The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Politics & RKBA => Topic started by: philw on October 18, 2010, 12:01:03 AM
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Computer learning to speak
Scans internet for patterns
Has own Twitter account
IN a basement in Pittsburgh, US, a computer is teaching itself how to talk.
Not only talk, but write, comprehend, and most importantly, tweet.
Supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Google, a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed the Never-Ending Learning System.
They prefer to call her NELL, along with a rapidly growing online fanbase of geeks, language experts and AI fanboys dreaming of a Skynet-controlled future.
For years, they've waited for reality to catch up with science fiction and deliver a self-aware computer that comprehends and obeys our every word.
However, the problem with teaching a computer how to understand our language is that comprehension relies heavily on things like context, emotions and history, i.e. the type of things that don't sit well with anything that relies on programmable logic.
Language defies logic. It does not compute, so to speak.
“For all the advances in computer science, we still don’t have a computer that can learn as humans do, cumulatively, over the long term,” the team’s leader, Tom Mitchell, told The New York Times.
But NELL is doing her best, and after 10 months of crunching letters, she's starting to make some sense.
Her trick to understanding the way we speak is to understand how we learnt to speak.
For the main part, that means getting out there and learning for herself - on the web.
After giving NELL some language basics, she's been virtually left alone in a basement to churn through, so far, some 400,000 web pages.
She's searching for patterns in the words she scans which will enable her to place them all into 280 groups with increasing accuracy.
Recently, she figured out that the words "John MCain" most likely referred to the politician.
That gets filed away as a category fact.
With that established, it's only a matter of time before she learns there is a link between "politician" and "political parties". The link may be "is a member of the" or "represents the" and it will get filed away as a relation.
When she has gathered enough evidence that John MCain is most often referred to in association with the words "Republican Party", she will come to the conclusion that "John MCain" (category) "is a member of the" (relation) "Republican Party" (category).
Just as her vocabulary increases, so too does NELL's library of categories and relations, which in turn will help the entire process speed up exponentially.
She's not perfect, though - recently, the team realised it would have to step in every couple of weeks and correct any misinterpretations that had sent NELL hurtling towards incomprehension.
The Times reports one such instance occurred recently when NELL first came across the term "Internet cookies".
She filed it under "baked goods", but when she then came across a similar sentence referring to computer files, she decided "files" was a baked good too and had to be put back on the right track before every computer-related term from there on became a baked good.
Then, inevitably, NELL discovered Twitter.
"Please follow me, and reply with corrections so I can improve!" she asks at @cmunell.
So far, 938 followers have heard the call and now get hourly updates on their digital baby's first half a million words.
It hasn't all gone well.
Recently, NELL's shown she can be clever, understanding that "insulin treatment" is a #medicalprocedure but steering a little wide of the mark in understanding "food shopping" is a #hobby.
And as recently as Saturday, she even ventured into political satire territory - or at least, something that sounded very much like it when she decided that "US President-elect Barack Obama" is a #politicianus.
Nobody seems to know exactly what a politicianus is, but for now we're assuming they're like opinions - everyone's got one, even NELL.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/meet-nell-the-computer-thats-taught-itself-to-call-barack-obama-a-politicianus/story-e6frfro0-1225940246565
haha must be a smart puter
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I prefer to call him a professional BSer
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Funny story, but, does NELL scare anyone else? AIs going through the web. HAL, HAL, open the door HAL. :o
FQ13 who has obviously watched Terminator one too many times. Still, I can barely work my freaking cell phone. The last thing I want is a politically active computer. ;D
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Funny story, but, does NELL scare anyone else? AIs going through the web. HAL, HAL, open the door HAL. :o
It does at first, if you only read the hype. But then when you get into the details you find that NELL is extremely slow at assimilation. Weeks to figure out that computer files were backed goods. It may be a big step for scientists, who are easily impressed with their findings, but a long way towards AI on a human level.
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With the advances in speed of computers and the compactness they have achieved, this task may be getting closer to reality for a computer.
A computer able to calculate the trajectory of an non-powered object launched in the earths atmosphere with a range of 400 yards or less and then be able to move itself along the ground to intercept and retrieve the object in flight.
Not an easy task at all for a computer but generally done regularly by 10 year old kids playing baseball.
Once the computer is capable of catching it, then we can work on the throw to second.
BTW, does anyone recognize this example from a novel?
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Shes wrong on this one. .Barack Obama" is a #politicianus?
Nope... Barack Obama is an Anti Americanus assholenus.... ;)
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M'ette and I were thinking along the same lines. I believe NELL's statement was a victim of the common typo and what she really meant was, BHO is a political anus. :)
Swoop
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M'ette and I were thinking along the same lines. I believe NELL's statement was a victim of the common typo and what she really meant was, BHO is a political anus. :)
Swoop
That was my thinking as well.
