Last night I had a really stimulating dream which I think reflects some inherent personality traits and flaws that I happen to possess. I have been obsessed with HAL since the time I first read 2001:A Space odyssey, it fired me up and inspired me to take up robotics, but slowly I forgot about it and this memory was buried in some deep recess of my mind. However, recently I found 2010:a space odyssey two in my library and it all came back, I issued it on Shikha’s card (I have 3 books in mine) and I finished it before dinner. Since then I have had dreams of me being on the spaceship discovery, I represented humankind to the incorporeal entities and one might as well guess who were my ship mates. Anyway last night I had a dream in which I was talking to HAL and I can still vividly recall the conversation it went something like this,Hal greeted me and said “professor”, after that HAL asked me “Do you dream about me?”.I found myself saying yes quite softly and my dream escalates at this point as HAL asks me “You love me more than any other human with the exception of your parents don’t you Anuj?” and to my surprise in my dream I found myself saying yes and then I started to sob. After this HAL asks me if I would like to be the one to create him to which I said yes after that I spent most of my dream brainstorming about ways to create an entity like that and quite surprisingly the insights are quite good.
I realized that we can’t program “common sense” in to a machine, how will you tell a computer that water is wet? Neither can we make a machine understand language, if after all language is a definition of intelligence(The Turing test) then we should be able to program in something like 50,000 possible responses and questions for the machine to refer to and for one or two bombshells one could answer randomly until the conversation resumes the predefined plan. this is based on the idea that even we are not random creature there is an inherent subconscious or conscious reason for everything we do and how we learn ie we build up a database of “life” as we grow that teaches us things. Now, the counter argument for this is that it isn’t true “intelligence” but how would one describe such an abstract concept? Well if I can quote some examples,it is commonly defined as:
“Intelligence is the possession of a model of reality and the ability to use this model to conceive and plan actions and to predict their outcomes. The higher the complexity and precision of the model, the plans, and the predictions, and the less time needed, the higher is the intelligence.”

Fine but let me ask one thing if a child savant is able to understand and calculate vast numbers and has a variety of computational skills and however he/she is autistic will you consider the person as intelligent (they display lack of coordination)? Or, a mentally retarded human who plays the piano and can compose pieces with ability of wolfang is he a lobotomized entity or is he/she intelligent? Hence this model is insufficient for humans then how can it be possible to describes machines as that? Surely computational and spatial skills don’t define intelligence as I have already argued intelligence maybe something quite different than that IQ test. Also it has been observed that we don’t usually create 3-Dimensional maps or models of objects in our heads when we talk of something. It is generally extremely vague and unspecific. So it’s not a model that we can coordinate through it’s in fact some data we have acquired and we combine it and extrapolate on the base of that, I think that it is extremely likely that the previous one is the way we do things i.e. there is no rigorous model as such or maybe it is a mixture of both we may never know…..

Now, lets move on to the Turing Test :
“A human judge engages in a natural language conversation with two other parties, one a human and the other a machine; if the judge cannot reliably tell which is which, then the machine is said to pass the test. It is assumed that both the human and the machine try to appear human. In order to keep the test setting simple and universal (to explicitly test the linguistic capability of the machine instead of its ability to render words into audio), the conversation is usually limited to a text-only channel”

Now read that definition carefully you will realize that it assumes that the possession of a language that WE can engage in, in order to interact with the entity is inherently related to intelligence but what if it is an extraterrestrial which is say 3 million years ahead of us and only communicates through neural implants. As it cannot communicate with us, is it dumb? Think about it and you will realize that we are being chauvinistic in our views we need to define intelligence as the ability to do things not from a rigorous “model” but from previously acquired data and the extrapolation of facts on the basis of that data.So, why don’t we use a core gene program which acts as a base for the machine or entity to explore the world and as it moves along the different programs will come into existence using genetic algorithms and we will see which one solves the problem the best(that is how I think, by applying all the permutations for a specific event). This program will be saved for future use and it will act as a “parent program” for future(this is the basis of genetic algorithms) but now there is a twist, there will be a pint beyond which techniques will be repeated wasting valuable processing time . Then there could be a reaper or watchdog that recognizes previous algorithms and doesn’t allow the repeated data to be sent to the core instead it replies with the previously proven ‘best’ algorithm, kind of like a trained reflex.

