Rick Geniale
Registered Member
INTRODUCTION
Will a machine ever be able to have such advanced consciousness and intelligence to be indistinguishable from those of a human being? Will a machine ever be able to autonomously develop its own personality exactly like a human being? Will a machine ever be able to think, to reason, to discern, to induce, to deduce, to imagine, to invent, with the same level of complexity present in the human brain? Will a machine ever be able to autonomously learn to make all this? Will a machine ever be able to create something new that never existed before? Will a machine ever be able to express feelings and emotions through a conversation with humans? Will a machine ever be able to perceive the existing complexity of any external world? Will a machine ever be able to show such an anthropomorphic behavior to pass for a human being? Will a machine ever be able to face the "Turing Test" ordeal?
The answer to all these questions is "YES": PIBOT will clearly pass the "Turing Test" by 2007, proving to the world its fully anthropomorphic attitude.
WHAT IS PIBOT?
PIBOT is, by definition, a "Real AI".
PIBOT is the acronym of hyPer Intelligent roBOT.
PIBOT is a general-purpose artificial intelligence constructed using the Nootheos technology.
PIBOT represents a true sentient artificial organism that is able to learn, to self-learn, to evolve, and to self-evolve.
PIBOT possesses an independent human-like mind, albeit, for many aspects, unimaginably more powerful.
PIBOT architecture is formed by numerous components which interact between them: a mental meta-structure (Meta-mind Engine), a thinking conscience (Conscious Kernel), a series of cognitive abilities (Cognitive Kernel), a series of talking abilities (Conversational Kernel), a cultural baggage in constant evolution that spaces on the entire human knowledge (Knowledge Repository), its own personality (Personality Kernel), a series of imagination-hypoteshis abilities (I&I Kernel), a series of deliberation abilities (Deliberation Kernel).
Resuming the neologism coined by Hugo De Garis, we can say that PIBOT is an artilect (artificial intellect).
The address of website named "Hyperdimension PIBOT" is http://www.pibot.com.
PIBOT WILL PASS THE "TURING TEST" BY 2007
The English mathematician Alan Turing is unanimously considered the father of the Artificial intelligence (AI) by all the scientific community: in addition to being famous for having deciphered the "Nazi code Enigma" during the Second World War, he was truly the first person that spoke about the intelligence of computers. In his essay entitled "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" dated 1950, Turing proposed some ideas and theories of both scientific and philosophical interests, all having the following central question: "Can machines think?": in the last fifty years, the thesis and argumentations contained in the Turing essay have becomed the most controversial arguments of the entire AI field, of the philosophy of the mind, and of the cognitive science. In order to answer to the central issue raised by his essay, Turing introduced a fundamental test, today universally known as "Turing Test".
The "Turing Test" aim to discover if a computer "Can truly think", exactly like a human being. The test is configured in the following way: a human judge entertains a written conversation with two hidden and separated entities, a man and a computer, ignoring which one is the computer; the computer must deceive the human judge, therefore convincing him that he's talking with a human. Obviously, to do this, the computer is obliged to demonstrate such an advanced conversational and reasoning abilities like that naturally pertaining to human beings. If the computer could successfully simulate a human, it will have passed the "Turing Test".
Although Turing, in his essay, had been the first to points out that the question "Can machines think?" is highly ambiguous, and although for many people, it is not still clear if Alan Turing believed or not that a computer was able to think (including that one able to pass his test), currently, for us, all these aspects don't carry anymore importance. The main reason is that, the reflections and arguments of theological, philosophical, psychological, sociological, let alone scientific nature, originally triggered by the Turing essay, cannot neglect all the technical-scientific-cultural background accumulated by the western society during the last fifty years. In fact, in the last half century, disciplines like cognitive sciences, evolutionary biology, quantum physics, transformational linguistics, neurophisiology, anthropology, behavioural psychology, computer science, robotics, genetics, have completely redesigned the scenario within which the AI research should move.
