US Masters Degrees, by subject. Data from the NCES, which I put into a Google Doc
I applied for some degree programs last year though, in all honesty, I couldn’t find much to learn from them. Journalism programs basically end their digital media components where I am right now, and other programs are not directly related. Either thru sour grapes or truthiness, I feel that I’m too cool for school. So, am I a geek anti-intellectual? A bit I guess.
In his popular article, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger states a few tenets of the new anti-intellectualism/academism, which I paraphrase here:
1. Experts do not deserve any special role in declaring what is known.
2. Books are an outmoded medium because they involve a single person speaking from authority
3. The classics, being books, are also outmoded.
4. The digitization of information means that we don’t have to memorize nearly as much.
5. The paragon of success is a popular website or well-used software, and for that, you just have to be a bright, creative geek.
So, do I subscribe to this? Nope. I think you can learn a lot by doing, but I think that Internet learning lacks a great deal of depth. Personally, I use Wikipedia to find books by experts, and I have a special interest in the classics. I still have a great deal of respect for people with deep domain knowledge. Maybe that’s just me.
What I think people are rebelling against is what education – especially higher education – has become. Look at the chart of Master’s Degrees by subject in the US (above). Or Bachelor’s Degrees (below). Education has become a business and most people are either studying Business or Education. Rather than, you know, getting educated. Education is seen as path to a job, which is not what it should be, nor is this attitude best for the job market.
At the same time, costs have skyrocketed. So something has obviously gone wrong. I think the geek anti-intellectualism is party sour grapes at being left out of a system more people should have access to, and partly justifiable rebellion against an edifice that may have to be torn down.
I was doing something and the child asked me ‘Who started school?’ Like, who made the first school. I said dunno, the Greeks? Which is kinda right, apparently. Then he was like “I’m going to kill the Greeks, school is boring.”
That’s a bit unfair to the Greeks, but I get it. The thing is, studies during the Greek days were an interactive Akademie, much different from our current, lecture, industrial based system. I showed him a Ken Robinson animated lecture on changing education paradigms, which he didn’t get, but which gets to part of the problem.
So, it’s not necessarily that geeks are anti-intellectual. I sincerely know very few geeks who are opposed to the classics or reading long books. We may just be more interested in reading them on the Kindle. Personally, I find more akin to ancients who were into ideas and writing letters and talking than to modern ‘intellectuals’ who fetishize (word?) publishing and books and awards and laurels while ignoring the new, efficient ways to get ideas out there. But that’s not necessarily anti-intellectualism. It’s just being a geek.
Shammi,
If a computer is capable of “comprehending” anything, then probably the next thing it comprehends is that it exists. Otherwise, who or what did the comprehending? That sounds like consciousness to me.
I grant you that our understanding of consciousness isn’t good enough to declare with complete certainty that we can artificially duplicate it. But I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that consciousness cannot be understood by science, and cannot be artificially created.
All your (not just you shammi, but podda and Heshan too) objections to AI comes from the fact that you’re dualists who believe that mind and body are two separate entities and mind is non-physical. This has a lot to do with your religious upbringing. You think there’s a part of you that’ll survive even if someone stab you to death, and you think this part (mind/consciousness/soul) is sacred or something and therefore it cannot be understood by science. Although I can’t prove you’re wrong, I don’t see any reason to believe you.
Hypnosis can alter the state of consciousness simply by uttering words. How can that be done if consciousness wasn’t physical? Or else is it possible for physical forces to affect the non-physical?
Shammi,
In other words, I don’t see any reason to believe that carbon based creatures can have consciousness, but not slicon, selenium based creatures.
I should have said distinguish, not comprehend, and I suppose abstract thought would also lead to comprehension of self. I’m not exactly objecting to your views, just being the devil’s (or in this case angel’s ) advocate. ( Though of course there are no advocates in heaven, the other one claims all of them)
It’s the sensations caused by words that trigger hypnosis. Not the words themselves. Drugs that alter the mental state would better support your argument. But here, words and chemicals work on an already existing mind. The fact that consciousness can be altered by physical forces only proves that it is fragile, or that it’s fuelled by physical forces, and the fact that you die (irreversible loss of consciousness as we know it) when the brain dies, proves that consciousness is dependent upon a functioning brain.
