Adventure Ausrama Blog

technology Despite the advances in artificial intelligence, useful robots are a long way off. Humans can do limitless things, whereas robots can only do one thing well. They cannot have the broad perspective. So don't hope to have a "Maisy who washes the dishes and cleans the house anytime soon. Businesses want to profit from new technology. However, adapting quickly to advances in artificial intelligence is difficult. The business that shows the way will be the winner. Those who follow will have to pick up the scraps. The leading business will have moved on to something else. The time is approaching when the first damaging, even fatal, decision is made by a computer. It could be a major disaster. Artificial intelligence is not sentient: it does not feel any harm it does. Machines can now learn both good and bad. To a computer everything is equal. Give a robot a conscience - that will be a great leap forward! ◆ Technology by Ty Buchanan   ◆ Adventure Austral

If there is a major world disaster will Mankind survive? In the past our forebears got through environmental difficulties, so there is no reason to believe that this will not continue to happen. As technology becomes increasingly specialized, things we take for granted will be lost. Humanity will take a few steps back or fall right back into a survival-type culture. The skill to print could end. Story telling could return as a way to pass on culture. Man has always been inquisitive about what lies over the horizon. Experimentation will still be the key to survival. In a major disaster only those species that can adapt will live through it. Neanderthals were not smart enough to survive. This is despite their brains being larger than humans. The brains of Man obviously operated differently. This could have been the power of imagination. Neanderthals learned more by direct copying of behavior. Humans can deduce answers from information. Another important factor is present

For a century now people have been assuming that robots will arrive and become commonplace in the home.  Manufacturing has its industrial robots but helping robots in the home have not become reality.  The problem is not so much being able to construct the physical aspects of a robot, it is the intelligence, the "brain", that is the big issue. By doing 25,000 runs on a computer to build up experience, it was found that biological intelligence was structure into a network of modules.  This is a breakthrough finding for artificial intelligence.  Modules means alternatives can be chosen to meet a problem.  This is what makes humans and animals so difficult to understand. Apparently, all things evolve via modules.  Such networks have not solely appeared out of intellectual necessity.  Modules can be joined together with shorter network connections, using less to make more.  Evolution is not wasteful.  In the computer simulation, once a cost for network connections was added mo

Bees calculate how much energy they need to get pollen. To survive, bees must run on a "profit" basis. They must not use more energy in obtaining nectar than energy the nectar provides. Bees were given the choice of travelling along two pathways to get nectar. One pathway was 10 meters long, the other 20 meters. However, the "scenery" of the 10 meter pathway was designed to trick the bees into perceiving that it was the furthest distance away. When the bees returned to their fellows in the nest they told them with a waggle dance which pathway to use to get more pollen. Despite the 10 meter pathway appearing to the bees to be further away they told other bees to go to the feeder in the 10 meter pathway. Somehow, they had worked out that it used up less energy to go to this feeder than the one on the other pathway. It is believed that bees have "calorimeters" built into their brains. They do not judge energy expenditure solely based on distance travelled

It seems the level of intelligence is determined by a few genes.  This must surely be too simplistic, particularly because specialists cannot agree on what intelligence is.  How do you compare memorizing general knowledge to the skill of knitting a fine jumper?  There are people who know just about everything about Australian rugby league, but this is their only area of expertise. Finding will be made easier, apparently, by questioning the crowd rather that by brain scans, etc.  It is believed that the sought after genes affect brain size.  Considering that Neanderthals had larger brains than modern man, this seems to be the wrong hypothesis to start with. While "the team" is sure they will find the genes they do admit that culture, education, health and upbringing can affect intelligence.  How are they going to filter these things out?  Obviously they can't.  Twenty one thousand subjects were catalogued and brain imaging was used.  Strangely, when the team was r

We have large brains due to social interaction.  In early societies culture meant things had to be remembered.  Another important function leading to large brains was tools use, though chimpanzees use tools.  The most intelligent people would inevitably become leaders and have the choice of mates, thus passing on their genes. Intelligence and brain size are of course interdependent.  Animals such as dolphins and elephants have social structures.  They are also very intelligent.  Higher intelligence appears to be naturally selected for in any species. Apparently, when society develops intelligence must increase otherwise an individual will be "put upon" by the smarter ones.  There is some evidence that really clever individuals tend to be disruptive to a society.  The naive are certainly at a disadvantage. A thorn in the side of the above theory is that some highly structured societies are composed of small creatures with tiny brains.  Ants, bees and wasps are in