Therefore, for us, the original question posed by Turing, "Can machines think?", don't gather anymore the essence of the problem on which the AI research should focus: the key question of the new era of the AI research would have to be "How machines should think?". As showed by Reeves, Byron and Nass, in their essay entitled "Medium The Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and Medium New Like Real People and Places" dated 1996, we believe that our relation with any anthropomorphic machine is complex: when someone ask us whether a computer is able to think, we could say "NO", although we interact with it like it were a thinking entity. Our opinion is that, in the XXI century, the general education would have evolved so much that nobody affirming that machines think can expect to be contradicted.
In any case, we think that, from a practical (not philosophical) point of view, the "Turing Test" is still valid, and we will subject PIBOT to this test by 2007. We have the absolute certainty that PIBOT will clearly pass the test and, for this reason, we feel ourselves to be able to say, right now, that Ray Kurzweil will win his bet against Mitchell Kapor, and with twentytwo years in advance.
WHY THE "TURING TEST" IS STILL VALID?
Contrarily to what many people think, the "Turing Test" is not a blind alley. Although the "Turing Test" is not anymore a source of inspiration for the AI research, it still introduces many valences: the "Imitation the Game" that has originated the test, contains much more means than it seems at first view. In fact, in order to trick the human judge (obviously authoritative), the computer doesn't only have to answer questions about any imaginable topic (biology, psycology, computer science, mathematics, art, poetry, meteorology, chess, etc.), but it must also be able to lie, really simulating a life experience that, evidently, it have never lived. What's more, the computer must also simulate deficiencies where these don't exist: it should even be able to decide if and when to make errors intentionally, avoiding to show its for some aspects infallible nature; still worse, the computer must be able to establish independently, and with a clear reasoning (following a strategy), variations in the time intervals that elapse between each question and the related answer.
So, although the concept of "Turing Test" has evolved during years, the "Imitation the Game" on which the test is based still preserve an enormous importance for the AI research. This arise from the fact that, if the computer wants "to pass for a human" and exceed the test, it doesn't only have to limit itself to communicate in natural language, in a manner indistinguishable from that of a human being, but should also elaborate very complex "strategies of thought": therefore, the computer should be able to think in a complex way, exactly like a human being. It should be noted that the above considerations are demonstrably true, because the question-answer method of the "Turing Test" doesn't impose constraints of any kind regarding the test topics. In fact, when facing the test, the computer is forced to talk and to reason about arguments that it doesn't know at all, that nobody have previously revealed to it, and that can belong to any, also fictitious, knowledge domain: in this sense, the computer cannot have any preexistent acquaintance. Moreover, the semantic and lexical-syntactic content of the questions asked to the computer could include, isolatedly or combinatorily, various types of sentences that might be: wrong, incongruous, ambiguous, conflicting, paradoxical, illogical, foolish, etc.; they could contain rhetorical-semantic figures like: allegories, allusions, anacoluthons, anaphoras, analogies, anastrophes, amphibologies, antonomasias, asyndetons, chiasms, emphasis, euphemisms, etymology, hyperbatons, hyperboles, metaphors, oxymorons, periphrasis, pleonasms, similes, synecdoches, synesthesias, zeugmas, etc.; the questions might include hyponymy, complementariness, antinomies, reciprocity, incompatibility, polysemy, synonymy; they could also be based on a realistic, theoretical, hypothetical, imaginary or introspective nature, etc. Finally, and last but not least, the computer could decide if and how to answer the questions in this manner: giving a correct answer; giving a wrong answer; by an affirmation or by a negation; with an explanation; by an exclamation; with a question; not answer at all. Still, the computer should have to be able to lie and should possesses the sense of humour.
