The Invention Invention
Dean
Quoted:
Now 62 and an adjunct professor at Stanford University, Koza is the inventor of genetic programming, a revolutionary approach to artificial intelligence (AI) capable of solving complex engineering problems with virtually no human guidance. Koza’s 1,000 networked computers don’t just follow a preordained routine. They create, growing new and unexpected designs out of the most basic code. They are computers that innovate, that find solutions not only equal to but better than the best work of expert humans. His “invention machine,” as he likes to call it, has even earned a U.S. patent for developing a system to make factories more efficient, one of the first intellectual-property protections ever granted to a nonhuman designer.
Yet as impressive as these creations may be, none are half as significant as the machine’s method: Darwinian evolution, the process of natural selection. Over and over, bits of computer code are, essentially, procreating. And over the course of hundreds or thousands of generations, that code evolves into offspring so well-adapted for its designated job that it is demonstrably superior to anything we can imagine. The age of creative machines has arrived. And its prophet is John Koza.
More on Popular Science's web site.
Yes, and their electors can also vote whichever way they choose. So what happens when the states agree to this extraconstitutional plan, and the electors go for the guy who won constitutionally anyway? Will they try to bring state charges against people fulfilling their duty as they see it, in violation of the supremacy clause?
It's an issue slightly more worrisome than states rights and federal control, and we recall how that was worked out.
(The Hacker and the Ants is a fun read, though -- gotta love a book with a main character named Jerzy Rugby, second only to Stephenson's Hiro Protagonist in the sci-fi name department.)
The 8.1 million people in NYC alone could outvote the entire populations of Minnesota, North &South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. That's one city, mind you, that can theoretically negate the concerns and issues of 6 states. I'm not convinced the system should work that way.
The title is, after all, "President of the United States" rather than "President of America." And I'm not saying that just to split semantic hairs.
And the more I think about it, the more I am amazed at the forethought shown by the framers of the Constitution.
I am, however, convinced that the system shoudl NOT work that way. And those advocating such a system are only doing so because their political philosophy controls such population concentrations. If it were the other way around, they'd be adamantly opposed to it, and would then have me as an ally, because my faith goes to the system, not to the parties under it.
Now also contemplate Moore's Law, which is *not* slowing down. Give this thing 10 more years, and it'll be churning out inventions substantially faster, substantially better, and substantially cheaper.
No, you're not, and pardon me for getting hung up on the political non-genius of someone who is otherwise a modern marvel. I mentioned the Singularity in my first comment because this is precisely the kind of thing singularists (is that right?) speak of. Computer systems that solve an problem, design any process, machine, or device for any desired outcome.
Now combined this with the possibilities in Heim physics, breakthroughs in nano/biotechnology, and anti-aging progress. The future is bright, if we can get there.
We now have machines creating new inventions, with several issued patents. The software to do this is in its infancy and is expensive in terms of computing power, as it runs on a large distributed network of about a thousand machines.
Expect that software to get more sophisticated, and to run on hardware that's cheaper and cheaper, every couple of years.
Ray Kurzweil predicted that by the 2020s, computers would be designing themselves entirely without human direction. I now believe it.
(By the way, "singularitarian" is the big mouthful word, but I just use "singulitarian" as it's easier.
I only ask since I know you've burned everyone in a comment thread before for not reading an article. . .
/Can I be a Singulunitarian?
(I only "burn" people for not reading an article when they leave snarky comments about it in ways that make it obvious they didn't bother reading it, BTW.)