But what you’re suggesting is that a functioning brain (or something similar) would automatically support a conscious mind. The theories I’ve heard about the higher states of the mind, also suggest that they are merely side effects or by-products of an active brain. I still find it hard to wrap my mind around that.
Shammi,
Physical forces can only affect things that are physical. To suggest otherwise would be against all the laws of thermodynamics. See the thing is, if say a certain amount of energy was used to make an impact on something non-physical. Then immediately that energy should disappear because it has now transformed something non-physical. This just doesn’t happen.
Anyway, I just fail to see why people don’t feel ceasing to exist once we die is comforting. I mean if reincarnation is true, in the next life you might sleep with your mother in this life. That’s just sick.
Shammi,
This is not relevant to this discussion at all. People who believe in god and heaven ask us non-believers, if all we do after dying is rotting, then what’s the purpose of life. But what’s the purpose of eternal life? What can an immortal being hope to achieve in unlimited time? Seriously, how can an immortal being have any purpose? What does he do after achieving something? Running after something new? I guess the only purpose of his life will be trying to find a way to die.
Lefroy,
Brute force is the optimum solution in that it can lead to either a win or a draw. Basically, assume a very large finite number of moves Y, and for each possibility Y – n, there would correspond exactly one move X on the part of the opponent. In other words, the machine would have to predict the opponents moves and figure out the best response to each one, the end result of which would be either a draw or a win. This process has been perfected in Checkers (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/07/the-game-of-che/), but not in chess. On the other hand, if you read the article, you’ll see that it says both players are also capable of playing a perfect game. To summarize: while it is theoretically possible to create a software package that can’t lose (as in Checkers), it doesn’t follow that the machine will always win. Increasing the computing power of the program is not the solution, because there are a finite number of possible combinations:
When you play a game of checkers, you and your opponent can make an unlimited combination of moves as you play the game, eventually leading to one winner.
Actually, there aren’t an unlimited number of combinations. It turns out, there are a mere 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 combinations (500 quintillion) that can be made over the course of a game of checkers. Researchers from the University of Alberta’s Computer Science department should know, they tried them all out.
In other words, an upper limit on the computing power; beyond the upper limit of what’s necessary to force a win or draw, the benefits become marginal/negligible.
I don’t think you can teach a machine to think. The reason I say that is because the machine is essentially a hybrid of plastic and electricity. The human brain is a hybrid of organic matter and electricity. But more importantly, the human brain is endowed with consciousness , which so far has not been isolated in any test tube. Also, the neurons in a human brain increase in size and complexity (e.g. form neural networks), over a long period of time, in direct response to environmental stimuli. I find it highly unlikely that a machine can do that; in the first place, it doesn’t have any emotions, and secondly, it has no desire to survive. And perhaps most important of all, it lacks the linguistic capability to express its thoughts, except in a very superficial way. My opinion is that “thinking” is not a one-way business; it’s a complicated process that evolves over time, and is unique to a particular individual.
Now, what I haven’t touched on is the ability of machines to process information in conjunction with pre-existing organic matter. I don’t know if this is the future of AI or not; but it would seem to me to be a more worthwhile endeavor than trying to create a a fully-functional brain capable of an autonomous existence.
Emotions are important, because one aspect of learning involves reward and punishment.
Heshan,
If the machine plays a perfect game, a draw can happen only if the human player plays a perfect game (As far as I know, this sort of machine hasn’t yet been made. Chess is far more complex than checkers). If I remember this correctly, in the old system of world championship tournaments, the challenger and the champion keep on playing until someone wins 6 games. There could be unlimited number of draws. If the champion loses, he gets a rematch. (Later they changed the system in a way that encouraged players to draw matches, to which Bobby Fischer objected)
If a machine is unbeatable (can only win or draw), then it’s the perfect contestant. He can’t lose. And not to lose, human players will have to consistently play a perfect game. I now think a true AI with emotions wouldn’t be a perfect contestant because it’ll make boneheaded errors that humans make.
I don’t think I ever said playing a perfect game guarantees a win in chess. But playing a perfect game consistently gives a computer a certain edge over the humans. Furthermore, a perfect Chess machine wouldn’t have any use for creativity because it knows all the possible moves and there’s nothing left to create.