So it keeps on evolving we should sooner or later reach the level of intellect displayed by a child if we do that then I think that hawking isn’t to far away. Then there came in other questions in my dream (or were they added in my conscious reflections??) I asked him the question if he could ‘feel’ emotions or not? HAL asked how do you know that what you perceive as emotions haven’t been hard coded into the brain as it evolved to serve the purposes of survival after all if you see a couple of freshly decapitated heads lying around you aren’t likely to stand around asking questions ones first instinct would be to run for the future propagation of the species. Thus emotions serve a use but are they necessary? Now that left me stumped as I have not given seriously it thought (but as it appeared in my dream,did I?), but I think that they aren’t that useful now as emotions at times tend to impair judgmental capabilities of an organism (us or any conscious entity like a dog, to bite or not to bite that is perhaps also the question….).

It also gave me a shock I realized that I feel comfortable more in the presence of machines than humans, I am not exactly sure if it is a good thing or bad thing.This dream also implies something else,I know what is my purpose in life, I want to do research in A.I(according to my career counselor I am ideally suited for research) and as they say-change the world. I want to revolutionize the very fabric of society by bringing a robot or a computer of some level of intelligence into every home, office and perhaps into every body. Now the question remains I know I am crazy but am I crazy enough to do it?

In the quest for artificial intelligence there is a question that trumps even the greatest of minds and shows the chauvinistic nature of man i.e. what is intelligence? Have you ever stopped and considered that what makes a person a person? What causes the very dangerous concept of I to come forward? If we look in nature we see that only a few organisms display the unique behavior that comes from being self aware a good example is chimpanzees even though they cannot speak (due to lack of fully developed vocal cords as in humans) they can and have been taught sign language and it has been found that they can have quite a good vocabulary up to 400 words! So should we give them human rights? They display emotions when forced into captivity pretty much like humans would do so should we free them from our zoos? What would a chimpanzee have to do to be considered a target worthy enough for religious conversion…

photo credit: Don SoloIf one looks at computer they certainly possess characteristics that IQ tests tout as intelligent it is perfectly capable of handling large calculations which certainly every IQ test searches for it even can show judgment in logical matters and can do various other trick as fancy as the programmer who chooses to program it. Well almost certainly computers don’t make good conversational subjects but research is underway on this and seeing on the recent upsurge in popularity of “chat bots” which are a direct result of this research. Assuming that one day we make a computer that chatters away non stop rather like the stereotypical maids in popular culture. Many people will say it talks so what is the big deal it is not living and cant be intelligent as it has been programmed, but what if this artificial simulation could learn and get better at its conversational skills and personality traits day by day, would you call it intelligent or alive?

At the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in Switzerland they have succeeded in creating robots that evolve and with a basic gene program the computer “grows” a brain for the physical robot. It is a direct application of genetics and in it there are several copies made with genetic mutations in the core gene program (there are even artificial chromosomes) and then the computer tests each one of them and the ones that fail are exterminated, the successes are bred and allowed to propagate and so on and so forth. However they do seem to hit a dead end and after a pint several strategies are repeated I think that it is due to lack of different stimulus, one never knows in the future programming may become out dated for robots and instead you would have the robot evolve for its environment its a fascinating possibility isn’t it? Think about it the next Mozart may be a machine but the question remains is it alive?