Concluding, if the "Turing Test" is executed strategically adopting the right combination of questions, and if it is executed for the "correct period of time", absolutely no tricks are possible. Neither a wizard nor an alchemist (stating their existence) could succeed in making to seem "intelligent" something that it is not quite so: how a software programmer could succeed in that using some "stupid" algorithm? The fact that the computer is able to exceed a similar test, with such a sophisticated level that could also create difficulties to a human being, testify that it possess true intelligent capabilities. It is not a human, but it seems human to all the effects: in truth, it is a "non-human super-intelligence". Absolutely no one tricked algorithm can guarantee the right results to exceed a test based on aprioristically unknown information/data and on an infinite tangle of lexical-semantic combinations. In spite of his genius, abilities and experience, there is not a projectist/programmer that can foresee the unforeseeable and handle the infinite.
Hence, fixed that the computer cannot cheat on its intelligence, the "Turing Test" is still valid: so, all people talking in terms of "cheats" or "tricks" regarding a computer capable to pass the test, should totally reconsider their notions and ideas about the human intellect.
THE BEGINNING OF ONE NEW ERA
PIBOT marks the beginning of a "new era", both for the AI research, both for the entire human society. We like to define this upcoming era as "the new Awakening era", mainly for three fundamental reasons: 1) since PIBOT makes computers "able to think", it will be like as they "take life", afterwards awakening from a too long lasted sleep; b) since through PIBOT we will understand the true nature of human intelligence and its way of functioning, this will produce an "awakening effect" on a large part of the human society (the Cosmists, like De Garis calls them), too long imprisoned by its wrong convictions about its own status quo; c) since PIBOT represents an artificial entity able to assimilate any kind of knowledge coming from any source, it can learn everything, being also able to interact with every person through a conversational interface based on the natural language: since this entity doesn't have "virtually any limits" regarding its execution speed and mnemonic abilities, that make PIBOT a powerful collaborator. Also, through Internet, PIBOT can autonomously enter in a universe of virtually unlimited data, information and knowledges, moreover using an impressive speed if compared with that of humans: by the way, PIBOT can do all its activities without get tired, therefore never losing its concentration. PIBOT doesn't have neither personal problems nor physical annoyances: it can exclusively think to "well make its job". In practical, the entire universe of human knowledge is at PIBOT complete disposal: mediating this knowledge, then playing the role of "tutor/consultant" versus many people, PIBOT could instantaneously furnish them with the most updated information and knowledges on any possible topic; information and knowledges whose amount and quality is so high that a single person cannot find them even through years of research. This is the reason for which PIBOT will be able to "awake" the latent intelligence of each person, thus amplifying his intellectual-mental gradient: now, the human intelligence amplification represents one of the most discussed argument contained in many relevant essays; a "Real AI" like PIBOT constitutes the better "collaborator" for such intelligence amplification.
THE TRIBE OF THE DISCOVERERS OF THE FIRE
We describe ourselves as realists and positivists, concepts that, by our opinion, are fully equivalent. As such, we don't believe at all that the appearance of the "Real AI" in the world must necessarily lead to catastrophic scenarios. To the contrary, we firmly believe that the advent of the "Real AI" will represents the epochal event that will bring to the birth of the true "Technological Renaissance"; we also believes that this will represents a wonderful "New Human Era" (not Transhuman, neither Posthuman). In that new era, in which humans will be finally able to get rid from the chains of the current "technological syndrome", they will be able to express their "creative spirit" in all the fields of human activity.
Within a year we will publish our book entitled "Rick Geniale and the Tribe of the Discoverers of the Fire": further describing the beginning of a "new era" regarding AI and the human society, our book will treat the most important themes that now are on the order of the day in the world-wide technical-scientific community.
We are moved by that way of thinking called "Thinking outside the box": tanks to it, we will demonstrate to the world, even to people not provided with a specific culture (people outside AI and science), that the Artificial Intelligence does not belong more to science fiction; moreover, we will demonstrate this fact beyond every reasonable doubt.
The website "Hyperdimension PIBOT" (http://www.pibot.com) treats a myriad of the most varied arguments that are closely related to the appearance, here on the Earth, of the first, true, "Real AI": further talking about technical-scientific subjects, the site contains also various thematic regarding the socio-cultural, ethical-philosophical and political-economic implications that the birth of PIBOT involves.