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Your first objection to AI is a lame one. If the fact that a computer is a hybrid of plastic and electricity (actually not plastic. Most of the processing is done using semiconductors like silicon, tellurium, selenium etc) stands in its way to become intelligent, the obvious solution would be making a different kind of computer. It would be ridiculous anyway to think that AI would live inside your laptop with an i5 processor. Reading your last paragraph, I think you yourself has seen the possibility.
Your second objection is more a religious one than a scientific one. Your thinking goes like this. Consciousness hasn’t yet been isolated in a test tube. That is because it is mysterious. It is non-physical. It is god-made. Therefore we can’t duplicate it. We can’t play god.
The last thing one should do when talking about science is that saying science can’t do something because in all likelihood you’ll be proven wrong. How many people thought light bulb was possible, or cloning was possible?
If consciousness is something that can be isolated in a test tube, it will be. But I don’t think it can be done. I’m of the view that consciousness is nothing more than our brain functions themselves. I guess the only thing I can say about this at this point without referring to thousands of arguments made in books about AI is, if God can do it, why can’t we?
Your third objection is again a lame one. All you have to do is simulating growth. It would be relatively easy to do if the computer was semi-organic or something. We now have the capacity to duplicate a human being (it would’ve been already done if it weren’t for the vociferous Christians who oppose it). So what on earth can stop us from simulating growth?
Emotions are important of course because what we’re actually trying to make is a humanoid being. But I suspect if we can get a machine to learn that it exists, making it capable of emotions would be easy.
The reason that playing a perfect game doesn’t guarantee a win can be easily figured out without involving any mathematics. Two machines capable of cosistently playing a perfect game would always draw matches with each other.
The physical force could act as a mere catalyst to stimulate the conscious state, and so retain it’s physical nature. There could be something other than matter and energy that we dont know about yet. Something that doesn’t fall within the confines of known units of measurement.
Of course it would be nice if everything ended with death. Instant nirvana.
Shammi,
Yeah there could be something other than matter and energy it could be affecting other non-physical stuff. But physical forces (matter and energy) can’t do that. They just can’t. If this isn’t the case, it would breakdown the foundation of physics, which can happen but I hope not.
This has gone places.
If consciousness is the awareness of self, and if a particular pattern of electrical impulses were capable of conveying this sensation, there should also be a region of the brain which processes this information. Shouldn’t be difficult to find that region by taking out little pieces of Lefroy’s brain one at a time. Now where is Hannibal Lectre?
Ah, there you are, Dodo! Yes, from intellectual geeks to intellectual machines. You too cool for this?
Shammi,
Yes, my brain should be studied. How often do you meet people whose IQ is equal Immanuel Kant’s? Hah.
.
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Where’s Hannibal uncle?
1. You really want me murdered.
2. You’re flirting with me
3. You’re attracted to serial killers or senior citizens.
Which is it?
.
This thread has become too long. I’m out.
None of the above.
1. I think it’s a valid point
2. But the topic was getting old, and
3. I tried out Indis’s hallucinogenic chicken
which made me dirty, flirty, and murderous.
Well, playing a perfect game requires future knowledge. So a lot of probability and some game theory ( zero-sum game). Brute force exists in mathematics as well; it’s known as “proof by exhaustion.” Basically you go through every possible until you find the right one. It was used to solve the “Four-Color Theorem.”
*Every possibility
It has happened in Checkers with Chinook. Chinook plays a perfect game; but there are people who have drawn against it. Yes, chess is a lot more complicated than checkers. And yes, never losing would give it an edge over the average human. But at the same time, there are humans who will still be able to draw with a machine like Chinook 70-80% of the time (the other 20-30% of the time, the human will lose). So, it’s not a totally dark day for humanity : ).
Semiconductors – fair enough. How do they compare to a neuron?