It does at first, if you only read the hype. But then when you get into the details you find that NELL is extremely slow at assimilation. Weeks to figure out that computer files were backed goods. It may be a big step for scientists, who are easily impressed with their findings, but a long way towards AI on a human level.
I have to disagree with Alf, It does not need to be "AI on a human level.
As intelligent as HAL may have sounded, it's only real power was deciding to obey input commands, yes or no.
A system does not have to make an INTELLIGENT decision to screw up the whole human world, it just has to decide to do as it pleases.
Congress makes a good example of unintelligent systems getting the bit in their teeth.
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Shes wrong on this one. .Barack Obama" is a #politicianus?
Nope... Barack Obama is an Anti Americanus assholenus.... ;)
I added emphasis as needed to make these titles truly fit. Hope you don't mind?
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That seems redundant in a repetetive sort of way.
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The last thing I want is a politically active computer. ;D
I don't know FQ, maybe a really smart computer could figure out which politician is lying the LEAST.
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I don't know FQ, maybe a really smart computer could figure out which politician is lying the LEAST.
Thats easy to do....Count how many words each candidate speaks in a minutes time...The one with the least is lying least.
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You are wrong Rat.
Obummer's biggest lie came in three words.
My fellow Americans.....
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Thats easy to do....Count how many words each candidate speaks in a minutes time...The one with the least is lying least.
I was speaking on Quantity of lies told and not quality.
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I sent this Thread to some people...
Got this from Warph ;D as usual... he is is fine form.
Excuse my "Big Wall Of Text" but....
Classless and godless, Voter X: It seems as if this Clown cannot stand to utter any words he thinks might acknowledge a power higher than himself. As I read various current articles on Obuma, I keep wondering if those that voted for this Clown will spend any time in self reflection asking themselves why they were so easily led to the slaughter. Why did they tune out or disparage all questioning of Obuma's past and the gaping hole of the lack of information about his past. How is it that they turned a deaf ear or blind eye to the fact that for two decades he "worshiped" under the hate-filled Jeremiah Wright? Does it not bother the masses that electing Obuma, how shallow their values have become, that all it took to sway them was his appearance and mindless, cheer leading chant of "hope and change"? We have a battle between Truth and lies, deceit, fraud. Deceit, by definition, takes portions of the truth and then distorts them, so that confusion ensues. Most of us here remember with chagrin how many, many otherwise "intelligent" people succumbed to the razzle-dazzle of Obuma during the 2008 campaign. One cringes with disgust in knowing that the Left MUST have an ignorant, pliable mass of people, the "motley rabble" as Nietzsche called them. If Obuma, the "Constitutional scholar," can continue "mis-stating" documents, facts, truth, the "unquestioning" among us will soon be indoctrinated. Sadly, hate to generalize, but... these people do not think, do not reason; they react emotionally, and emotions are easily roused.
Obuma may be an empty-suit, with empty promises and an hollow rattling off of his mind-numbing tripe from a teleprompter... but he is not ignorant or unlearned... but he may very well be just plain stupid. His speech writers use enough buzz-words and catch phrases to make you think you're hearing what you want, but only that. The truth in his narration is there for the gleaning, if one looks close enough, as many previous posters have clearly identified. Watch the u-tube video of his, stalling, lip-quivering, lizard-like delivery of his "Creator-Less" version. Also, checkout the "In-Alienable" exchange, which totally alters the meaning. Obuma uses "INalienable" rather than "UNalienable" when quoting the Declaration. Many do this in error; Obuma can only be doing it deliberately... being the 'Constitutional scholar' and all. In his original draft Jefferson used "INalienable". When Franklin and Adams reviewed it, they changed that descriptive term to "UNalienable", which became/is the term in final document. Because Franklin and Adams changed it, and that change was incorporated into the final document which all signed, the Founders' intent shows a clarity abhorrent to Obuma with his "INalienable." UNalienable rights... such as the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness endowed [given, provided] by our Creator... cannot be sold, taken, or given away to another; they are inherently OURS. INalienable rights.... such as property ownership.... can be sold, transferred, or taken... such as by laws/government.INalienable rights are legally "transient." UNalienable rights are our Founder's guarantee to each of us that the federal government must acknowledge and respect our sovereignty-of-self. The Clowns substitution on INalienable for UNalienable is one more glaring example of his desire for our sovereignty-of-self to be usurped by his Marxist-goaled government. Hitler did the same thing. Subtle changes of words in speeches. Scary how close we are already. As one democrat said, "Obuma? He ain't quite right in the head."
To sum it up.... in this particular case, which has now been repeated on more than one occasion, it is the deliberate omission of certain words that mean things. To me it means the Clown does not respect nor does he necessarily believe in the words that our forefathers used to describe the true nature of our God-given rights. And this to me is cause for concern because it calls into question many other things about this person. To quote George Orwell: "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." There is no denying the truth that the words in "The Declaration" are the exact words used by our forefathers for all the world to see. It was revolutionary then, and apparently, it is still revolutionary.
Stay alert and keep praying.