Will a machine ever be able to have such advanced consciousness and intelligence to be indistinguishable from those of a human being? Will a machine ever be able to autonomously develop its own personality exactly like a human being? Will a machine ever be able to think, to reason, to discern, to induce, to deduce, to imagine, to invent, with the same level of complexity present in the human brain? Will a machine ever be able to autonomously learn to make all this? Will a machine ever be able to create something new that never existed before? Will a machine ever be able to express feelings and emotions through a conversation with humans? Will a machine ever be able to perceive the existing complexity of any external world? Will a machine ever be able to show such an anthropomorphic behavior to pass for a human being? Will a machine ever be able to face the "Turing Test" ordeal?
The answer to all these questions is "YES": PIBOT will clearly pass the "Turing Test" by 2007, proving to the world its fully anthropomorphic attitude.
WHAT IS PIBOT?
PIBOT is, by definition, a "Real AI".
PIBOT is the acronym of hyPer Intelligent roBOT.
PIBOT is a general-purpose artificial intelligence constructed using the Nootheos technology.
PIBOT represents a true sentient artificial organism that is able to learn, to self-learn, to evolve, and to self-evolve.
PIBOT possesses an independent human-like mind, albeit, for many aspects, unimaginably more powerful.
PIBOT architecture is formed by numerous components which interact between them: a mental meta-structure (Meta-mind Engine), a thinking conscience (Conscious Kernel), a series of cognitive abilities (Cognitive Kernel), a series of talking abilities (Conversational Kernel), a cultural baggage in constant evolution that spaces on the entire human knowledge (Knowledge Repository), its own personality (Personality Kernel), a series of imagination-hypoteshis abilities (I&I Kernel), a series of deliberation abilities (Deliberation Kernel).
Resuming the neologism coined by Hugo De Garis, we can say that PIBOT is an artilect (artificial intellect).
The address of website named "Hyperdimension PIBOT" is http://www.pibot.com.
PIBOT WILL PASS THE "TURING TEST" BY 2007
The English mathematician Alan Turing is unanimously considered the father of the Artificial intelligence (AI) by all the scientific community: in addition to being famous for having deciphered the "Nazi code Enigma" during the Second World War, he was truly the first person that spoke about the intelligence of computers. In his essay entitled "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" dated 1950, Turing proposed some ideas and theories of both scientific and philosophical interests, all having the following central question: "Can machines think?": in the last fifty years, the thesis and argumentations contained in the Turing essay have becomed the most controversial arguments of the entire AI field, of the philosophy of the mind, and of the cognitive science. In order to answer to the central issue raised by his essay, Turing introduced a fundamental test, today universally known as "Turing Test".
The "Turing Test" aim to discover if a computer "Can truly think", exactly like a human being. The test is configured in the following way: a human judge entertains a written conversation with two hidden and separated entities, a man and a computer, ignoring which one is the computer; the computer must deceive the human judge, therefore convincing him that he's talking with a human. Obviously, to do this, the computer is obliged to demonstrate such an advanced conversational and reasoning abilities like that naturally pertaining to human beings. If the computer could successfully simulate a human, it will have passed the "Turing Test".
Although Turing, in his essay, had been the first to points out that the question "Can machines think?" is highly ambiguous, and although for many people, it is not still clear if Alan Turing believed or not that a computer was able to think (including that one able to pass his test), currently, for us, all these aspects don't carry anymore importance. The main reason is that, the reflections and arguments of theological, philosophical, psychological, sociological, let alone scientific nature, originally triggered by the Turing essay, cannot neglect all the technical-scientific-cultural background accumulated by the western society during the last fifty years. In fact, in the last half century, disciplines like cognitive sciences, evolutionary biology, quantum physics, transformational linguistics, neurophisiology, anthropology, behavioural psychology, computer science, robotics, genetics, have completely redesigned the scenario within which the AI research should move.
