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"The computers are in control, and we just live in their world" No, we are ostensibly in control, or at least the humans who know how to program and control th

"The computers are in control, and we just live in their world" No, we are ostensibly in control, or at least the humans who know how to program and control this type of system are. Like any machine or complex system, it may fly out of our control, but it is not in some other entity's control at that point, it's just out of control. We're not to the point of facing a true artificial intelligence, yet...

ThomPete 16y ago
Well that's just the problem isn't it? There is no way we can spit out cobolt programmers fast enough to handle the millions if not billions of machines handling critical tasks. So in the sense that we can't just turn them off, computer are in control. But yes it is also out of control.
lukev 16y ago
Agreed. The mystification of what computers do is a worrying trend. For now, at least, computers can't do anything at all interesting or remarkable. They can, however, do boring things really really fast. And lots of boring things, done really really fast, can yield some pretty impressive results. But it doesn't change the fact that what computers actually do is utterly trivial. Anything interesting they achieve is the result of algorithms programmed by very intelligent and sophisticated human beings. That's a clear, qualitative difference from any real AI. When computers are creative, when they start doing things that haven't been done before, without the direct programming of any human, then a computer can truly be said to be "in control."
- paganel 16y ago
  > When computers are creative, when they start doing things that haven't been done before, without the direct programming of any human, then a computer can truly be said to be "in control." I'm still dreaming about the day when a computer would be ironic. Or about when a computer-scientist would write a book similar to Freud's "Jokes and Their Relation to The Unconscious" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jokes_and_their_Relation_to_the_Unconscious http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jokes_and_their_Relation_to_the...)
- treeface 16y ago
  The mystification of what computers do is a worrying trend. Trend? When have the masses ever had a clear grasp on computation? Quoth Babbage: On two occasions I have been asked,—"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
- rateldajer 16y ago
  I agree mystification of computation is not something we should encourage, but I don't think that's really what is happening in this article. The things that computers do today are not utterly trivial, the algorithms are getting more complex every day and there is some evidence that some of the very complex probabilistic structures being built have corollaries in the human brain. We have already passed the point where all computers are being directly programmed by a human being to perform an exact task. Things like google, and Wolfram Alpha and Netflix are following instructions designed by humans that describe complex behaviors and even reasoning, not the particular outcomes they yield. These instructions are far beyond listing steps for a robot to pick up a cup off a table. Are the machines being creative? No. But, how would we know if they were, we don't even know what that means. Are they 'in control'? No. No more than your bicycle is in control when you stop pedaling and take your hands off the handle bars. It has no will, it just keep going, just like google's servers. But, do we know enough about what intelligence (or sentience, which is what everyone is actually talking about here) is in order to answer that question if the answer ever changes? How complex does something have to be in order for us to consider it 'intelligent' and what kind of complexity will it need to have?
_delirium 16y ago
It not under the control of a conscious entity which can flexibly formulate new goals, adapt to new tasks, etc. But under a loose definition you could say that quite a few large systems are under "an entity's control" in the sense that they have an internal set of procedures they're carrying out, criteria they use to make decisions, etc. It's a rather hardwired and unchanging entity, but in large (and especially old and incrementally grown) systems, what exactly it's doing and why might actually be somewhat opaque to the human operators. It's basically a philosophical question what you want to call that, but I'm okay with at least metaphorically calling that a situation where "the machine is in control", because in a sense it "knows" what it's doing and carries it out, whereas the human operators have only a vague sense of what it's doing, and sometimes have to engage in software archaeology to figure it out and change anything. (But yes, I wouldn't say that an "AI" is in charge of anything.)
tbrownaw 16y ago
> We're not to the point of facing a true artificial intelligence, yet... I expect we'll find one about the same time we find a true scotsman.

ThomPete 16y ago

Well that's just the problem isn't it? There is no way we can spit out cobolt programmers fast enough to handle the millions if not billions of machines handling critical tasks. So in the sense that we can't just turn them off, computer are in control. But yes it is also out of control.

lukev 16y ago

Agreed. The mystification of what computers do is a worrying trend. For now, at least, computers can't do anything at all interesting or remarkable. They can, however, do boring things really really fast. And lots of boring things, done really really fast, can yield some pretty impressive results. But it doesn't change the fact that what computers actually do is utterly trivial. Anything interesting they achieve is the result of algorithms programmed by very intelligent and sophisticated human beings. That's a clear, qualitative difference from any real AI. When computers are creative, when they start doing things that haven't been done before, without the direct programming of any human, then a computer can truly be said to be "in control."

paganel 16y ago
> When computers are creative, when they start doing things that haven't been done before, without the direct programming of any human, then a computer can truly be said to be "in control." I'm still dreaming about the day when a computer would be ironic. Or about when a computer-scientist would write a book similar to Freud's "Jokes and Their Relation to The Unconscious" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jokes_and_their_Relation_to_the_Unconscious http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jokes_and_their_Relation_to_the...)
treeface 16y ago
The mystification of what computers do is a worrying trend. Trend? When have the masses ever had a clear grasp on computation? Quoth Babbage: On two occasions I have been asked,—"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
rateldajer 16y ago
I agree mystification of computation is not something we should encourage, but I don't think that's really what is happening in this article. The things that computers do today are not utterly trivial, the algorithms are getting more complex every day and there is some evidence that some of the very complex probabilistic structures being built have corollaries in the human brain. We have already passed the point where all computers are being directly programmed by a human being to perform an exact task. Things like google, and Wolfram Alpha and Netflix are following instructions designed by humans that describe complex behaviors and even reasoning, not the particular outcomes they yield. These instructions are far beyond listing steps for a robot to pick up a cup off a table. Are the machines being creative? No. But, how would we know if they were, we don't even know what that means. Are they 'in control'? No. No more than your bicycle is in control when you stop pedaling and take your hands off the handle bars. It has no will, it just keep going, just like google's servers. But, do we know enough about what intelligence (or sentience, which is what everyone is actually talking about here) is in order to answer that question if the answer ever changes? How complex does something have to be in order for us to consider it 'intelligent' and what kind of complexity will it need to have?

_delirium 16y ago

It not under the control of a conscious entity which can flexibly formulate new goals, adapt to new tasks, etc. But under a loose definition you could say that quite a few large systems are under "an entity's control" in the sense that they have an internal set of procedures they're carrying out, criteria they use to make decisions, etc. It's a rather hardwired and unchanging entity, but in large (and especially old and incrementally grown) systems, what exactly it's doing and why might actually be somewhat opaque to the human operators. It's basically a philosophical question what you want to call that, but I'm okay with at least metaphorically calling that a situation where "the machine is in control", because in a sense it "knows" what it's doing and carries it out, whereas the human operators have only a vague sense of what it's doing, and sometimes have to engage in software archaeology to figure it out and change anything. (But yes, I wouldn't say that an "AI" is in charge of anything.)

tbrownaw 16y ago

> We're not to the point of facing a true artificial intelligence, yet... I expect we'll find one about the same time we find a true scotsman.