Norbert Weiner the dark hero of the information age

[loudthings 0]

Norbert Wiener fathered cybernetics. He spent the first half of his life setting the foundations of cybernetics, and the second half warning the world about its implications. He had great fears that as computers were further and further integrated into the workings of society, the role of the human would change in a dangerous way.

[loudthings 0]

I think that Weiner should be taken more seriously. I might be wrong, but I feel that he is greatly overlooked and so is the field of cybernetics. Cybernetics has spawned many other fields that we are well aquainted with today, such as computer science and certain aspects of neurobiology. However, as field of its own, it has sort of fizzled out.

[Admiral Lyoko Samus 0]

Cybernetics: The manifestation of "intelligence" in technology. This is one of the most questionable, both on moral and intellectual levels, as to whether or not developing it further is something to be considered or to be stopped before more dangerous things develop.

 

I'm sure most of you have seen the science-fiction movies where they make an AI (Artificial Intelligence) unit that becomes too smart and tries to take over the world. Though I'm sure we are far from that great of a development, it is definitely something that shouldn't be overlooked. True, the practice in the field has brought about new knowledge in neurology and programming languages, but either way, I don't think manifestation of free will is possible in a machine.

 

You can program a machine to handle certain situations with every possibility that you can come up with, but there is no way to program every possible outcome into it, especially in light of our knowledge of most outcomes is pure instinct and our memory often fails us in recollecting such possibilties. AI is powerful, yes, but current AI is infantile; undeveloped. So, answer me this: would it be so wrong to create a cybernetic organism (cyborg) [with human and technological parts, such as human brain and technological muscles] that could perform as a human? So long as the human central nervous system remains intact and the electromagnetic impulses sent by it can be translated efficiently and correctly, I see no reason for worry.

 

In layman's terms, human equivalent AI is impossible for us to recreate.

 

As for human's new dependancy on technology, I'm afraid this was also a dangerous mistake. The more and more integrated we become with the technological world, the more chances there are of us losing so much information to hackers and viruses. Though I'm all for technology and harnessing it to make our lives easier, there still isn't anything better than having a "backup" on a piece of paper.

[szupie 0]

If we did make a cyborg looking the same as a human, that would be like the Bicentennial Man by Isaac Asimov! And if the AI gets too smart, it would be like Terminator!

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

szupie: Since you quoted Asimov, why not try and build the cyborgs with the Three Laws of Robotics (or Four, if the Zeroeth law is taken into account) hardcoded into their brain.

 

Do you know that those three laws of robotics have been successfully programmed into a research prototype AI system at MIT and it was found to behave quite similar to what Asimov predicted. I say, he's shown us a way - now it's upto us to go ahead and implement it the RIGHT WAY... as to what the Right Way is, only time can tell.....

[Admiral Lyoko Samus 0]

*Chuckles* I say its worth more research, but lets try to keep it at simulations until we can be sure we won't have any *clears throat* mishaps.

[loudthings 0]

ha, ...mishaps. what about this fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic business? i think that it is the future of AI. fuzzy sets and fuzzy classes are close to the way the human brain classifies and processes. and i disagree, i think that the human mind is just a very complex computer and that a computer could be created that would have "free will" in the sense that humans are said to have free will. fuzzy logic is very interesting, it is has to do with the philosophy of vagueness, and it does away with arbitrary points of distinction. at what point does something become something else when you replace its many pieces one by one? the point of distinction is arbitrary. fuzzy logic does not depend on on distinct inclusion or exclusion. this seems to be much the way the human mind processes data. our brain is constantly filling in holes in the in the data we get from stimulus. is filling holes in order to identify patterns. this is very fuzzy.