Therefore, for us, the original question posed by Turing, "Can machines think?", don't gather anymore the essence of the problem on which the AI research should focus: the key question of the new era of the AI research would have to be "How machines should think?". As showed by Reeves, Byron and Nass, in their essay entitled "Medium The Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and Medium New Like Real People and Places" dated 1996, we believe that our relation with any anthropomorphic machine is complex: when someone ask us whether a computer is able to think, we could say "NO", although we interact with it like it were a thinking entity. Our opinion is that, in the XXI century, the general education would have evolved so much that nobody affirming that machines think can expect to be contradicted.
In any case, we think that, from a practical (not philosophical) point of view, the "Turing Test" is still valid, and we will subject PIBOT to this test by 2007. We have the absolute certainty that PIBOT will clearly pass the test and, for this reason, we feel ourselves to be able to say, right now, that Ray Kurzweil will win his bet against Mitchell Kapor, and with twentytwo years in advance.
WHY THE "TURING TEST" IS STILL VALID?
Contrarily to what many people think, the "Turing Test" is not a blind alley. Although the "Turing Test" is not anymore a source of inspiration for the AI research, it still introduces many valences: the "Imitation the Game" that has originated the test, contains much more means than it seems at first view. In fact, in order to trick the human judge (obviously authoritative), the computer doesn't only have to answer questions about any imaginable topic (biology, psycology, computer science, mathematics, art, poetry, meteorology, chess, etc.), but it must also be able to lie, really simulating a life experience that, evidently, it have never lived. What's more, the computer must also simulate deficiencies where these don't exist: it should even be able to decide if and when to make errors intentionally, avoiding to show its for some aspects infallible nature; still worse, the computer must be able to establish independently, and with a clear reasoning (following a strategy), variations in the time intervals that elapse between each question and the related answer.
So, although the concept of "Turing Test" has evolved during years, the "Imitation the Game" on which the test is based still preserve an enormous importance for the AI research. This arise from the fact that, if the computer wants "to pass for a human" and exceed the test, it doesn't only have to limit itself to communicate in natural language, in a manner indistinguishable from that of a human being, but should also elaborate very complex "strategies of thought": therefore, the computer should be able to think in a complex way, exactly like a human being. It should be noted that the above considerations are demonstrably true, because the question-answer method of the "Turing Test" doesn't impose constraints of any kind regarding the test topics. In fact, when facing the test, the computer is forced to talk and to reason about arguments that it doesn't know at all, that nobody have previously revealed to it, and that can belong to any, also fictitious, knowledge domain: in this sense, the computer cannot have any preexistent acquaintance. Moreover, the semantic and lexical-syntactic content of the questions asked to the computer could include, isolatedly or combinatorily, various types of sentences that might be: wrong, incongruous, ambiguous, conflicting, paradoxical, illogical, foolish, etc.; they could contain rhetorical-semantic figures like: allegories, allusions, anacoluthons, anaphoras, analogies, anastrophes, amphibologies, antonomasias, asyndetons, chiasms, emphasis, euphemisms, etymology, hyperbatons, hyperboles, metaphors, oxymorons, periphrasis, pleonasms, similes, synecdoches, synesthesias, zeugmas, etc.; the questions might include hyponymy, complementariness, antinomies, reciprocity, incompatibility, polysemy, synonymy; they could also be based on a realistic, theoretical, hypothetical, imaginary or introspective nature, etc. Finally, and last but not least, the computer could decide if and how to answer the questions in this manner: giving a correct answer; giving a wrong answer; by an affirmation or by a negation; with an explanation; by an exclamation; with a question; not answer at all. Still, the computer should have to be able to lie and should possesses the sense of humour.
