The idea that we haven’t advanced in algorithm design and computing and therefore we are bound to fail in the same ways seems pretty patently false to me. Yes, people failed at making machines do accurate translations before. Yes, they failed multiple times. If humanity just gave up every time it failed at something a couple of times, we wouldn’t have come very far at all.
Language is the competence to form infinte linguistic terms with a finite inventory of linguistic forms. It has much to do with thoughts, mentality, conceptions, beliefs, imaginations, conventions, experiences, awareness, knowledge, information, communication … and so on. It is such a complex system that one could say that machines could never reach this high competence that humans have. But it is merely a question of time whether machines will be able to use language like humans do. So when?
But that isn’t my idea, or the idea in the paper I linked to. Computer translation doesn’t fail because the algorithms aren’t good enough, it fails because to be a good translator you have to know what it is like to live in our complex world of experience. There is an immense background of understanding about how the world works which we develop through experience.
I liked this example from the paper I linked to:
(a) The city councilmen refused the demonstrators a permit because they feared violence.
(b) The city councilmen refused the demonstrators a permit because they advocated violence.
“They” refers to the councilmen in (a) but to the demonstrators in (b).
You can’t write an algorithm to deal with this. The knowledge that is required to understand who “they” refers to is part of the background of understanding of how the world works, which we gain through experience.
I translate all kinds of texts, technical, legal, commercial. Very often in all these cases the writer is trying to make the reader feel good about some things and bad about others. A technical writer might want you to feel bad about a machine component that fails. Lawyers want to make you feel good about their clients and bad about their opponents, companies want you to feel good about their products and services.
In order to translate something like that, you need to know what it is to feel good or bad, what kind of thing makes people generally feel good or bad.
So that’s the insurmountable problem for computer translation. I’ve just given two examples, but the kind of problems for machine translation which they illustrate occur in almost every text.
English is not a very good example when it comes to understand any of all kinds of the linguistic reference. There are languages with a grammar that shows clearly all kinds of reference between the linguistic forms because the linguistic deep structure is more noticeable / distinguishable in that languages than (for example) in the English language. The linguistic deep structure can be learned by machines as well as knowledge and experience.
It is not the insurmountable problem for computer translation. In the future machines will translate more effectively than humans.
The real truth of it is, many roles cannot be performed by machines.
Not yet, but in the future machines will be able to do it.
There is absolutely nothing that a human can do that a machine cannot be designed to do better.
I can’t wait to see the cyborgs and androids pleading, “Oh poor abused me.” Then following it with a righteous indignation attack, wiping out all of mankind.
I am very sorry, James, but i would really rather die a peaceful death in my bed, then to be wiped out by machines. If You can’t wait to see that happen, You will be among ALL of mankind to be wiped out. There is no guarantee that it will be a very kind death with the human touch.
Twilight Zone, the original, had an episode concerning the displacement of humans by machines. Although Youtube has almost the entire TV series, they don’t display that episode, but has the radio version if you have the time to listen to radio (can be more fun than you might think).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_xpnjsw-9k[/youtube]
I remember enjoying that series as a little kid.
Most humans already are “machines” and brain dead zombies. Do you actually believe the average person of average intelligence “thinks” about existence or lives a “worthy” life???
The difference between “human”, machine, and zombie, is that people falsely believe a human is “higher, above, superior” than the others. But how is presumption justified?
People take humanity for granted. People convince themselves that they’re much smarter than they are; because humanity is represented by something higher than humanity.
Humanity is a “right, entitlement, privilege” conferred by something above humanity, that turns homo sapien from merely animal into “something higher, pristine, godly, and divine”.
Machines have already replaced human beings. Because human beings were machines (slaves) from the beginning.
You’d be amazed as to how much of those original series applies to today’s society. But of course they remade the series in the 90’s, leaving out sensitive issues. There were other robot vs man issues in that series. Rod Serling was every bit as good as Orson Wells.
This is his sales pitch to his prospective advertisers;
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6de1C2LWN1M[/youtube]
Oh I know, 
they had reruns even waaay back then… I probably saw each one a few times at least. They were very spot on in some cases. I tried the remakes, hated them. I don’t have the thirty minutes to watch the vid but, knowing that character, it would be worth the time if I had it.
Incidentally Serling was one of the first cardiac bypass patients, and he died on the operating table during surgery. I guess technology has not quite caught up to the facing challenges. The earliest ventures always come with risk.
I spose.
no suppose. People are not totally uninformed. They know of the existence of the pyramid of power. The very tip of the pyramid leaves space for only 1 man, and if the machinery is left to its own devices, he will be the only one left: He will be crazy from the
beginning in the sense that he will delusional ly beleive his aim to be God, to begin with. But long before that, he will be institutionalized. This sort of
scenario is not very realistic, and it is against all rules
of set theory and probability. If 20 percent survive, it will be easy to control the other 80, while at the same time controlling the progression of machine
power/ unless they loose control, which is highly
unlikely, given the simultanious progress of human intelligence.
It depends upon the extent of a machines design if it will replace human being or not. Perhaps, it is possible.
Why would other then a self destructive mad scientist
design a program of total destruction? The argument that the machine takeover will be deceptively progressive, should be forseen earlier by human
intelligence.
Not only mad scientists… mistakes can be made.
Einstein and other scientists gave us the Atom bomb, were they destructive mad scientist? He never intended it be used for war, in fact he regretted even discovering it all shortly after.
In a sense a distinction can be made with the atom bomb, where there was no appearent viable choice, The 3rd Reich needed it as the promised super weapon to clinch victory, and allied intelligence cracked the code by which this was discovered. it became a panick to do it first. Einstein, Heisenberg and others worked on it’s theoretical basis to be sure.
In the present scenario, the summa of technology is artificial intelligence, where the control needs to retain control, and there is no way I can see, where they will abdicate this, to any one or thing. So the ultimate question is whether artificial intelligence would ever successfully be able to override the controls imposed upon it. I really doubt it, because there is as of yet no innovative quality assigned to computer systems of bio feedback replication, giving it a totally open ended field.
Quantified systems can exceed human ‘intelligence’ as exemplified by the chess supercomputer Deep Blue’s vis toy over the world chess champion years ago, but a requalification can be set up in an alternate system, where that too can be defeated.That is the weakness of machine thinking, it cannot differentiate between system error in other systems, in order to re qualify opponents on basis of ranking.
A non existent anti program would be set against it with totally irregular sequential moves, it would be defeated.