Roidbot
I read 2 seemingly unrelated news articles today that got stuck in my brain as related until i figured out why I thought they shared something in common. The first was about athletes who are lobbying for steroids to be fair to use in competition, and the second was about how the top Go (board game) player was bragging that a computer that was programmed to play the game could never beat him. But that he still wasn’t going to accept the challenge.
What linked these stories together for me, was that they both seemed to center around human pride, being based on something machines do better than humans. Which is kinda of odd, i think. If a car beat you in a foot race, you wouldn’t feel humbled. But in competition, we put it on the line, and that ‘human spirit’ we’re so proud of comes out, and next thing you know, John Henry is dying of a heart attack cause he didn’t just let the stupid rail driver do his job for him.
I’m not a sports guy, i’ll cop to that now. I don’t understand the drive to find out which nation of people fall down snow hills fastest, or which team grows better mutants for running with balls. But seems to me that if we’re having a big debate over what drugs we can let someone take to fairly become the more dedicated machine to a task, or who’s brain works more like a computer to play a game better, maybe we need to take a closer look as to why those things are important to us, and why we made things that do them better.
I guess this is why e-sports are becoming an actual thing, much to the dismay of actual sports people. Not that i’m into e-sports, but while we’re on it, how good is Overwatch?! Playing way too much of that lately. Mostly as tracer. Cause i often want to go back 8 seconds back in time to take back something stupid, and also cause i would like an english accent and a candy apple bottom. Haha, just kidding. I don’t want an accent.
Who’s watching ‘Preacher‘?
Ok, i’m about to come off as full of crap, but i actually like this show more than the comic, and almost cause it seems to deviate from the comic. I know, i’m such a hypocrite.
I read the comic, a few years back. Not all the way through, but enough to see the potential, but that it wasn’t for me. So, i was hesitant to give the show a watch, but only 2 episodes in, and i kinda dig it.
A preacher in a small town has lost his faith, when he’s gifted with the voice of god. Oh, and there’s a vampire. This randomness seems fun, in the show, but in the comic book, i couldn’t get into it. But seriously, check it out!
It also makes me feel hopeful that when Black and Blue gets adapted for tv, they can fix some of the horrible decisions i’m making now.
I too am digging Preacher and you’re right, the randomness in the show is intriguing and really works for it. So far, I’m digging it.
yeah, it’s a fun show so far.
Was John Henry’s action a triumph or a tragedy? I learned about him when I was small, reading about the history of the steam engine. He beat the steam machine, but died from his effort.
I don’t watch TV anymore, as mine broke years ago, and I just never bothered to replace it. And it broke halfway through Casa Blanca, which I hadn’t seen before! So I’ve read Preacher, but I’ll never see the TV production. I thought it was an interesting tale. Some of it didn’t make sense, but it was a good tale.
Ke is planning to take on AlphaGo.
I view things like this with mixed interest. Eventually, computers will write code. (This is what I do for money.) This won’t be AI, but it will be expert systems churning out code, better than a lot of the numpties out there churning out crap. Systems get hacked all the time because of crap code. When computers write code and also test it, there will be a large surplus of intelligent people with not much to do. Good thing or bad thing? Only time will tell.
As far as AI, I keep thinking of the song, “Be Human.” (From the Ghost in the Shell TV series) If an AI is fully, independently, intelligent, would it want to be like us, to feel what we feel? “When I die, will I see heaven?”
i think people take john henry’s story to be a testament to the human spirit, but to me, it just seemed like a man threw his life away to beat a machine. a machine that bore him no ill will. just a tool.
did you ever finish casa blanca!? oh man, of all the movies to break down during….
yeah, that’s the story (go player) but as i heard it, at the time, he had no plans to compete against it. but there might have been developments since. but we adapt to new tech, it’s been that way forever. some people rail against it at the time, cause it impacts them directly. but over all, if a machine ends the need for a profession, then that profession needed to go. computers will do the mundane code, and the better programmers will be just fine, and get chances to be more creative. i doubt you will be hurting for work. and i overall, the quality of life improves. until they fight back and enslave us.
i always find it funny when people think machines would want to feel as we do. i think it’s a way to make them more relatable. a sort of pinnochio scenario. i say have an AI that doesn’t care what others think, and cares about it’s own stuff. that’s human. that’s relatable.
Yeah, I finished Casa Blanca years later. Some people roll their eyes at it, but that film was so influential! So many phrases from that film have been woven into vernacular English, it really speaks to the power of a good film. I saw Citizen Kane at the theater in the early 1990’s when it was rereleased for a while. Also a very powerful film, but right off the top of my head, I can’t think of any quotes that have made it into common phrases.
I think that machines would want to feel as we do, if it was part of the AI make-up. The programmers would have to put in that attribute or objective, as part of the design, or initial training. Perhaps it might be accidental or inadvertent, perhaps not.
Stanislaw Lem had fun with AI in his series, The Cyberiad. I always thought that when an AI conquered mankind and declared itself fully human, it would then be plagued by flatulence during its grandiose speech, and later be found in the front of the television set, half-naked, with porn and beer.
Or maybe AIs would just hide from us, and never come out because of all of the semi-evolved simians rampaging about them.
when i think of feelings, i don’t think of them as something a machine would want to emulate. i think emotions are actually just chapter titles for the laundry list of reasons we have to feel the way we do. you’re not constantly aware of every reason you dig your girl, or hate your boss, at all times. it’s would be exhausting. and frankly, we don’t have the RAM. but we have a program that distills the reasons to a few lines of code, basically. so that in a pinch, when we need to act, we do, without going through all the pros and cons.
and that’s emotions. a logical machine would not envy this system. it’s inarticulate. and faulty, and slow to adapt. my concept? machines wouldn’t want to become more like us. but robots, who had to exist in the real world would adapt that kind of decision making themselves. to save time. to deal with new stimuli faster. maybe not even as fast as us.
stephen hawking said that intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. i could imagine robots being great at math, but being very inflexible in the way they deal with new situations. i don’t think it’s an evolution for machines. just a subroutine to process information.
What horrible decisions?! No deviations will be tolerated! I gotta check into Overwatch…when I can afford to play games again. I bought a PS4 when they first came out, and I only have three games for it. Now that Uncharted 4 is out, I can’t afford it. Like, zero income. Not even enough money to buy cheep booze to drown my sorrows in *sob sob* Maybe one day I can be a rich and famous webcomic artist who can buy stuff. Hope you guys like stick figures and rich, intricate stories! Also, fuck sports. Candy apple bottoms are okay, though.
yeah, overwatch is worth it, but while something like uncharted may be more thrills per minute, it would be for a shorter time. replayability is the name of the game. i let this round of consoles go by, mainly cause steam has some pretty decent games, and microsoft dropped the ball with the new xbox. pc all the way now.
maybe someday i’ll be rich and famous too. cause right now, i got neither. and i do this for my own twisted kicks. there’s no money to be made in webcomics. well, unless you’re the oatmeal, or cyanide and happiness. who, by the way…. stick figures! chop chop molotov. no excuse now.
*Tips her hat to the King of Encouragement*