Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Artificial Intelligence and "Waking Life"

I am little late to the scene, but I recently read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman. A fantastic read for those who haven't read it yet. In the book he talks about several movies which I am going to try to watch. The first one I watched was Waking Life. Wow, I'm glad I saw this movie. I was a little disappointed by the ending, but hey, the rest of the movie was incredible. What was really fascinating for me was the ideas this film conjured up and questions that I had as I watched it.

This inspired me to post this blog because I am curious if any of you know any of these answers, since you are a thoughtful bunch.

The first of which pertains to artificial intelligence and robots. It was great to read Mike Treder's article today Making Dogs Smarter than Humans about creating articial intelligence like our good best friends, dogs. Well-timed for what I'm asking I think. I was wondering if time would be or is a dimension for artificial intelligence or robots? Do these 'minds' know time as it passes or will/are they a creation that will transcend this dimension? Does time apply to them other than the needs of us humans?

In Futurama, Bender is unaware of time. In Neuromancer the artificial intelligence, Armitage, and The Dixie Flatline also have no concept of time, it's a joke even, "where have you been?"

And if artificial intelligence doesn't 'know' or need time, then what are the affects for us? If there are any. What does this mean? If anything.

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"I was on acid and I looked at the trees and I realized that they all came to points, and the little branches came to points, and the houses came to point. I thought, 'Oh! Everything has a point, and if it doesn't, then there's a point to it.'" -- Harry Nilsson