[ExI] Oxford scientists edge toward quantum PC with 10b qubits.

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj
...
Subject: Re: [ExI] Oxford scientists edge toward quantum PC with 10b qubits.

On 31 January 2011 21:42, Richard Loosemore <rpwl at lightlink.com> wrote:
>> But that is *exactly* my point.  We are not getting tantalizingly 
> close, we are just doing the same old snake-oil con trick of building 
> a system that works in a ridiculously narrow domain, and which 
> impresses some people with the sheer breadth of information it stores
inside it.

>I suspect that human beings themselves do little else than than adding
half-competent reactions in ridiculously narrow domains one to another for a
very large number thereof... Stefano Vaj


Ja.  The reason I think we are talking past each other is that we are
describing two very different things when we are talking about human level
intelligence.  I am looking for something that can provide companionship for
an impaired human, whereas I think Richard is talking about software which
can write software.

If one goes to the nursing home, there are plenty of human level
intelligences there, lonely and bored.  I speculate you could go right now
to the local nursing home, round up arbitrarily many residents there, and
find no ability to write a single line of code.  If you managed to find a
long retired Fortran programmer, I speculate you would find nothing there
who could be the least bit of help coding your latest video game.

I think we are close to writing software which would provide the nursing
home residents with some degree of comfort and something interesting to talk
to.  Hell people talk to pets when other humans won't listen.  We can do
better than a poodle.

If we are talking about software which can write software, that's a whole
nuther thing, the singularity.  If we get that, entertaining the elderly is
irrelevant.

spike