Second objection – actually, I”m trying to avoid the religious end of this argument (although to be honest its tempting to go there). What I’m saying, in a nutshell, is that the sum is more than its parts. But you still need the parts, and consciousness is a vital ingredient. Whether it was endowed to man by God or T Rex is irrelevant. We agree that it exists. My opinion is that consciousness is what allows us to exist as an autonomous entity. It’s an amazing coping mechanism that lets respond precisely to environmental stimuli, thereby enhancing our overall well-being. I’m not saying it can’t be isolated in a test tube or that it’s beyond the scope of science to grasp. I’m just saying that (I) the likelihood of the latter is extremely low, and (II) I see no equivalent substitute for it in AI.
Thus far, I’m not aware of any semi-organic computing machine. We can duplicate human beings, but they’ll have totally different personalities. So is it really the same human being?
Emotions are important for a lot of reasons. Look at a toddler, for example. Until it learns to speak, the only way it can communicate is pretty much through crying and hollering. There seem to be a few adult humans who do the same thing, aka Blockhead, but that’s probably a different story.
Ahhh yes, if we could get a machine to learn that it exists, then the rest would follow easily. But that’s right back to consciousness. Admittedly, I’m ignorant of pretty much all advances in AI, but I just don’t see the equally powerful alternative to consciousness, in an AI.
P.S: Did you know we only use 5% of our brains?
I should have said, solve the Four Color Problem and prove the Four Color Theorem.
Heshan,
Did I know we use only 5% of our brain? Yes. But that’s not completely true. The other 95% actually help this 5% to work. It’s not like god screwed up.
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He screwed up the cosmos though. Andromeda is heading our way.
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I’m out.
Hmmm…most Silly Lunkets have only 3 brain cells…so 5% of 3 brain cells adds up to??? I think God screwed up big time in Silly Lunket…and so we have to put up with the consequences.
INTERESTING BOOKS THAT MAY NEVER EVER BE PUBLISHED IN SILLY LUNKET
“I Was The First Tamil President of Sri Lanka” by Barakamesh Obamasingham.
“An advanced guide to Hedging” by Ashantha de Mel.
“The Mihin Air Miracle” by Sir Richard Branson.
“Lap Dog Millionaire” by Wimal Weerawansa.
“Mahinda is the one God & Gotabaya is his Prophet” by A.H.M. Fowzie & Alavi Moulana.
“The Mahinda Chinthanaya in comparison to the Tripitaka, Bible, Koran & Rig Veda” by Champika Ranawaka & Udaya Gamanpillai.
“Attaining Nirvana Through The Mahinda Chinthanaya” by Dr.Rajitha Senaratne.
“Humanitarian War & How I Solved The Unemployment Problem In Sri Lanka” by Mahinda Rajapaksa.
“Join the Army and loose a leg” by a disabled soldier.
“Fighting for Peace is like F**king for Virginity” by Kumar Rupasinghe.
“Eat, Drink and be Merry, for tomorrow is Poya” by Athuriliye Rathna Thero.
“War Lord Millionaires” by the Rajapaksa Brothers.
“If at first you don’t ‘Secede’ try and try again” by Vellupillai Prabahakaran.
“Doctor Hoo – My Rupavahini Debacle” by Dr.Mervin Silva.
“Round the world in 365 days” by Rohitha Bogollagama.
“The War On Tourism – How to bully tourists into visiting Sri Lanka” by Milinda Moragoda.
“Seaside Bummers” by a former child soldier, now a child prostitute in Hikkaduwa.
“The Art of Indiscriminate War – Having fun with cluster bombs & multi barrel rockets” by Field Marshal David BlockHead, with a forward by Sun Tzu.
“How to escape from multi barrel rockets and cluster bombs” by a Tamil civilian.
“Mettha, Muditha, Karuna & Pillayan” by Karuna & Pillayan.
“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” by Gotabaya Rajapaksa, General Sarath Fonseka and the Jathika Hela Urumaya.
“The Greatest President That Never Ruled Sri Lanka” an Autobiography by Ranil Wickramasinghe.
“War without casualties, low flying satellites and other tall stories” by Brigadiar Udaya Nanayakara.
“Headlines & Deadlines – Popular April Fools Predictions” by Keheliya Rambukwella.
“NO BALLS & WIDES – A Complete Guide To Fast Bowling” by Dilhara Fernando.
“ALL MY BALLS WERE YORKERS” an Autobiography by Chaminda Vaas.
