Thought experiment

The Technological Singularity – the moment in history that will be created when human intelligence can be digitized. When the speed and scope of our cognition is hitched to the price-performance curve of microprocessors, our “prog-ress” will double every couple of years according to Moore’s Law.  This was made popular by Vernor Vinge and has been widely used in science fiction writing and film, most recently in the Terminator TV series.  The accelerated change of hyper intelligence may change Moore’s Law from 18 month to 2 years to a much lower time scale like weeks, days or even minutes.

If or when such an event occurs, what place will humanity have in the world.  Does hyper intelligence equate to hyper wisdom? Unable to feel hunger or pain, would a machine intelligence have empathy for those that do?  Would intellectualising empathy be sufficient motive for a hyper intelligence to consider the humans who created it?

The Voices

More at MonkeyFluids.

Caption Competition

George finally introduces everyone to Harvey.

Hampshire Police

I shall award a sweetie to the first person to spot the joke…or I would if WordPress had sweeties.

My irony detector buzzed

I read this with a strange sense of disbelief.

US President George W Bush has urged China to begin dialogue with Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Mr Bush called his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao to raise his concerns about the unrest and to urge him to ease access for journalists and diplomats.

The same George W Bush who set up a torture camp in a foreign country to bypass the Geneva Conventions is asking China to treat people better.  Too little, too late, if you ask me.

Turing test

The Turing test is a proposal for a test of a machine’s capability to demonstrate intelligence.  It proceeds as follows: a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which try to appear human; if the judge cannot reliably tell which is which, then the machine is said to pass the test. ¹

Have you ever considered that some humans would fail the Turing test?  Seriously.  What makes a biological machine with a functional data processing unit in the form of a brain a human anyway?

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

Hol(e)y Socks Batman

I have a huge hole in my sock.  How I failed to notice that gaping chasm of sockiness escapes me.  It is truly massive.  Obviously I shall be discarding the socky remnants as soon as I get home.

In the meantime I shall be colouring in my heal with black pen so that it isn’t obvious.  Do you think anyone will notice?

Chocroversial

Chocolate is horrible. 

It’s too sweet, too sticky and it makes me feel sick if I eat more than a tiny bit.

It is also poisonous to animals.

You can keep your Easter Eggs, I don’t want them.

Please note that this is not a strange attempt at reverse psychology to get you to send me hoards of chocolate.  I really don’t like the stuff.

Irony

Pi Day

Today is Pi (π) Day, March 14th (3.14) and technically at 1:59pm we celebrate.

As arbitrary celebration days go I like this one a lot.  Not only is it geeky but it is just as irrational as Christmas, Easter and all those other arbitrary days that we all choose to celebrate on a regular, yet arbitrary, basis.  It is also a day of transcendental reflection as it’s a transcendental number. 

It is also Einstein’s birthday.

How shall I spend my Pi (π) day?

Eating pie, of course, and making up a Pi-Ku.

How I wish I could,
Calculate Pi around round,
And never finished.