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From: bill@bert.Rosemount.COM (William M. Hawkins)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Re^2: Building a brain
Message-ID: <8189@rosevax.Rosemount.COM>
Date: 20 Oct 89 03:56:14 GMT
References: <14079@well.UUCP> <10175@venera.isi.edu> <246@carmine9.UUCP> <450@uwslh.UUCP>
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Reply-To: bill@bert.Rosemount.COM (William M. Hawkins)
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Organization: Rosemount Inc., Burnsville, MN
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The very idea of taking 10 to 20 years to educate a "brain" raises the
problems caused by the rate of change of technology in a big way.
Consider the team that has designed an architecture for a machine, and
a plan for educating it.  The hardware will be changed several times
before the education is complete - lack of parts, company taken over
and broken up, etc.  Not to mention the breakthroughs in AI that will
occur over that span of time.  How many of you still work with the
same computers you had 10 or even 5 years ago?  Do you still use the
same programming language, or something more powerful?

On the other hand, the brain hasn't changed much in 10,000 years.

Let's hope this anthropomorphic view of an AI brain is incorrect,
and that something more practical is revealed.  Otherwise, you will
have something like the generation ships of science fiction, setting
out on journeys of hundreds of years, only to meet the occupants of
much faster ships when they arrive.

bill@bert.rosemount.com  Minneapolis, MN