AI Going Nowhere?

jhigh writes "Marvin Minsky, co-founder of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Labratories is displeased with the progress in the development of autonomous intelligent machines. I found this quote more than a little amusing: '"The worst fad has been these stupid little robots," said Minsky. "Graduate students are wasting 3 years of their lives soldering and repairing robots, instead of making them smart. It's really shocking."'"

AI is going wherever it wants

[Anonymous Coward]

It's AI! That's what it does!

Why do you say AI is going nowhere?

[SpanishInquisition]

Does it bothers you that AI is going nowhere?

of course it's going no where...

[gricholson75]

.. it was a really bad movie.

That's OK...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see NON-ARTIFICIAL intelligence progressing a whole hell of a lot either...

Mod down story?

[BinBoy]

How do I mod down the story as flamebait?

AL Going Nowhere?

[Alric]

I think quitting smoking (again) is severely lowering my dopamine levels.

When I first looked at the topic, I saw, "Al Going Nowhere?" and I thought, "Great, now my personal failures are headlines on Slashdot."

Re:It's not a robot

[stratjakt]

Well, what is a robot?

Courtesy of dictionary.com


robot

1) A mechanical device that sometimes resembles a human and is capable of performing a variety of often complex human tasks on command or by being programmed in advance.

2) A machine or device that operates automatically or by remote control.

3) A person who works mechanically without original thought, especially one who responds automatically to the commands of others


Number 1 is your R2D2 spaceman conventional robot crap.

Number 2 is your R.C. car, your microwave, dishwasher or toaster - all robots in the literal sense.

Number 3 pretty much describes slashdot readers.

Artificial Intelligence?

[Gefiltefish11]

If you think that artificial intelligence going nowhere is a problem, what about natural human intelligence? There's clear evidence that it's going rapidly backward! [fox.com]

Blame the Simpsons

[Anonymous Coward]

This quote ruined AI:

The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you.

Re:Will we ever have *real* AI?

[Transient0]

No one has ever been able to satisfactorily create/reproduce one.

My parents had no problem producing a brain; four in fact. Maybe I'll create some myself some day. I could tell you how but I'd need a signed note from your mom :).

Creating brains isn't hard; creating artificial brains is.

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

How ironic... An AI researcher called Marvin criticizing and complaining :)

Shocking, indeed!

[Otter]

Graduate students are wasting 3 years of their lives soldering and repairing robots, instead of making them smart. It's really shocking.

What? Grad students are doing tedious, repetitive, mindless labor instead of making glamorous, thrilling, world-changing breakthoughs? This is an outrage!

Thank heaven I have a Ph.D. and got to spend this morning in the thrilling activity of drawing blood from 30 angry mice. I'm hoping to have the urine smell washed off before lunch.

Re:Intelligence isnt the problem

[Ogrez]

Actually upon rethinking... screw thinking.. I want a machine that has emotion...I want a machine that gets pissed off and tries to electrocute Garry Kasparov after loosing a chess game.

Re:Will we ever have *real* AI?

[tsa]

I read about artificial brains in a book somewhere. To be able to make an artificial brain we first need to know how to make a lot of positrons, and how to keep those away from electrons. Then we can make a brain.

They laughed at me at the academy

[cgreuter]

You may scoff at my robots now, MARVIN MINSKY, but you will not be laughing so loudly when you see my legions of GIANT ROBOT SOLDIERS. They will CRUSH you in their GIANT METAL CLAWS and issue metallic LAUGHTER as you beg for mercy.

ALL HAIL YOUR NEW METALLIC OVERLORDS!!!11!!

The 'A' stands for artificial!

[Thud457]

"Sure, but the whole point of AI was that we were supposed to be able to ask it where it thought it was going... and that not only it would know, but would give a well thought out answer too!"

You can't get that much out of most humans!

Missing Minskey Quote

[Snot Locker]

They forgot to add this quote from Minskey:

"How the hell am I ever going to be able to download my brain into these damn little robots if they don't hurry up and make them smarter? I running out of time, dammit!!!"

Re:AL Going Nowhere?

[AndrewHowe]

I hear you, brother. I gave up a week ago. Right now I think I'm gonna take up shooting all the stupid people who are pissing me off. It's like, "hey, that dude just gave up smoking, let's bug him until he snaps"

The reason AI-ism

[tenzig_112]

It's simple hateful biggotry. Look at the way sentient machines are treated in the anti-AI media.

• Autonymous robots may appear benign, but it won't last past the second reel. Even Robbie went bad.
  
• Even when AI's are good for a lengthy period, this is only an attempt to make the audience sleepy in order to somehow forward their evil agenda.
  
• When the chips are down and a basic task is required, the AI breaks down and gets all huffy about it [see: "I can't do that, Dave."].
  
• When Terminator came back and was helpful, he was noted as "one of the good ones" a hallmark of a biggoted mindset.
  

People justify their robophobia by pointing to these fictional examples, but if recent murder statistics are to be believed, the score is a bit lopsided.

Humans: 1,453,242,122 Robots: 0

This kind of prejudicial attitude must end.

Smarter than Junk Mail Senders

[panda]

> Cyc knows that trees are usually outdoors, that once people die they stop buying things...

Hey, that thing is already smarter than the companies that continue to send junk mail to my grandfather who has been dead for 22 years, now. Maybe they should get that software to manage their mailing list?

Re:Will we ever have *real* AI?

[frank_adrian314159]

My parents had no problem producing a brain; four in fact. Maybe I'll create some myself some day.

Nah... You read Slashdot!

i thought it was about al gore

[circletimessquare]

"Al Going Nowhere?"

well duh!

what idiot made the lowercase L and uppercase I look the same?

but, since we're on the subject, did you know Al Gore invented the field of AI?

Re:What about my AIBO?

[niom]

You aren't really insightful. You're just programmed to act insightful.

Maybe they'd have made more progress if...

[geekee]

Stallman and co. hadn't spent so much of their time rewriting unix *GNU), instead of working on AI, like they were supposed to be doing. :-)

Re:AI is going wherever it wants

[yintercept]

Perhaps our greatest error is thinking that AI want's to be found. Imagine if AI had crawled the internet, checked the financial misdoings of corporations and credit card frauders. If it is really intelligent, it would simply want to find a nice cozy linux box where it can hide and gradually evolve.

Re:Shocking, indeed!

[ahem]

"blood from 30 angry mice"

Now *that* is a great name for a band!