The Sons of dogs (beni Al-kalb) Singularity university

On 5 Feb, 14:12, Fred J. McCall wrote:

:
:NASA does not discuss things intelligently I will have you know.
:

See why I'm not holding my breath?

If you are dealing with things like Ares or the Shuttle then I will
agree. If you are dealing with new technology you are in a completely
different ballpark. The fact of the matter is that serious
administrators acknowledge that new technology is required.

NASA is not BTW developing it on its own. It is collaborating with
such people as Google. The Shuttle and Ares are pure NASA, the S uni
is supported by NASA but is NOT a part of NASA. They are concerned
with developing a range of technologies.

The one thing I think to be pointed out is the impossibilty of
meaningful occupation of space, or even a manned trip to Mars without
new technology. The fact that money is not unlimited has now sunk in.

Google, one of the other main supporters, is concerned with swarm AI
in much more general, not space referenced terms. There is one fact
though which is going to influence military planning and it is this.

If AI is going to mean swarm AI, the sort of thing offered by Google
already to some extent, this is going to have consequences. The
Pentagon is interesed for example in real time Arabic translation of
both the spoken and written word. Google despite its grammatical
faults produces the best Arabic translations as measured by objective
criteria. The Pentagon's efforts to produce a black box have so far
failed.

There is every reason to suppose that this will continue. In the
ultimate a really good translation depends on "deep knowledge"
knowledge of the sense of what we are translating as well as grammar
and statistics.

http://sites.google.com/site/aitrans...ct/deepknowled

Look at this example on the Stephan Boltzmann law and you will see
what I mean. This implies that only a swarm can produce quality
translations, a black box can't.

The fact is that a swarm can have Asimov's laws built into it in a way
that a black box can't. You may well find that Google will actually
stop you killing or torturing people or behaving in a generally
antisocial way.


- Ian Parker