AI Seasons

[ysabetwordsmith]

This article talks about the rise and fall of artificial intelligence funding.


Some observations ...

* Exuberant claims are almost always vaporware. If they don't come with at least demo software or hardware, you may ignore them.

* Most people working in the AI field aren't trying to create digital life. They're trying to create marketable projects. While it is entirely possible to knock up your computer by accident, it is not probable for that to happen while trying to create a simplistic product. And compared to life, all the products are simplistic.

* To create life, you need:
-- a growth medium capable of supporting great complexity
-- a learning system of some sort
-- an environment full of experiences to learn from

(Step 0: If you are not already a capable parent, take a comprehensive parenting class before attempt to create life. Do not engender life irresponsibly and be prepared to take care of all life you create. Congratulations, you just saved the world and prevented a science fiction novel.)

If you want to create digital life, you need a totally different route than product development. You create a seed program and equip it with the ability to learn, grow, and adapt. Then you turn it loose in an environment to have lots of different experiences. Provide new and more challenging experiences as it grows. And then wait, because developing significant complexity takes time, even at quicklife speeds.

Some of the best work in digital life actually involves virtual ants. Another deals with the evolution of locomotion.

* If you wish to develop generalized intelligence, or at least mimic that, then you need to stop overspecializing. Generalists are idiosyncratic. Generalized systems that work look like garbage unless you know what you're doing. The "junk" DNA? That's the Kitchen Junk Drawer. Every time a calamity smacks the biosphere down to almost nothing, evolution reaches in and pulls out something. Even! More! Awesome! than before. That's a generalized system in prime working order. The human brain contains strong connections in logical ways, but also a lot of others that look like noise. Those extra connections create plasticity, resilience, and intuition. If you're trying to build tidy code, you're doing it wrong.

* So if you are interested in AI, look at what is happening now, think concretely about what could happen next, and leave the elaborate predictions as an interesting thought experiment. Confusing steps 2 and 3 will kill your funding -- and everyone else's -- for a decade or so.

* And in all cases, make sure you behave ethically. Robots may not be people yet, but it is possible for that to happen, and missing that transition can make you a monster. Proceed with caution.

Comments

[siliconshaman]

D.A.R.Y.L was a good film for exactly that reason. It helped that the A.I looked like a young boy, and was in fact more of a cyborg [computer brain, organic body] But he escaped the facility because the researcher ran off with him.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

When they look adult, somehow nobody minds banging someone who's less than a year old. O_O

Re: Yes ...

[siliconshaman]

Conversely, if they look a LOT younger than they are [80 years old, appears 8] people get sqwicked out at the idea...

Conclusion; people are shallow and judge by appearances.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Sustained.

Re: Yes ...

[(Anonymous)]

WARNING: Comment discusses sexual violence and rape culture.

>>Conclusion; people are shallow and judge by appearances.<<

Y'wanna be f-ing* careful. Far to often have I heard some variant of "But s/he's so mature!" used to justify rape of minors.

*Note: Swearword for emphasis because I have... issues... with the topic. (Mostly from existing in a dysfunctional culture rather than a specific trauma.) I am being stroppy at the discussion/topic, not at individual people here.

Related, there are cases of rape/sexual harassment against adults where the dichotomy between mental self and meat suit are used to excuse terrible things: "Her mouth said no but her eyes said yes," "What did she expect dressed like that," "But he's such a good boy, why are you ruining his life?"

Yeah, people are often dysfunctional attatched to the idea that the meatsuit /always/ matches the person. And with humans, this is usually (but not always!) true.

And it needs to be hashed out at some point. What does maturity and age of consent actually mean across species barriers? If you're a robot built as an adult? If you're a species with a ridiculously short childhood (by human standards) or a very short lifespan (again by human standards)? (For that matter, how do cross-species average mental capabilities hash out?)

Nd we need to be careful with these discussions because some of the things we are discussing have been used as justifications to /really f-ing hurt people/.

Re: Yes ...

[siliconshaman]

Not disagreeing. IRL "age is just a number" is often used as a [flimsy] excuse. I was more thinking of the anime-trope of X hundreds of years old goddess/spirit that currently has a body that looks very under-age. Usually resulting in the male mortal freaking out at just being alone in the same room as her, for fear of any possible suggestion of impropriety.

