poverty is bad. but our lives are good. bad luck of others shouldn't stop us from living our lives, but we should try to help them. even though the computer I'm using now cost enough to feed a family for a year, it doesn't mean I shouldn't have it. and I agree with katie, that human nature requires something to worry about and be unhappy about.
Even though there is poverty, sitting around calling ourselves selfish brats isn't going to do a damn thing, I propose we research some organizations that we can donate to, or volunteer for rather than whyning about how much it sucks and how little we do about it. ps: so how can we post pictures...i'll experiment with it...and kevin can you help me do that to my blog?
You're right, poverty is appalling. And its hard to accept how wide the spectrum of wealth is and how unfair it is for those stuck at the bottom. But in all honesty I don't think it will ever change, at least not with the system of government we have now. And what you were saying about how we shouldn't worry about our petty little problems but think about how much worse our lives could be- on the one hand, you're right, it's good to put things in perspective, but I've thought about this a lot and I don't think it's our fault that we do these things. As humans, we have to find things to fret over and we have to look to a bigger and better goal and we have to find the faults in our lives. It's impossible for us to be content with what we have, no matter how wealthy. So, for instance, although an impoverished person might be euphoric if he suddenly acquired all the things that I have, I wouldn't reach the same level of happiness until I reached something much better, simply because I'm used to these things and take them for granted. I'm not saying we shouldn't be thankful for what we have, but that there are legitimate reasons why we are never satisfied with our lives, even being the spoiled American brats that we are.
hey, i've got an idea how bout we talk about poverty? i just got back from two weeks in El Salvador so i have had a rather serious slap in the face about how most of the population of the world lives. think about it... we have poor people here, but the amount of abject poverty ing the world is astounding. i was living in a house with people who grew up during a massive US funded civil war (which i could rant on forever but am not going to get in to now), who live in a cinderblock house which is really just two small rooms with a tile roof, who work in fields constantly but barely make enough money to scrape by (even though they own the land!), who live almost 20 miles from the neerest medical clinic but have no automobile to get there, and now i am sitting here in front of a computer that cost enough to feed them for a year, reading people quabble over brackets and text colors. i think that the american people need to get some perspective on the world. yes our economy is doing poorly, yes unemployment is rising, but do we live in a country in which people not only are unemployed but have to struggle to find meals. i cannot even put into words the disparity i have seen, the way that people have lived and go on living in third world countries. so the next time you feel bad because your clothes don't match or you dont have enough for that jacket you want, try to think how frivolous you are in the eyes of a people who dont have time to worry about thier clothing, they are working too hard to stay alive.
since this is a gap between topics, I think it's safe to say something irrelevant. I think we should change hosts so we can post images. I moved the blog to superblog.tripod.com ... you can move it back or just complain here and I can move it back.
Morgan is definitely back...Morgan, you might want to dig back through the archive to last week, you'll find that we made a psuedo-rule that you if you're posting, it HAS to have SOMETHING about the current topic, because posts that consist of only telling us how camp was and telling us how the site needs to change (I'm just using that as an example, you're not the only one) totally interrups the flow of converstion. So don't do that. Or we shall be angry. Yes. Anyway, YAYYYYYYYY YOU'RE BACK!!!!
Back on topic: I'm not saying that if you build a robot to be sad all the time it's really actually sad. What I'm saying is that if you have a robot that responds to stimuli like a human would, then that robot is as psychologically human as anyone. Right, I just said what you just said, which is what I said originally. We've come full circle. YAY! (Happy, Alex?)
Hey, it's been a while...sorry I'm kind of out of the loop...the sites changed a lot- i like it...but the votie thing needs to change, we need nothing- if people have things to say to us then they shouldn't comment, they should join into the site and discuss it with us...and what are subject lines?...whatever...I missed you guys at camp- and welcome everyone new...So op...::feels left out:: I don't really have time for going through and reading everyone's comments because there are so many of them so I'll just say hi I'm back, i'll join in the next discussion and I'll go post some big important post about how much my heart has been stabbed to oblivion lol so im me when I get back from the beach on...sunday possibly...at Merkin314, I'd love to talk to all the people I don't know very well too cuz that'd be cool. Ok much luv and kiSsEs! XoxO ::mUAh::
you and your matrix quotes... yes, it is possible to program human emotions into a computer, just not for humans right now, becuase we don't completely understand how the human mind works. but a robot programmed to be sad all the time doesn't have emotions, it's just sad because that's how it was made, it isn't sad because of things that happened to it that would cause a human to be sad.
Sorry, about that last post, my parent's kicked me off while I was in the middle of it, and I posted without publishing so I could finish it later, but then i forgot what I was gonna say. Oops.
Anyway, I think Kevin just summed up...something...but I think my original question hasn't been answered: can emotions programmed into a computer be as genuine as the emotions of a human? I say yes, because, as a great man once said, "What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see...then real is simply ... electrical signals interpreted by your brain." If the signals running through the circuits of a robot are causing it to act in a way that would make you go "aww, that robot looks so depressed", the I think that it's just as sensitive as any human.
AI isn't supposed to be anything other than artificial and intelligent. if you make something inorganically that can learn, it's AI no matter how human-like it is. smarterchild is AI. it's very lower-level AI, but it remembers what you say and changes what it says in accordance to things you have been saying. (this is in response to katie's quote on monday august 4th at 5:16:30 PM)
Of course, Bruno, I said "of course, there would have to be SOME logic in the program". I think Katie is right in that AI is supposed to be like a human, but, for example, when people take
I agree that AIs are supposed to be exactly like humans. I think that is what they are defined as. They may not have a point, but that's what they are. It's like artificial insemination, where you choose someone you want your kids to possibly look like/be like, and genetic engineering, where you choose traits you'd like your kids to have. With AIs parents could choose every detail. Those, I guess, would be the "feeling" AIs Zack is talking about. The other type, the "thinking" type, would not be like humans, so really they're not AIs. They would perform physical tasks and information storing and building tasks without error, like a calculator or computer, just with more diverse abilities. They would be upgraded computers. That is why Hal from "2001: A Space Odyssey" could not be flawless. He was supposed to control the ship perfectly, without error, because he was a computer and not a human, but because he was designed to have feelings, he failed and made errors. yeah.
Well, obviously the reason you would want to build a human is to design "the perfect human". If a couple wanted children, not only could they have kids anyway, but they could have PERFECT kids. Or whatever. I see two types of AI: thinking and feeling. If you want a robot that can design things and build and innovate, you want thinking AI. Thinking AI can improve itself, and it's all about efficiency; no emotions, becasue it only needs to relate to other robots. If you want an robot that could teach, or take care of children, then you want feeling AI. Now of course, there would have to be SOME logic int the program, you can't have the robot driven completly by it's "emotions", but it needs them, becasue such a robot would have to relate to people.
but then we need to decide what flaws people have. if you're looking at straight efficiency, take away some of the hormone flows and emotion and feelings and you have something like us only flawless. if you want something that is completely human except for its synthetic construction, then what's the point? why would we ever want to build a human when we could much more easily concieve of one in a normal way?
AI is exactly that, intelligence that has been created by humanity and placed into a machine, were moving into the idea of androids and the like, were trying to create a likeness of ourselves that is flawless, so that we may either learn from it, or use it to advance ourselves.
