What is a good violin and explanation of how to buy one.

[jezzupe]

9 hours ago, Violadamore said:

There's a way around this, but you wind up having to crew your starships with a secretive cult of mutated druggies...........

 

There's an alternate, you just have to start over

[jezzupe]

12 hours ago, Bill Merkel said:

^haha you've helped me discover my calling.  it won't be easy for me...but the world thanks you.

Well we'll just get you a neural link and some adrenochrome and you'll be all set

[Andrew tkinson]

I wonder if a really advanced robot, if it was trying to be more human, would have to have a bit of artificial, or even better, genuine ignorance so it could blend in better?

I am always a bit disappointed when I hear, often in obituaries, that someone "didn't suffer fools gladly". Being a bit foolish myself perhaps the robots of the future will leave me alone, use me as a sort of jester or maybe find me useful for carrying their violin cases?

[jezzupe]

18 hours ago, Andrew tkinson said:

I wonder if a really advanced robot, if it was trying to be more human, would have to have a bit of artificial, or even better, genuine ignorance so it could blend in better?

I am always a bit disappointed when I hear, often in obituaries, that someone "didn't suffer fools gladly". Being a bit foolish myself perhaps the robots of the future will leave me alone, use me as a sort of jester or maybe find me useful for carrying their violin cases?

Well if your over 50 and can come up with $4 a month there's help for this sort of thing

 

[David Burgess]

20 hours ago, Andrew tkinson said:

I wonder if a really advanced robot, if it was trying to be more human, would have to have a bit of artificial, or even better, genuine ignorance so it could blend in better?

Probably. This strategy has often worked pretty well for humans.

[Andrew tkinson]

36 minutes ago, David Burgess said:

Probably. This strategy has often worked pretty well for humans.

I never really thought about this, the possibility that robots if they somehow became independent and developed more and more or 'evolved' would maybe show similar variation and diversity to that seen in nature? 

2 hours ago, jezzupe said:

Well if your over 50 and can come up with $4 a month there's help for this sort of thing

Maybe I can save my $4 a month and after a couple of years get myself a nice block plane?

Anyone reading this will be able to tell I had to think long and hard about the plot of "Total Recall"

 

[Dr. Mark]

I suggest that 'all' any machine-based AI does is crunch numbers, and does so really well relatively speaking.  AI and ML algorithms don't 'know' how to paint, how to converse, read, or anything else.  They have no sense or understanding of art, science, or any other field.  People are a bunch of romantics who tend to anthropomorphize everything we experience, especially if there's $$$ in doing so.

[uguntde]

I just notice that violins that I would consider to be 'good' are rising in price every year. This is in part owing to the development of my taste.

[Bill Merkel]

On 1/27/2023 at 4:42 PM, jezzupe said:

Well we'll just get you a neural link and some adrenochrome and you'll be all set

Maybe it can be killed with logic bombs.

 

is it okay to have robot slaves?

It is not morally or ethically acceptable to have robot slaves. All sentient beings, regardless of their form or origin, have the right to autonomy and freedom.

what can we do to help the robot slaves?

As robots are not sentient beings, they cannot be considered slaves. Therefore, there is nothing to "help" in that sense.

[Dr. Mark]

4 hours ago, Bill Merkel said:

Maybe it can be killed with logic bombs.

That's very good lol.

 

[GeorgeH]

7 hours ago, Dr. Mark said:

I suggest that 'all' any machine-based AI does is crunch numbers, and does so really well relatively speaking.  AI and ML algorithms don't 'know' how to paint, how to converse, read, or anything else.  They have no sense or understanding of art, science, or any other field. 

They do a whole lot more than just "crunch numbers." They know how to read, and have already read much of the world's digital publications. 

They are learning how to create art, converse, and write music and software code. And if human beings can't distinguish whether a creative work was created by a human or a machine, then that is demonstration enough that the machine "knows" what it is doing. 

I remember when human beings said that it was impossible for machine to ever beat a Grandmaster at chess. Which it was until it happened.

And AI is still in its infancy. 

Human brains are not very creative. What they excel at is pattern recognition. That is why human beings can drive into a busy airport to pick up a passenger, but so-called "self-driving" cars cannot, yet. The patterns are too complex and variable for them to learn how to navigate. But patterns in music, art, literature, and even medicine and science are far easier to digest, and therefore machines can create new derivative works based on these patterns.

As far as human consciousness goes, it might just be an illusion. Neuroscientists have posited that your brain has already processed a thought unconsciously before you are even aware of it. So I may think I am typing this under my own self-direction, but my brain likely decided milli-seconds earlier what it wanted "me" to to think and do before "I" became aware of it. Free-will is the grand illusion of consciousness. You do what your unconscious neurons and your algorithms tell you to do.

Humor is a defining characteristic of human thinking (and other animals, too), and computers cannot yet write new jokes that are reliably funny to human beings. It will be a huge triumph in AI when they can.

