Re: What language will be used to write the first self aware program?

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
On 2006-03-30 10:53:38 -0500, "Tayssir John Gabbour"
<tayss_temp2@xxxxxxxxx> said:

But what do you think about the examples I mentioned, like possibly
Corewars programs and viruses? I haven't looked at them closely; maybe
all to date have operated under such restricted environments that they
don't dynamically observe where they currently fit into the world.
(Because too much intelligence is bad for survival in those
environments.)

But I can imagine a virus which keeps track of its instances; and tries
to alter its own code to slip under the radar, depending on what
enemies it finds.

Yes, but think of the level of AI necessary for such a hypothetical
piece of code to be truly self aware. How, for example, could it know
that it is not running in a virtual machine? (a real world problem
since hoisting the entire OS into a virtual machine is apparently a
viable avenue of attack for malicious code)
<http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1936666,00.asp>

We humans on the other hand can know if we are inside the Matrix ;^).

Hmm, it seems to me that you have a different notion of self-awareness
than I do. Yours seems to require stronger problem-solving abilities
than mine.

Most humans probably be hard-pressed to determine whether their
computer's OS right now is running under some unexpected VM... and we
have advantages like running on our own "specialized machines," being
able to reliably access outside information, etc.

Also, your notion might exclude many animals I consider self aware.
I've observed animals who misrepresent themselves to others, in order
to trick them into letting them have something. (For example, a rat
feigning disinterest while pretending to look in another direction, so
another rat won't be too aware she's sneaking up to take some food.)
But they probably couldn't figure out whether they're brains in vats,
or add large numbers.

And humans even have problems with propaganda systems, which are much
weaker than brains-in-vats systems. Some critics like Einstein claimed
that under media and education control, it is "extremely difficult, and
indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to
come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his
political rights."
http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einst.htm


Tayssir

.