Posted by Jonny Trigonometry on November 25, 2003, at 16:22:50
In reply to Re: What is consciousness?, posted by maxx44 on November 23, 2003, at 23:22:48
It seems so temptingly possible to be able to program creativity and dreaming and other unconscious things to which an awareness can draw from... From the algorithms that are based on evolution theory, we have almost cracked this problem. The algorithms provide a state-space for programs to evolve from, and later "mate" with each other by mixing different parts of them together to form offspring of any number and any random combination of the parent programs, and there is also an added mutation possibility. As these programs grow, they are tested against the problem at hand and determined to either be a good solution or a bad solution. If the solution is good compared to the rest of the solutions, then it will mate with other good programs, if it is bad it might not mate with other programs, and will most likely be thrown away. So over time, the solution becomes more clear, and more efficient to the problem at hand. Well, if our computing hardware gets powerful enough, we will be able to develop a 4th level programming language, capable of solving problems in english instead of lisp... of course, it would be based on lisp. But anyway, if this whole process of evolution for the best solution could be done in a micro-second, then it approaches human-competative problem solving skills. These genetic algorithms wouldn't be the awareness/consciousness of the AI, they would be the way for the AI to think about things, or if the awareness desires, i think these algorithms provide a way to be creative, or possibly to dream. They wouldn't be the consciousness, they would be the unconsciousness of the awareness... For example, as humans, we are able to recognize a face in a crowd, but if we were to make a program to do that, it would need to take snapshots of every face and compare them with known faces, and with our current technology, that would take a long time, well our brain does it all unconsciously and in micro-seconds. To look for someone in a crowd may seem like a conscious process, but there is way too much info to process consciously, therefore most of the finding must be done unconsciously. In the case of our AI, the initial circumstances would all be set by the consciousness, and the unconscious genetic algorithms do the rest over time to develop the best possible solution(s) that appease the awareness to it's satisfaction.
poster:Jonny Trigonometry
thread:282271
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20031124/msgs/283720.html