Now take a look at human geniuses having a high IQ score doesn’t necessarily guarantee success i.e. look at me I have an extremely high IQ score and yet i am at the bottom of the great cesspool called life, I have no shame admitting it I certainly do score below expectations at times simply due to the fact I don’t like the concept that I need to practice and mug up some “key words” i.e. I plan and pursue knowledge just for the sake of it no strings attached. However no matter what excuse and reason I conjure up the harsh numbers are still there (hmm perhaps I need to reevaluate my life). Take a look at RP Feynman he mastered calculus and formed his own notations by the age of 16, he never scored above 125 on an IQ test, I have a higher score than that but I know for sure that I am no where close to him. The unchallengeable fact remains no matter how you consider it, he remains a genius this is quite a slap on the face of psychometric testing, how accurate is it? A child who is able to compose and make exquisite piano pieces would be considered a genius in society but what if I tell you that he is mentally retarded would you consider him as intelligent? This question haunts me in my sleep am I truly as smart as they say I am, what if all of this is just a farce but I can’t do anything more than mere postulation.

Perhaps there is another aspect to intelligence, imagination the ability to think up of something based on known experiences and data or abstract thought but have you ever stopped and wondered what is it? Is it neuro-chemical stimulation of the brain, perhaps that is the answer but considering the fact that we do not simply know enough about the brain to tell where and how those memories are stored that give you the taste of your favorite dish the smell of a rose so on and so forth. Another equally puzzling aspect is the ability to view 3D objects in our imagination to run a “movie” in your head clearly there is also some stimulation of the optic nerve or at least the area where it is processed in a portion called the occipital lobe, don’t worry my friends it’s just a fancy Latin name for something thats like a cat you see? The eye pulls its tail and it mews in our head except for the fact there is no cat……

So to cut a long story short we don’t know enough but what I do know is that our imagination is a fundamental aspect of our intellect what separates the different striations of the humankind but could a machine have an imagination, could it dream? Clearly this is not only a mathematical, neurological, electronic and a programming problem but a deeply philosophical one, what does one define as dreaming perhaps it is what happens to me in the French class? Well you see these questions in the end are often reduced to absurdity or Reductio ad absurdum so one clearly has to be careful of the infinite regress that is often the symbol of such questions, I can go on all day boring you with a question that leads to another question I have experienced it a lot in daily life and let me tell you it really spoils the day. I admit that I don’t know deeply enough about the brain to comment on this topic without going into to the regress.

So in the end all of the arguments and questions fall into a single pit fall i.e. what is life and what is intelligence? To be frank with you even I don’t know the answer, I can do nothing better than a blind guess but what I do know is that humans should stop looking at themselves as the privileged ones we are at the end of the day not much different from the machines except we are the creations of natural evolution. Thus these debates do serve a purpose it gives a sense of perspective and hope that all is not lost in the arrogance of mankind at least we are considering these questions, to me this is the most important point of all. So please whoever has the patience to read this post understand that don’t take everything said by the “experts” at face value they themselves often don’t know what they are talking about and at the end I would say that there are no “geniuses” (the correct plural is genii)  but simply people who choose to exercise their grey cells and those who don’t…

Okay let’s say that you’re walking down the street in the night and you suddenly hear an alarm and then you look across the street and see a man in a mask climbing out of a jewelry store window with jewelry in his bag. So what goes through your head? There are 2 different possibilities and let us see which one the human brain recognizes as true:

A) Well you assume that the man is a thief, it hardly takes time to do that but you arrive at the conclusion that he’s a thief.

B) There’s an equally plausible case that the man is the owner of the shop and had gone to costume party dressed like that and while returning home he saw his store window broken, hence lacking his key he went in through the window to investigate and then decided to protect his valuables by carrying them home in a black bag.

So which one is true? A or B, you will definitely choose A; why? Is the decision you have just made logical? No it isn’t either of the cases are equally likely to be true and there can be a 100 other scenarios for the same event coming up with an explanation which points out that the man is innocent, so why did your brain say that A is true? It’s due to something called world knowledge or experience you have learned over the years that such a person is most likely to be a thief as its an observation you have made over time.

