Been listening to too much Kings of Leon, sleeping little, and studying nada. I love this summer camp, being around young people excited for their futures... even just excited for something are inspiring to be around. They all make friends really fast, and last year the campers created lasting bonds. I just wish it was the same story in my life. Seems like friendship [relationships in general] are short-lived... and that sucks. I think I'm starting to learn that I get really annoying in the ways that I push for "what is right" even though in speech I am totally against this way of thinking. It's like being hyper religious and not being able to explore other modes of thought - it's absolutely ignorant.
On that note, had a great conversation the other day with my friend and coworker, Kevin, with the Computer Games Camp. I'm reading a book now, Consciousness Explained by Dennett, and although I think he's a complete prick and not entirely solid in his arguments, I do appreciate the range of topics he covers - not to mention it's easier for me to read someone I disagree with and make my own claims then to fall into a trap believing a theorist I like a lot. So anyway, Kevin and I got to discussing AI. I hate AI - from my perspective it's a waste of time, definitely interesting to think about and question like black holes, the size of the universe, and zombies but entirely something that should be considered a pasttime as opposed to a field of study. Kevin - a computer programmer - of course thinks otherwise. He thinks its a worthwhile endeavor to study machine intelligence and believes in a conscious pile of organized metal. I can't deny that there might be a chance for conscious machines, I just don't want the whole political/ evil scientist tragedy to incur. I am more afraid with AI that someone will pretend to have figured it out and be able to convince others of this having some kind of reckless power over people. This - I think - scares me more than a machine actually having consciousness. Besides that fact, I think the biggest hurdle AI fanatics will have to cross is the fact that I do not believe machines will be able to understand time in the same way we do... or any living thing. As Kevin pointed out, for a machine to appear more realistic, error would have to be integrated into the system. But time is one thing the machine utilizes in a unique way, apart from how we "use" [manipulate, take-in] time. Kevin brought up the fact that maybe the machine could 'grow' in its understanding like a baby grows up and begins to understand time, but if emotions aren't difficult enough to artificially create, how hard would it be to being wiring the connection times and errors between emotions, how they meld and change not only that - time! It's the most elusive thing. Maybe the most human thing about us is that each of us has our own interactions with time, we each work slightly different and this heterogeneity would be extremely difficult to design into a machine. I know these points are loose and probably not the most important in the argument that I'm trying to create, but they are getting it somewhere. So, dear AI people when you figure out the natural world's understanding and use of time, as opposed to our perceived use of time maybe you will be getting somewhere... otherwise I am convinced all that you are doing is creating more and more powerful ancestors of Google, which really - is just an embarrassment to us all.
- c
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