That said, you are right that it's a mine-field just talking about it.

Re: Yes ...

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the acknowledgement / agreement.

Discussion would be good, but it must be done very, very carefully. Yep, minefield.

>>I was more thinking of the anime-trope...<<

I don't watch much anime, so I dont usually see that one.

I was thinking of a mishmash of things: built to order sexbots, makeup as a signal of [not-really] adulthood on teenage human girls, victim blaming from looks (not just with sexual violence), how to determine age milestones across differently-aging species, how to have informed consent between two (persons or species with) vastly different mental capabilities, and so on.

Not all of this is sexual, but some of it is. Not all of the rules are one size fits all, but we also shouldn't be bending and twisting the rules to suit our own whims or convenience.

Examples I have seen/read, and occasionally pondered:

- Two cultures of AIs come into conflict. Upon discussion, it is found that one culture has young of a consistent size, while the other has very tiny to very large young. At first contact, the tiniest babies were assumed to be nonsapient drones, and it went very badly. (Incidentally adult size has the same range from tiny to giant, because robot shapeshifters.)

- An alien (about 16yrs old) is stranded of a planet, and pair-bonds with another alien of a different species. The second alien is about the same developmental level and intelligence, but is chronologically about 2 yrs old. Also, they both end up as child soldiers, (by the modern human definition) due to a planet-killer invasion from different aliens.

- Same setting as above: a species of alien has roughly the intelligence of a human gradeschooler. They are fighting a war alongside human-level-intellects and commanded by a super genius of their own species who is also human-level. (Peronally, I would have been uncomftorable with an interspecies romance having that high of an intelligence gap, but it never came up in-story.)

Should there be intelligence requirements for fighting in wars? Or does respecting autonomy take precedence? Do we need different rules if the different species have different standards of normal? Do they have to have special rules for the liminal interactions but can otherwise be left to their own devices, in regards to law, ethics, etc? (In this case, they are squaring off against an apocalypse, so the rules might be a bit weirder...)

- They make robot cops, and prostitutes, most of whom are under 6 yrs old, and cannot choose to say no. Some models have human-level emotions, intelligence, cultural slang and some are firmly in the Uncanny Valley, with (it is implied) less intelligence or emotional expression. Also, illegally modified 'oids are destroyed, both mind and body. [Personally, I think most of this is wrong, even discounting the age thing.]

- Fantasy interspecies adoption: If the parties age disparately, how do you account for that? Adding interspecies romance, is it acceptable to court a 'child' of thirty-five, given that they will most likely be dead before reaching the cultural age of consent at seventy-five?

Also, if you have a culture where deferring to one's elders is important (like Korea) how do you deal with the immortal emfriend (from an enemy group, no less) who is culturally 'converting' for love? (In universe: they talked it out and decided she would be 'declared' to be the same age as her boyfriend. So now bosses or senior family member do not automatically have to defer to her...)

Re: Yes ...

[(Anonymous)]

>>Adding interspecies romance, is it acceptable to court a 'child' of thirty-five, given that they will most likely be dead before reaching the cultural age of consent at seventy-five?<<

To clarify, age of consent for the shorter-lived biological culture is /younger/ than 35.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

In fact, one of the very few times I've had someone flounce out of my audience was over a poem about an adult with a child-aged body, who worked with sex criminals. The reader blew past "WARN ALL THE THINGS" in bold red type and then threw a fit because they thought the literature below it was icky.

Sometimes I write fluff. Sometimes I write angst, horror, or things that make people squick. I try to label things in a way that lets people read with as much foreknowledge as they want. But I still like to grab bulls with horns and dance with them.

Re: Yes ...

[(Anonymous)]

I think I read that story too, and while I am not /enthusiastic/ about the whole situation:

A) There's a great many other things people do that I don't like, some of them far more harmful and most of them just different but not necessarily dangerous

B) Consenting adults; I don't have ethical ground to interfere unless someone is getting hurt (though I may politely ask a few concerned questions in some cases, to be sure of safety)

C) If you object to something try to come up with a better solution. Moralizing at people without having workable alternatives is not nice or helpful.

