data-crunching is today bound to use machine learning in some form or other - whether that is astronomy or genetic engineering or really any data-rich field.

So creating this general thread to share and discuss anything and everything broad and deep about A.I. and have a place to post all of the happenings around this field. And yes that includes books, movies, entertainment in all its forms as well!

To start off, here's an interesting article someone had linked to on another website:

Can a machine have empathy?

While the article was created to discuss the implications for marketing, the points raised are thought-provoking in a more general sense.

Is empathy something deeper than reading the surface reactions of people? If not, then can A.I ultimately be able to mimic that and therefore be said to have empathy? What does it mean to say that we understand something, whereas a silicon-based machine cannot?

Max Tegmark's view is that we humans are a configuration of physical particles (or waves), configured in a way that allows such things as awareness, understanding and empathy. Why should it not be possible that a similar configuration cannot be constructed artificially?

I think that the ideas that we think of know that we have of consciousness, understanding, soul etc. goes beyond the sum of our quarks, but that it is not clear that it is impossible for us to artificially create it either using silicon or other biologically inspired material.

What are your thoughts and comments? Have you found cool new A.I science, applications or advancements today?

 

[rahullak]

In the wake of all this talk about COVID-19, here's a distraction: an AI advancement that helps with air pollution.

Novel AI system can predict air pollution levels in advance

The system can be used as an air pollution analysis tool leading to a better understanding of the weather, seasonal and environmental factors affecting PM2.5.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

You can certainly add a line of code if(FaceLooksFrightened) { ReduceAggression() }

Whether the hypothetical machine can really have the same experience of empathy as we do with the carbon computers in our heads, it's hard to philosophically speculate.

 

[rahullak]

You can certainly add a line of code if(FaceLooksFrightened) { ReduceAggression() }

Whether the hypothetical machine can really have the same experience of empathy as we do with the carbon computers in our heads, it's hard to philosophically speculate.

The current trend in A.I is to move away from symbolic and rule-based systems. But, your point can be extrapolated to current systems where instead of explicitly programming the rules, one can feed data of FacesLookingFrightened and train connectionist models to ReduceAggression.

Still, it seems hard to equate what we call as empathy to trained connectionist systems. I think this is mostly because the conventional wisdom is that "empathy" cannot be taught. But is that really true? Can we not with effort and training improve our empathic abilities? If yes, then might not examination of the processes used to improve our empathy be understood and translated to training in machines?

 

[Mudd]

It doesn't look like anything to me.

 

[rahullak]

It doesn't look like anything to me.

Which one?

 

[rahullak]

This artificial intelligence tool can predict which Covid-19 patient is likely to develop respiratory disease

"We hope that the tool, when fully developed, will be useful to physicians as they assess which moderately ill patients really need beds, and who can safely go home, with hospital resources stretched thin," Bari said.

There's more work to be done but it's a good first step in attempting to reduce the burden on hospitals. Knowing which patients are likely to develop severe symptoms and require hospitalization and ventilator support, and which patients do not can help prioritize.

 

[rahullak]

Here's an A.I podcast by Lex Fridman.

Conversations about the nature of intelligence, science, and technology (at MIT and beyond) from the perspective of deep learning, robotics, AI, AGI, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, economics, physics, mathematics, and more.

A veritable who's who of people in the field and associated with the field, technologists, mathematicians, physicists, philosophers and many more, converse about A.I, consciousness and more.

Thought it would be interesting to share and even discuss some of the content of the episodes here.

 

[publiusr]

Moravic’s paradox is such that you can have computers paint “new” Rembrandts, compose music and do intellectual tasks we as humans thought would be left to us once Robby did all the menial tasks like work.

The hell of it is that so much of being human is proprioception—walking around sense. Humanoid robots still have less poise than drunks—though things are moving forward.

The pattern recognition theory of mind (which relies on hidden Markov models) has as one important aspect called recursion.

Polti called this “composition” in his “Thirty Six Dramatic Situations”.

Whether it be Kurzweil’s coding or Karswell’s calligraphy—if you want to call up an intelligence—it all comes down to the proper casting of the runes.

 

[rahullak]

Moravic’s paradox is such that you can have computers paint “new” Rembrandts, compose music and do intellectual tasks we as humans thought would be left to us once Robby did all the menial tasks like work.

The hell of it is that so much of being human is proprioception—walking around sense. Humanoid robots still have less poise than drunks—though things are moving forward.