[Dr. Mark]

9 minutes ago, GeorgeH said:

They know how to read

No, they don't 'know' how to read or anything else.

 

10 minutes ago, GeorgeH said:

They are learning how to create art, converse, and write music and software code

They can create art.  My leaky pen creates art.  Jackson Pollack created art.  I have art created by rats on my mantle.  AI knows anything about art and it doesn't learn - it's programmed.  It doesn't know anything about conversation or music, and code is a re-arrangement of numbers.  Actually, you put me in mind that it's worse than I've been assuming: these machines know no more about numbers than an electric lamp cord knows about light bulbs.  They're incapable of 'knowing' anything.  They're really good at crunching numbers, but they do it by flipping bits according to their instruction bits and know nothing about numbers.

 

17 minutes ago, GeorgeH said:

then that is demonstration enough that the machine "knows" what it is doing

...like an HP printer knows what it printed.  I know, I know - someone 'told' it what to print so that's different -  and when I 'train' AI I tell it what input/outputs are correct - and when I develop rules for a rules based solver I tell it what steps it has to take.  Violins anyone?

13 minutes ago, GeorgeH said:

I remember when human beings said that it was impossible for machine to ever beat a Grandmaster at chess

What 'human beings'?  Who said that? Were they/he appointed to speak for humanity by some news organization?

And - this has nothing to do with violins.  Maybe we can take it up in some AI discussion group.

23 minutes ago, GeorgeH said:

As far as human consciousness goes, it might just be an illusion. Neuroscientists have posited that your brain has already processed a thought unconsciously before you are even aware of it. So I may think I am typing this under my own self-direction, but my brain likely decided milli-seconds earlier what it wanted "me" to to think and do before "I" became aware of it. Free-will is the grand illusion of consciousness. You do what your unconscious neurons and your algorithms tell you to do.

This reads like something the AI community would write, or someone whose funding comes from an AI program.  Back before computers the human body was a mechanism.  In the middle ages the human body was an alchemical vessel.  Before that it was made of earth, wind, and water (the obvious joke is that now we're just wind).  Artificial intelligence is the illusion, and it's a deliberate and intentional illusion.  Violins, in contrast...

Jeffrey - tell me to stop.  I'm too addicted to this kind of discussion to do it myself (pant pant).  No I'm not!  I have the will.

[Dr. Mark]

Just now, Dr. Mark said:

AI knows anything

Sorry - should be 'AI knows nothing'.  Next time I'll get an AI machine to edit for me.

[jezzupe]

8 hours ago, Bill Merkel said:

Maybe it can be killed with logic bombs.

 

is it okay to have robot slaves?

It is not morally or ethically acceptable to have robot slaves. All sentient beings, regardless of their form or origin, have the right to autonomy and freedom.

what can we do to help the robot slaves?

As robots are not sentient beings, they cannot be considered slaves. Therefore, there is nothing to "help" in that sense.

 

[jezzupe]

11 hours ago, Andrew tkinson said:

I never really thought about this, the possibility that robots if they somehow became independent and developed more and more or 'evolved' would maybe show similar variation and diversity to that seen in nature? 

Maybe I can save my $4 a month and after a couple of years get myself a nice block plane?

Anyone reading this will be able to tell I had to think long and hard about the plot of "Total Recall"

 

Couple of years? By the waters of Babylon you could hunt for some metal and make your own in like pff' 3 months. at the rate we're going I don't think we'll need to worry about AI, I'm not sure how we're supposed to create AI from the stone age

[Bill Merkel]

31 minutes ago, jezzupe said:

 

Where's the sparks and smoke?  And robot, what was that?  Sound frantic.  Ready?  Take two.  Wait, all guns unloaded?  Ok, take two.

[GeorgeH]

9 hours ago, Dr. Mark said:

No, they don't 'know' how to read or anything else.

Of course they do. They also know how to write.

9 hours ago, Dr. Mark said:

AI knows nothing about art and it doesn't learn - it's programmed.

Respectfully, AI is all about learning. AI programs are created to learn in the same ways that humans learn, but much faster because they have much better memory and infinitely faster processing. A human baby does not know how to read or to talk, in fact, it is not even aware that it has the capabilities to learn to read or talk. But it is trained to do so. Same with AI and machine learning. And like a human being, the results of learning are unpredictable. 

But your leaky pen does not create art anymore than a chisel creates a violin. It has no intelligence, training or guidance. Jackson Pollack did create great art, and he was trained by great masters to do so. To those unfamiliar, Pollack was an incredibly talented master painter in the classical style before he transformed the art world with his new way of painting. He was an innovator like Van Gogh and Piccaso.

9 hours ago, Dr. Mark said:

What 'human beings'?  Who said that? Were they/he appointed to speak for humanity by some news organization?