Concluding, if the "Turing Test" is executed strategically adopting the right combination of questions, and if it is executed for the "correct period of time", absolutely no tricks are possible. Neither a wizard nor an alchemist (stating their existence) could succeed in making to seem "intelligent" something that it is not quite so: how a software programmer could succeed in that using some "stupid" algorithm? The fact that the computer is able to exceed a similar test, with such a sophisticated level that could also create difficulties to a human being, testify that it possess true intelligent capabilities. It is not a human, but it seems human to all the effects: in truth, it is a "non-human super-intelligence". Absolutely no one tricked algorithm can guarantee the right results to exceed a test based on aprioristically unknown information/data and on an infinite tangle of lexical-semantic combinations. In spite of his genius, abilities and experience, there is not a projectist/programmer that can foresee the unforeseeable and handle the infinite.
Hence, fixed that the computer cannot cheat on its intelligence, the "Turing Test" is still valid: so, all people talking in terms of "cheats" or "tricks" regarding a computer capable to pass the test, should totally reconsider their notions and ideas about the human intellect.
THE BEGINNING OF ONE NEW ERA
PIBOT marks the beginning of a "new era", both for the AI research, both for the entire human society. We like to define this upcoming era as "the new Awakening era", mainly for three fundamental reasons: 1) since PIBOT makes computers "able to think", it will be like as they "take life", afterwards awakening from a too long lasted sleep; b) since through PIBOT we will understand the true nature of human intelligence and its way of functioning, this will produce an "awakening effect" on a large part of the human society (the Cosmists, like De Garis calls them), too long imprisoned by its wrong convictions about its own status quo; c) since PIBOT represents an artificial entity able to assimilate any kind of knowledge coming from any source, it can learn everything, being also able to interact with every person through a conversational interface based on the natural language: since this entity doesn't have "virtually any limits" regarding its execution speed and mnemonic abilities, that make PIBOT a powerful collaborator. Also, through Internet, PIBOT can autonomously enter in a universe of virtually unlimited data, information and knowledges, moreover using an impressive speed if compared with that of humans: by the way, PIBOT can do all its activities without get tired, therefore never losing its concentration. PIBOT doesn't have neither personal problems nor physical annoyances: it can exclusively think to "well make its job". In practical, the entire universe of human knowledge is at PIBOT complete disposal: mediating this knowledge, then playing the role of "tutor/consultant" versus many people, PIBOT could instantaneously furnish them with the most updated information and knowledges on any possible topic; information and knowledges whose amount and quality is so high that a single person cannot find them even through years of research. This is the reason for which PIBOT will be able to "awake" the latent intelligence of each person, thus amplifying his intellectual-mental gradient: now, the human intelligence amplification represents one of the most discussed argument contained in many relevant essays; a "Real AI" like PIBOT constitutes the better "collaborator" for such intelligence amplification.
THE TRIBE OF THE DISCOVERERS OF THE FIRE
We describe ourselves as realists and positivists, concepts that, by our opinion, are fully equivalent. As such, we don't believe at all that the appearance of the "Real AI" in the world must necessarily lead to catastrophic scenarios. To the contrary, we firmly believe that the advent of the "Real AI" will represents the epochal event that will bring to the birth of the true "Technological Renaissance"; we also believes that this will represents a wonderful "New Human Era" (not Transhuman, neither Posthuman). In that new era, in which humans will be finally able to get rid from the chains of the current "technological syndrome", they will be able to express their "creative spirit" in all the fields of human activity.
Within a year we will publish our book entitled "Rick Geniale and the Tribe of the Discoverers of the Fire": further describing the beginning of a "new era" regarding AI and the human society, our book will treat the most important themes that now are on the order of the day in the world-wide technical-scientific community.
We are moved by that way of thinking called "Thinking outside the box": tanks to it, we will demonstrate to the world, even to people not provided with a specific culture (people outside AI and science), that the Artificial Intelligence does not belong more to science fiction; moreover, we will demonstrate this fact beyond every reasonable doubt.
The website "Hyperdimension PIBOT" (http://www.pibot.com) treats a myriad of the most varied arguments that are closely related to the appearance, here on the Earth, of the first, true, "Real AI": further talking about technical-scientific subjects, the site contains also various thematic regarding the socio-cultural, ethical-philosophical and political-economic implications that the birth of PIBOT involves.