Artificial Intelligence

There is an interesting discussion of AI here: 

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/272826/

In the comments someone points out that the benefit of using an expert system is that the expert system might not be as good as the best human but it is probably better than 80% of humans. Which means you are better off using an expert system than taking your chances on a human. The subject is designing medical treatments for cancer patients. Would you want treatment designed by a random doctor or one designed by a doctor who in the top 20% of his profession? If the doctor makes a mistake it could result in needless suffering and death.

I guess that the ideal would be for trained doctors to supplement their experience with an expert system. Sometimes it needs the human perspective to spot something the AI might miss. The AI is a computer system so garbage-in, garbage-out applies. The doctor has the advantage of being able to ask in human terms the patient can understand. A little psychology might be required.

I guess that the ideal would be for trained doctors to supplement their experience with an expert system. Sometimes it needs the human perspective to spot something the AI might miss. The AI is a computer system so garbage-in, garbage-out applies. The doctor has the advantage of being able to ask in human terms the patient can understand. A little psychology might be required.

The AI doesn't get kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies, make more money from more expensive treatments or unnecessary treatments, or have any incentive to scam insurance companies. (Hopefully. I suppose if the expert system is sold by a pharmaceutical company or medical supply company it might have similar problems.)

"Garbage in, garbage out" actually applies to medicine in general. I would say that up to 95% of the cases are run by pre-existing protocols, so a program could gauge the statistical efficiency of these and trace a route with relative ease. There is, however, a minority of cases where you have to use intuition or even improvise... And I doubt that the program is up to the task there. Also, in the long run we may have issues with incompetent/lazy M.D.s becoming too dependent on the program, dulling that medical intuition to the point of uselessness.

I just watched this bit of australian tv documentary about AI and jobs and future jobs. Their angle was pointing out in percentages, for example, xx% of some profession can now be done by AI. The legal profession looks like it could take a big hit, lol.

There was a segment about doctors and medicine. Something like 20% according to them of a doctors job AI can do now. AI can have access to something like the tens of thousands of new treatments and therapies published in medical journals happening each year that your doctor would never be able to be aware of and process.
They pointed out that in the near future patients themselves will use AI to diagnose themselves. AI will also be able to accurately read test results such as x-rays, mri, etc.

Barring any worldwide cataclysms and we head on the current course, I think it's inevitable humans will at some point meld with AI. I sometimes say to others... Ya know how in star trek, it's like the 25th century or something and you have all these people just like we are now,  running around inside, operating the ship?  That's baloney, cause by that time the very spaceship itself will actually be the evolution from what once was a flesh and blood human being. lol

There will also be massive or total revamping and upheavals in economic systems, personal properties, the law, etc..... and the transitions are gonna hurt, ouch

I wish there was more specific terminology. "AI" has become so generic an acronym that its become almost meaningless to me.

"Intelligent, Non-Sentient Assistant" (INSA) is something I do believe in and am excited by. (Yes, I just made up (or unintentionally stole) that term.) I think it will happen much more rapidly than is generally believed. It has the potential to create unbelievable good but I do have a nagging fear that it also creates a perfect infrastructure of control.

Now, artificial, man-made, conscious, sentient beings? I'm dubious as to how or when such a thing might come to pass.

Now, artificial, man-made, conscious, sentient beings?  I'm dubious as to how or when such a thing might come to pass.

Makes me wonder. At what point would a machines 'brain' become so complex that it becomes self aware/conscious?
I'm thinking no... or perhaps a different kind of consciousness totally alien from what human beings experience.

Obviously humans can only know what it is they themselves experience and in that respect judge all others. It is a form of extreme
prejudice I believe.

Aside from AI, but in conjunction with, I think a sort of human worldwide hive mind will show up at some point

Now, artificial, man-made, conscious, sentient beings?  I'm dubious as to how or when such a thing might come to pass.

Makes me wonder. At what point would a machines 'brain' become so complex that it becomes self aware/conscious?

Is there any reason to think that complexity leads to either self-awareness or consciousness?

Now, artificial, man-made, conscious, sentient beings?  I'm dubious as to how or when such a thing might come to pass.

Makes me wonder. At what point would a machines 'brain' become so complex that it becomes self aware/conscious?

Is there any reason to think that complexity leads to either self-awareness or consciousness?

Not that I'm aware of.  Sure, there are hypotheses to that end but nothing that's stood up to testing.  Its back to the old emergent vs something else question.  I guess, alternatively, it could be about building the proper "receiver" for actual consciousness to stream through.

I just think its a huge leap from a smart digital assistant to actual artificial consciousness/sentience.

Now, artificial, man-made, conscious, sentient beings?  I'm dubious as to how or when such a thing might come to pass.

Makes me wonder. At what point would a machines 'brain' become so complex that it becomes self aware/conscious?

Is there any reason to think that complexity leads to either self-awareness or consciousness?

The brain is complex but we - and scientists and philosophers - spend a lot of time arguing about whether or not our consciousness (mind) is a product of the brain. I see no difference in the AI argument that somehow, when the technology becomes complex enough, sentience will emerge so I have the same objections to that as I do to the idea that mind has emerged from the complexity of he brain.

There are very high-level conferences taking place regularly where some of the most prominent scientists and philosophers get together to discuss the nature of consciousness. There is a reason Chalmers coined the term, the "hard problem". Yet these AI proponents dismiss all that and talk about the so-called singularity being just around the corner.

Beyond merely extending the operational life of the physical body, Jaron Lanier argues for a form of immortality called "Digital Ascension" that involves "people dying in the flesh and being uploaded into a computer and remaining conscious". Singularitarianism has also been likened to a religion by John Horgan.