Artificial Intelligence is 50 years old
Artificial Intelligence as a research field was born in the summer of 1956 during a seminal workshop at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. It was just a year before that when Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, Claude Shannon and John McCarthy proposed that they should hold a workshop to put together a roadmap about how to make machines think and learn similarly to humans. The ultimate goal was to discover computational models in order to enable machines to do commonsense reasoning. Today, John McCarthy is rightly considered the father of AI. I should note that the term “Artificial Intelligence” appeared for the first time in the proposal put forth by the previously mentioned scientists. And so this new discipline that would eventually captivate everyone’s imagination was born.
Artificial Intelligence had its ups and downs in the last 50 years. Early success solving small problems in simulation ignited a flurry of predictions about super intelligent machines taking over the world before the coming of the 21st century. Hampered by a lack of a good understanding of how commonsense reasoning works in people and a lack of computational resources, computers being very slow up until the mid nineties, AI research stalled in the 80s. Many people rushed to dismiss it as nothing more than hot air.
However, science is all about proposing and testing new theories in order to find the best ones. Since the mid-90s, AI research has advanced by leaps and bounds. We now have a better understanding of how the human brain works and that has helped us to find and test better computational models for AI. These in turn have also helped us to better understand the functions of the human brain. New techniques such as statistical analysis are helping intelligent agents to copy with large amounts of information and noisy sensors. Faster computers with vast amounts of storage are allowing us to experiment in more challenging domains and solve larger problems.
It is true that AI has not yet been able to produce a machine capable of commonsense reasoning. However, by specialization, many AI systems are actually running our world today. AI helps us fly airplanes and drive our cars. It aids doctors perform surgery. It helps us find information in the vastness of the World Wide Web. It helps us discover spam email and promptly delete it. It helps us schedule traffic lights and public transportation. It helps us analyze financial markets and make predictions about the outcome of sports events. It aids in surveillance of public spaces improving security and safety. These are only a small sample of the penetration of intelligent systems in our daily lives. Artificial Intelligence is here to stay and I bet it won’t be long before we have the understanding, methods and resources to finally construct thinking and learning machines. Let us wish and hope that such technology would only be used to benefit mankind and not destroy it.
You can find lots of information about AI’ and its50th birthday on the Internet. However, I think that best reading about this topic is the 1955 proposal for the AI workshop. You can read it here.
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Basic Principles Of Theory Of Evolution
Evolution theory teaches that survival is for the fittest living organism.
What is life? What is fit? And what does it mean to survive?
Well, there are many definitions of course. A useful definition, in scientific perspective, is the one that allow us to analyze myriads things with fewest principles. So here they are.
A living organism is a class of objects that share 3 traits.
1. Reproduce. Living organism can make copies.
2. Inherit. Living organism, in the process of reproducing, will inherit traits to the offspring.
3. Mutate. Living organism, in the process of inheriting, will make small mistakes.
That seems like a reasonable definition. If we look most living things around us, like dogs, cats, pigs, birds, fido, virus, etc., they all share those traits.
However, based on those definitions, God is not alive, while computer virus, religious doctrines, ideologies, and ideas are alive.
I don’t think God will mind though. It’s just a definition.
The practical aspect is that we can use evolution theory to explain the sort of humans, cats, dogs, germs, doctrines, ideologies, and ideas that are common nowadays.
Different living organism performs those 3 traits differently. Those living organism that reproduces a lot becomes plenty. Those that reproduced a lot, become common.
That’s the basic of evolution theory.
For example, we see that peacocks tend to have long elaborated tails. From this, we can guess peacocks with long elaborate tail must have made more peachicks. Perhaps, peahen love peacocks with long elaborate tails. It’s true.
Suppose it were true. Then peacocks with longer tails will mate with more peahens. Those happy couples will then produce more peachicks.
Male peachicks will inherit long tails. Female peachicks will inherit preferences for long tail. So, peahens like peacocks with long tail.
It looks like a circular argument. It is. The truth is we don’t really know for sure, at least just from the reasoning, why peacocks have long tail.
However, we do know that traits that lead to gene pool survival through sexual selection tend to be positive feedback.
Those are traits that either enhance gene pool survival through regular means or signal capability to survive on the females. Samples of the former are Cheetah’s speed and men’s wealth. Samples of the latter are peacock’s tail and sport cars.
The more peacocks have longer tail, the more peacocks in the future, will have even longer tails. The more peahens in the future will get turned on by long tail even more.
Now, most males are poor. Does that mean women like the poor? Does being poor serve gene pool survival? That will be on Snark.
The answer to the first question is no. The answer to the second is, well, sort of due to various unnatural sex laws against consensual sex. It’s tricky.
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Animals and The Melting Arctic Ice Cap
The arguments for global warming can sound a bit vacuous when discussing temperature changes of only one degree. The impact of the melting Arctic ice cap on animals is much more tangible.
Animals and The Melting Arctic Ice Cap
There is little dispute that the Arctic ice cap is melting. Since 1979, it has definitively shrunk by 20 percent. The issue amongst most people debating global warming is whether this is because of global warming or just a natural cycle of the planet.
From a common sense point of view, it is difficult to imagine global warming is having no impact on the ice caps. The rising temperature of the planet would seem to be a common sense cause of the melting ice. Alas, common sense rarely seems to be used in debates these days.
As the cap melts, the impact on animals in the area is readily apparent. The primary problem is the reduction of habitat. Polar bears are the most obvious animals suffering from this situation. The habitat of the polar bears is the ice flow areas around the edges of the caps. As the caps melt, the flows are disappearing and pulling back to the extent that there is no ice on the shores. The extent of the melting is such that a Russian ship was able to reach the North Pole in 2005 without the use of an ice breaker. This lost habitat is pushing the polar bears to the edge of extinction. Various estimates put the total population at 20,000 and dropping.
There are, however, positive developments for some species. Recent empirical evidence shows the various seal populations of the Arctic are exhibiting growing population numbers. The exact reason is unclear, but they are appearing more and more in southern regions of the cap, which leads to the conclusion that their habitat is actually expanding.
The receding caps are also opening up extensive new habitats for fish. The melting ice is full of nutrients and fish migration to the new opening seas is astounding. Pink salmon, in particular is being seen spawning in rivers far to the north of their usual spawning grounds.
In general snark, the impact of the melting Arctic ice caps is a mixed situation. The polar bears certainly don’t see anything to be happy about.
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