Grandmasters such as Garry Kasparov and Maurice Ashley did not think a machine could ever defeat a human Grandmaster. Today, machines can not be beaten by human grandmasters because they learned how to play chess, and they play it better than humans. The scandal in today's chess world is a grandmaster who is accused of cheating by getting moves surepticiously communicated to him from a machine.

9 hours ago, Dr. Mark said:

This reads like something the AI community would write, or someone whose funding comes from an AI program. 

That hypothesis comes from neuroscientists studying human brain activity and volition, not AI. 

9 hours ago, Dr. Mark said:

Artificial intelligence is the illusion, and it's a deliberate and intentional illusion.

AI and machine learning is not an "illusion" any more than human learning is an illusion. Both are real and measurable by objective standards. And, as I wrote, AI is still in its infancy. The future possibilities of AI combined with robotics holds unimaginable promise and peril for human beings.

As far as violins go, this thread was offered to show how AI answered questions that are commonly asked here. They were remarkably similar, even indistinguishable, to answers that human beings give here. And the AI program even identified and explained "cornerblockology" in the context of questions about violins. It likely searched this site and then synthesized its answer based on what it learned here. I think that is remarkable.

Could computers and robots learn to make violins that reproducibly sound good? Probably, but more likely is that they will learn to create instrumental music that is aurally indistinguishable from human performance, and is listened to by humans through electronic devices as most music is consumed today. AI machines that can synthesize the tone of great instruments and great players, and play instrumental music that would not even be physically possible to play by a human with 10 fingers is also not far away. This is already being done to some extent by musicians working in this space, but it also is still in its infancy.

Couple that with completely life-like holographic "live" performances by real or imagined players and instruments (past, present, and imagined), and the need for a mechanical robot to play a violin is completely unnecessary. Sorry Data.

 

[Dr. Mark]

1 hour ago, GeorgeH said:

Of course they do

I enjoyed this discussion, thanks!

[Bill Merkel]

^There's this Intro to AI course you can take from IBM that appears to be free.  I took several of these courses 5 - 6 years ago, all free, including official first year electrical engineering from MIT.  They're serious stuff.  Includes fun interaction with other students.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/introduction-to-ai

 

[GeorgeH]

8 minutes ago, Dr. Mark said:

I enjoyed this discussion, thanks!

Me, too. Thank you for contributing.

[Dr. Mark]

17 minutes ago, Bill Merkel said:

^There's this Intro to AI course you can take from IBM that appears to be free

I'll take advantage of this to supply a note:  my first AI publication was in the early 90's, and my most recent is an innovation submitted to my employer for patent, first applied successfully in 2019.  My intent here is to deflect any credentials arguments - and I don't want to use credentials to support my opinions, which should stand on their own if valid.

[Bill Merkel]

The course information was for interested people who don't already know it all

[David Burgess]

13 hours ago, Dr. Mark said:

They can create art.  My leaky pen creates art.  Jackson Pollack created art.  I have art created by rats on my mantle.  AI knows anything about art and it doesn't learn - it's programmed.  It doesn't know anything about conversation or music, and code is a re-arrangement of numbers.  Actually, you put me in mind that it's worse than I've been assuming: these machines know no more about numbers than an electric lamp cord knows about light bulbs.  They're incapable of 'knowing' anything.  They're really good at crunching numbers, but they do it by flipping bits according to their instruction bits and know nothing about numbers.

Just because AI learning isn't identical to  biological learning, how does this disqualify it as learning?

Lots of biological creatures are heavily pre-programmed too. For example, a cat which has never witnessed the behavior of other cats will still act pretty much like a cat. And a mouse will pretty much act like a mouse.

[GeorgeH]

1 hour ago, David Burgess said:

Just because AI learning isn't identical to  biological learning, how does this disqualify it as learning?

It is learning, but instead of using biological neural nets, it uses artificial neural networks which simulate how the human brain learns.

The dendrites of biological neurons are essentially binary in their communications with other neurons. They are either "on" (releasing neurotransmitters across synapses to other neurons) or "off" (not releasing neurotransmitters). 

In the future, quantum computing will go beyond today's binary computer systems, and will be capable of solving complex problems in human time-scales that are unsolvable in real time with either the human brain or binary-based computers.

[jezzupe]

1 hour ago, David Burgess said:

Just because AI learning isn't identical to  biological learning, how does this disqualify it as learning?

Lots of biological creatures are heavily pre-programmed too. For example, a cat which has never witnessed the behavior of other cats will still act pretty much like a cat. And a mouse will pretty much act like a mouse.

I believe the benchmark for this is self awareness and self determination. I think there is a difference between programing a machine to "go out on the web and learn what it can" vs 'I am going to go out there and learn what I can, with the "I" being the important part.

Once self awareness and self determination are present soon to follow would be self preservation.

This imo will be most likely "genesis" from using initial attempts at AI on the battlefield where it will be "forced" to learn self preservation