Don’t Hold Your Breathe for AI

Are you a believer that someday soon artificial intelligence will be driving your kids to school, flying your family on vacation, and operating on your cancer?

As one who has seen the anticipation of AI rise and fall over several decades, I would like to warn you.  Artificial Intelligence has great limitations.  The greatest one of which is that we don’t know what it means.

Here’s the first piece of evidence for you.  A journalist has compiled a list of AI terms for the first AI glossary.  I don’t see the terms for Intelligence, nor AI.  It’s important to define EVERYTHING when you’re being a serious scientist.  Never assume anything.

Here’s the next piece of evidence.  Today’s most powerful AI vision systems can’t tell the difference between a stop sign and a speed limit sign.  Or a turtle versus a rifle.  How’s that for security?

Perhaps you say that this is only for vision systems, and doesn’t apply to other types of AI attempts.  Perhaps.  Then again, consider this article about how the Watson system of IBM has done as a doctor’s assistant.

Not well.  It’s been fired from several hospitals that were giving it a try.

Perhaps you know of a success story, or someplace that has a great AI dictionary and making great strides.  I’d love to hear from you.

My emotional and scientifically conservative side says “be skeptical” and “don’t hold your breath.”  We’ve been through this once, twice, maybe three times in the past 40 years.

Maybe that’s my “natural intelligence” talking.

 

Scientific Conservatives Have Axioms

I’m a Sci-Con, a scientific conservative.  It’s not a party, it’s a political philosophy.  As far as I can tell, it’s new.  Please, join me!

Remember Geometry?

Yes, way back when.  Yes, school.  Yes, hard.

 

That’s part of being a SciCon.  Doing things the hard way, the right way.  Not listening to the lawyers but deriving things using the best learning system ever invented in the last 2,500 years: Logic and Science.

Geometry has axioms.  These are things that are so true that we can trust them a lot.  A LOT.

You use axioms to prove larger statements.  And from there you can prove many other things.

One of the axioms of being a SciCon has to be along the lines of what police call a dying confession.  If someone is about to die, and they know it, and they tell you something, like so-and-so murdered me, it’s a good bet they are telling the whole truth.  After all, what’s in it for them?

So one of the root axioms of being a SciCon should be similar.

If a woman admits to having been assaulted, and there’s very little gain coming to her for speaking up about something painful, then there’s a very good chance she’s telling the truth.

Seems a bit obvious to some of you, but let’s face it, in this age of #MeToo, there seem to be a lot of “religious” and “conservative” and “family value” types who don’t want to believe all the young women out there who have been personally inspected by the predator-in-chief.

As a SciCon you must believe them.  They aren’t getting rich.  They probably don’t even want the fame.  Therefore, there is a cost to them to speaking up.  Therefore it’s probably true.

To all of you speaking up, please keep it up.  To all of you who are staying silent because you are afraid, you have friends (like me) willing to help in any way.  To those of you staying silent because you’ve been paid off, shame.

And to all those thinking of becoming a SciCon, prepare to believe.  The truth will set us all free.

 

Party like a Scientific Conservative

I’m a Sci-Con, a scientific conservative.  It’s not a party, it’s a political philosophy.  As far as I can tell, it’s new.  But it doesn’t tell you how to throw a party.

Political parties were invented shortly after the US of A.  Tom Jefferson gets credit for being the most political, and used every trick in the book to secure fame and fortune, including inventing the first political parties.

One of the basic beliefs of being a Sci-Con is that political parties are bad, in and of themselves.  It doesn’t matter if they are blue, red, green or black.  Any party that exists for the sake of the party works against democracy, works against the good of the public.

Yet there is some good in having a party.  For one thing, a party can present a “platform,” fighting for specific laws or directions that the government should take.  The party also helps integrate many people for the sake of improving the chances of making change.

So how does a political philosophy incorporate the practical necessities of having a party, without accumulating all the negative baggage?

We allow for the creation of a Sci-Con party that is position specific.  If a Sci-Con party must be created, we give it a name, such as Sci-Con Gun Control.  And let the debates begin.  From those debates and specific position is developed, and all the resources of that party focus on that alone.

Along with that, we add a clock.  Say, ten years.  Whether or not the Sci-Con party hasn’t made any headway into the issue by then, it simply disbands.  The goal is that some kind of improvement to society is made within that time frame.

The fundamental point is that the goal is specific, the work focused.  No extra money spent on lobbyists or fancy conventions.  Focus on one problem.  Define it, get everyone’s input, and work to make it better.

Is this going to be slow?  Of course, that’s what makes us conservative.  Is this going to be hard?  Yes, but we’re not afraid of hard work, especially if it costs us less money and pain in the long run.

So, that’s how a Sci-Con throws a party.  Not exactly beer and nachos, champagne and petit-fours, but still a party.

It may even be fun.

 

Scientific Conservative

Wow, that’s a mouthful.

It’s supposed to summarize my political philosophy.

First off, I’m scientific.  This means we use the process of meticulous definition, measurement, and questioning all assumptions.  This means being open about methods, experiments and conclusions.

What do you get for being scientific?  You get the absolute best way to learn.  Yup.  You heard me right.  As far as learning is concerned, science gets the gold medal.  Every time.

Secondly, I’m conservative when it comes to changing something as complex as our society.  I don’t trust any of the politicians, I trust the lobbyists even less, and I barely trust individual citizens to think.  Perhaps you can see where I’m going with this.  Trust no one!  No trust!

What do I believe in?  Hard and fast data.  Facts.  A fact is something all of us agree upon.  That’s it.  If we don’t agree, then let’s figure out why using civilized dialog.

If Alice doesn’t agree with Bob about something, and it’s because she’s keeping her eyes closed, that’s her right.  But then Bob’s right to ignore Alice.

If Alice has her eyes open and has a great argument as to why she doesn’t agree, then that’s fine as well.  In this case, Bob and Alice and we will gather data together, or do an experiment that everyone agrees with ahead of time.

Will this process take much longer than what goes on today?  You bet!  And that’s what makes me a conservative!

It doesn’t mean I want to double the military or keep a hundred guns in my house or tell pregnant women what to do with their body up to the point where they give birth.  No.

Being a conservative means I take things as slowly as I can.  Being scientific means I make progress in a very specific manner.

So the next time your friends try to tag you for one party or another, and you want to throw them for a loop, let them know you’re of no party.  And that your political philosophy is scientific conservatism.  That will stop them in their tracks.  It’s been working for me for some time.

Maybe there is a way to create SciCon parties.  I’ll work on that one.