Consider: What we consider difficult to do (such as higher-order reasoning, logic, computation etc.) are easy for computers do it because we infused (programmed) that into them. And we were able to do this because these are our creations/abstractions which we have created consciously in response to dealing with our environments over time. What we consider easy to do (motor skills), sense perceptions etc. are harder for computers because we have been unable to divine how these skills develop in us (or how the basic abilities are stored in our genes) and therefore have not been able to infuse that into robots.

The pattern recognition theory of mind (which relies on hidden Markov models) has as one important aspect called recursion.

Interesting. Would you elaborate?

Polti called this “composition” in his “Thirty Six Dramatic Situations”.

I could not find "Composition" in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-Six_Dramatic_Situations

 

[publiusr]

He talks about how there are only so many emotions—towards the end of the book.

AI in the news:

Think like a child
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-07-ai-baby-suddenly-excelled.html
Piloto and colleagues found the deep-learning model that started with a blank slate did a good job, but the model based on object-centered coding inspired by infant cognition did significantly better.

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-07-embedded-artificial-intelligence-capacity-palimpsest.html
Biological synapses are known to store multiple memories on top of each other at different time scales, much like representations of the early techniques of manuscript writing known as "palimpsest," where annotations can be superimposed alongside traces of earlier writing.

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-07-ai-tackle-longstanding-heterogeneity-problem.html
Federated learning is a form of machine learning involving multiple devices, called clients.

How AI can help us
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-07-fuzzy-ai-algorithms-aid-people.html
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-physicists-ai-complex-protein.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-07-artificial-intelligence-potential-drug-molecules.html

We can still do a lot.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-07-brain-deepfakes.html

Odd
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-07-ai-associatively.html

Deep learning to track ships
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-deep-learning-algorithms-ship-tracks.html
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-antineutrino-reactor-off-method-submarine-patrols.html


A robot that understands itself? Use tools?
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-07-robot-world.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-07-framework-ability-robots-physical-tools.html

 

[rahullak]

Strides toward AGI.

Elon Musk-backed OpenAI to release text tool it called dangerous

OpenAI, the machine learning nonprofit co-founded by Elon Musk, has released its first commercial product: a rentable version of a text generation tool the organisation once deemed too dangerous to release.

Dubbed simply “the API”, the new service lets businesses directly access the most powerful version of GPT-3, OpenAI’s general purpose text generation AI.

The tool is already a more than capable writer. Feeding an earlier version of the opening line of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four – “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” – the system recognises the vaguely futuristic tone and the novelistic style, and continues with: “I was in my car on my way to a new job in Seattle. I put the gas in, put the key in, and then I let it run. I just imagined what the day would be like. A hundred years from now. In 2045, I was a teacher in some school in a poor part of rural China. I started with Chinese history and history of science.”

 

[publiusr]

I understand some neurons were wired into a chip recently

 

[rahullak]

I understand some neurons were wired into a chip recently

Are you talking about artificial neurons that mimic biological ones and could one day be used in lieu of them?

That's being developed.

 

[Santaman]

Hmm, I don't think anyone is actually that interested in an A.I. but more into smart computing where A.I. technology is used for a specific purpose instead of a real A.I.

 

[rahullak]

Well, maybe the public at large would rather not have an AGI. But some organisations are working towards it.

Like OpenAI, creator of GPT3 mentioned in the article above.

 

[Mysterion]

Some of the difficulties of getting an Ai to do what you want it to, the way you want it to:

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[publiusr]

Neuromorphic materials like hafnium disulfide are being looked at by Dr Sina Najmaei.

Optical systems are being looked at:
Super lens squeezes light into nano space”
“Pause button for light particles “

 

[publiusr]

Be on the lookout for AiMC, Imec’s Analog in Memory Computing.

Hideaki Horie has found a way to fabricate batteries at low cost. Three D printers have made Borg cube like Menger sponge designs for armor...Marion Cromb writes about “black hole bombs” at space.com...eROSITA has an X Ray map of the Milky Way, and IZEST is looking at exawatt lasers.

An interesting week of news

BuildIt as "a DSL for creating DSLs."
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-04-software-tool-easier-debug-domain-specific.html

AI descartes
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-04-ai-scientist-combines-theory-scientific.html

 

[rahullak]

AI is now a Math Whiz conjecture creator.

The Ramanujan Machine

It creates new methods of deriving fundamental constants like pi or e and it is up to mathematicians to prove or disprove the conjecture that the new methods can successfully recreate those constants.

@CorporalCaptain
@Asbo Zaprudder