“THE BOYS PLAYED PRETTY WELL” an Autobiography by Arjuna Ranatunga.
“Captaincy and the 2039 World Cup” by Sanath Jayasuriya.
“Chucking For Wickets” by Muttiah Muralitharan.
“HOW MANY MORE FINAL BATTLES?” by a Gullible Sri Lankan.
“The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth” by Roopa Vaahinee & Daley Noise with a forward by Brigadiar Udaya Nanayakara & Keheliya Rabukwella.
“Lies, Damned Lies & Central Bank Statistics” by Brigadiar Udaya Nanayakara & Ajith Nivaard Cabral.
“Gullible Sri Lankans & Swiss Bank Accounts ” by Sakvithi Ranasinghe.
“Neutral Umpiring ” by Kumar Darmasena & Gamini Silva with a forward by B.C.Cooray.
“Alien Abductions & Unidentified Four Wheeled Objects” by Gotabaya Rajapaksa & General Sarath Fonseka.
“The Four Brothers of the Apocalypse” by Rajapaksa and his Righteous Brothers.
“How to fart with conviction during TV interviews” – by Rajiva Wijesinghe
@Dunce Speak for yourself
“How to keep your blog closed to comments- It’s a matter of check box” by Rajiva Wijesinghe
I’m sure Rajapaksa or GoatPaksha can beat Kasparov any day they want. All they need to say is, “If you don’t loose we will do humanitarian things to your wife and family.” What choice would Kasparov have then but to loose to save his family?
Alright i’ll give my 2 cent on this.
1)lefroy, a lot your objections about the limitations of games seems to be x can’t be replicated y can’ be replicated. I think a lot of the ideas and themes in Ulysses can be presented through an interactive medium. but more importantly games need not replicate ulysses, their magnum opus can be something entirely different. my general point is that a mature interactive medium simply offers far more freedom than anything we’ve ever seen before.
2)responses being programmed is no more of a restriction than a book having to be written in ink. This also bring about the question about AI being monotonous. That’s just nonsense. machine learning has been around for quite sometime. you don’t have to program explicit instructions to AI anymore. They will figure out what you are doing and screw you over. and if you change tactics they will try to figure out effective counter strategies. and these strategies don’t have to be hard coded. AI can generate them.
3) figuring out chess in an interesting question. firstly, given the complexity of chess vast majority of the search algorithms will simply run out workable energy long before they get anywhere near solving chess. A more fruitful approach would be a nonconstructive proof of whether such a globally optimal strategy exists or not. I’m not sure if this has already been done or not.
4) you don’t need semi conductors to mimic the functionality of a neuron. You can’t get a decent approximation of the functionality of individual uncoupled neuron by using a bunch of capacitors , resistors & batteries. The synaptic coupling is a little trickier.
5)is there a mathematical expression for consciousness. I think the answer is no. for 2 reasons. both of which i will explain later, when i’m not sleepy
Ok I can’t resist.
Dodo,
1). This is about what we like and what we don’t like. There’s no point in arguing about this.
2). Responses being programmed is not equivalent to books having to be written in ink. It’s equivalent to having to read a book with only a finite number of ways you can picture the story in your mind… Machine learning obviously exists. But here, the word learning doesn’t mean what it usually means. True learning involves understanding. Machines don’t understand. Only a true AI will be able to truly learn. I don’t think I said AI should be given explicit instructions. I explicitly said AI can learn and even mentioned HAL 9000. Of course the AI will be creative and figure out strategies. I said all that. Why are you repeating me? Anyway, only Heshan and I talked about AI. You and I didn’t. We were talking about video games and I don’t think you wanted me to consider the creation of AI as a given.
3). Not using brute force because it would run out workable energy is not really a point. More complex, tedious tasks are done by computers everyday. IBM would’ve already made an unbeatable chess machine if it was profitable. But a nonconstructive proof would be cool.
4) “you don’t need semiconductors to mimic functionality of a neuron”. Exactly what I said. Move to another technology.
5) Waiting for the 2 reasons.
After writing all of the above, I realise that only the 1 was directed at me. Oops.
My PhD work is to build a machine that dreams (computer program), which is situated in the context of machine creativity. Here is our lab website: http://www.metacreation.net