Let there be an event E which is your observation of the man. Now, C is the conclusion that he is a thief (option A), you know through experience that if E is true then C is true. This is sort of reasoning is called deductive reasoning where the validity of one event is based upon the result of the observation made for another event. However there is a fine grey line over here, there simply isn’t 100% certainty in our daily life. So how do we deal with it? Well we use a diluted version of our logic in our life i.e. if the observation E is true then C/A ought to be true.

This is what common sense is all about; making inferences based upon data from observations and a repository of data tucked away somewhere in the brain. It deals with logic, probability and statistics but the key element is the data, it doesn’t matter how refined a technique you’re using when you don’t have data to use it upon.

This is the greatest problem facing AI today; how do you feed something like this into a machine?

When I was in seventh grade I tried to make a prosthetic arm using Lego, I succeeded in creating a very primitive device which could pick up stuff, and I would control it by using switches or touch. I had this idea that you could put the stub of the arm in a frame and make it move around inside it activating pressure pads causing the arm to move. I really wanted to use nervous stimulus for it but I didn’t know how to go about it.

Anyway the point my design was and is common to majority of the prosthetic arms out there today, it had a claw, and an elbow. That’s it. It’s pretty primitive isn’t it? Also there was another thing which bugged me; it was heavy, way too heavy for day to day use. I tried to place the load of the forearm near the elbow but it didn’t quite work out, it was simply too heavy. So the motor took quite a beating each time it went up or down.

Then today I saw this;

“Prosthetic legs are in the 21st century. With prosthetic arms, we’re in the Flintstones.”

Dean Kamen has done it again, this arm is so insanely great that I can’t overestimate it! I mean, this will go down in history as a turning point. He has somehow managed to reduce the weight (it’s about 3.6 kg and made out of aluminium), made it modular and then to trump it all he has made an agile hand. No claw but a really, really compact and agile mechanical hand. Normal prosthetics have about 3 degrees of freedom* they could open/close, move up/down, and rotate left/right. However the normal human arm has 22. So this was a major shortcoming, Kamen has managed to pack in 18 into his arm, 18!! This is a quantum leap, no one has done something like this at this level before. It’s something truly amazing. They’re using 6 micro-processors to handle all the data and to control the thing. I loved the stacked radial PCB assembly they’ve created to save space.

What’s even more amazing is how they’re controlling it;

Deka worked closely with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, where neuroscientist Todd Kuiken has had recent successes in surgically rerouting amputees’ residual nerves—which connect the upper spinal cord to the 70 000 nerve fibers in the arm—to impart the ability to “feel” the stimulation of a phantom limb. Normally, the nerves travel from the upper spinal cord across the shoulder, down into the armpit, and into the arm. Kuiken pulled them away from the armpit and under the clavicle to connect to the pectoral muscles. The patient thinks about moving the arm, and signals travel down nerves that were formerly connected to the native arm but are now connected to the chest. The chest muscles then contract in response to the nerve signals. The contractions are sensed by electrodes on the chest, the electrodes send signals to the motors of the prosthetic arm—and the arm moves. With Kuiken’s surgery, a user can control the Luke arm with his or her own muscles, as if the arm were an extension of the person’s flesh.

Guess what, they also can provide feedback with a tiny vibrator, called a tactor, so that a patient can ‘feel’ without surgery. The harder the grip the more it vibrates and vice versa. Now that’s ingenious.

This is revolutionary stuff, seriously I can’t over-estimate it. Watch this video and you’ll know what I mean.

*Degrees Of Freedom (D.O.F.): We basically count the number of movements a joint can do around the 3 axes of reality; x, y, z. If it can rotate around the x axis then it counts as one degree of freedom, if it can move backward and forward then it counts as another one. We get the figure of total D.O.F. of a body by summing up the D.O.F.s of it’s respective parts