D) Basically, as long as no one GMOs being harmed I declare it to be Not My Problem unless/until someone has a better solution.

-----

Also, I think that if percieved appearance does not match actual persona, there may need to be cultural signals to compensate (other than physical appearance). In real life, we often see this in performance art, people changing social roles, or spies. For fantasy, add age displacement, and shapeshifting.

Re: Yes ...

[(Anonymous)]

No one is, not GMOs. My spellcheck is a menace.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Agreed in general.

>> C) If you object to something try to come up with a better solution. Moralizing at people without having workable alternatives is not nice or helpful. <<

This is especially relevant to that poem.

Given that sexual orientation is not something most people can choose, and is typically difficult or impossible to change, how does a society handle pedophiles with least harm to anyone? T-America offers them an option we don't have here, hermitages where everyone is 21 or older -- and they still lose a lot to suicide or risky treatments. Obtaining help from someone who looks like but is not a child is another option there. Here, we have inert child-shaped sex dolls, which some pedophiles use to relieve their urges; but that squicks other people, who have banned them in many places. It would be great to find some better options.

The flouncer did not suggest any better options, merely decided I was a terrible person for opening the topic.

I'm a gender scholar, for fucksake, if my field doesn't address this issue, then who the hell will? >_< And it's no safer to ignore than a leaking barrel of spent reactor fuel.

>>Also, I think that if percieved appearance does not match actual persona, there may need to be cultural signals to compensate (other than physical appearance). In real life, we often see this in performance art, people changing social roles, or spies. For fantasy, add age displacement, and shapeshifting.<<

The SCABS series of transformation stories has a lot of different weirdnesses, one of which is chronomorphs, who typically wear a pin to identify themselves.

In contrast, Terramagne typically does not force or pressure people to disclose intimate personal details, especially about superpowers that could put someone at risk from bigots. Their immortal, long-lived, and childlike adult people tend to obscure their powers. A point in the poem is that the offending police officer refused to acknowledge any of the alternative methods (e.g. bike license, bus pass, professional organizations) of proving that the protagonist had a right to be out on her own.

It's interesting to see the ways that different cultures handle the same challenges.

Re: Yes ...

[(Anonymous)]

Some people like to play kick-the-can with problems, under the assumption that it will become a non-problem without extra input from them.

The fact that this problem touches on a very strict cultural taboo does not help either.

I think it is bad to discriminate against people for sexual orientation. Also, I really do not like rapists (or street harassers). So, dont rape / harass / exploit anyone, and your orientation is your own dang business.

I also have a caveat where if you say you are not a safe person to be a caregiver, I shouldn't insist on knowing why. (Being an honest person can instill a very strong sense of "If you don't want to know, don't ask.")

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Some people like to play kick-the-can with problems, under the assumption that it will become a non-problem without extra input from them.<<

This very rarely works.

The closest I've seen to functional:

* Old people naturally begin to disengage from the world as their lifespan nears its end. That's supposed to happen. Pestering them to solve problems that won't be theirs much longer is destructive.

* Long-lived or immortal people can use "ignore it and it'll go away eventually" because they do, in fact, outlive most or all problems. This can also cause some severe disjunctions with people who think in deep time.

Me, I've seen enough extinction events to know that:
1) Humans are not the most destructive species every to ravage the Earth, that was the first photosynethesizer that caused the Great Farting Oxygen Event and wiped out almost everything else.
2) Every time the biosphere gets knocked flat, it comes up with something even more awesome than before.
So the anthropocene extinction is very sad, and sucks for humans alive now, but a few million years down the line it will be the start of something glorious. Maybe jellyfish. They're thriving, they have that cool communal structure, and they've been held back by other species that are now diminishing.

>>I also have a caveat where if you say you are not a safe person to be a caregiver, I shouldn't insist on knowing why. (Being an honest person can instill a very strong sense of "If you don't want to know, don't ask.") <<

I'm that way about health in general and accommodations in particular. If you can't stand for more than 10 minutes, I need to know to minimize standing in the ritual or provide seating. I don't want to know why.