So here's the deal.

If I have current readers, then please let me know that you're out there. If I have new readers, let me know you're out there. I'm trying to promote this as much as possible, but if I don't see it working, then what use is there to even keep this up? If I start seeing more activity, by way of comments and such, then I'll start posting more.

A.I.

What makes us human? What is it about humans that sets us apart from animals and machines? For programmers tackling the problem of artificial intelligence, it's these two questions that they constantly ask themselves.

There are several problems facing the development of AI, the first of which is obviously creating the intelligent "agent," as it is called. This is by far the most difficult problem, and one that has stumped programmers for decades. I couldn't even begin to suggest how that could be progressed, so I won't. I'm just going to make observations for now. Once we finally have an intelligent agent on our hands, then we need to be able to communicate with it. Sure, we could have a team of programmers tapping in queries and interpreting responses, but that would be inefficient and not very marketable. The easiest way for us to communicate with an intelligent machine would be to talk to it. But getting there is, again, a big obstacle. That would mean creating a program that could hear and understand speech, then formulate a response fluidly, like in a conversation between two people.

But where does it get it's knowledge from? It has to learn somehow, right? There is only one approach I've seen to solving that problem, which has two variants. The approach consists of creating a huge database. One method uses simple yes or no questions, which I have no idea how that would work, and the other uses simple statements of absolute fact, like "The sun rises in the east." But why not just upload every encyclopedia article, every textbook, etc. into it's memory bank?

There have been a few "successful" stabs taken at AI (I'll explain the quotations later). There was Deep Blue, the machine that defeated chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, and I vaguely remember a special on the Discovery channel about a robot at Stanford that could learn at the same rate as a small child (but I have a horrible memory). But Deep Blue was just an automaton. It was programmed to do a job, and it did it's job, much like the welding robots in car factories.

What these machines lack, and what the programmers are overlooking, is what makes the difference living, breathing people and machines: emotion. Full-blown, long term emotions. Love, hate, desire, fear. A chess-playing computer doesn't want to grow up and be a actor or an astronaut. If we wanted to make human-like intelligent machines, we would have to find some way to program human emotions, or just hope to have them happen by accident.



Take HAL 9000, for example. In Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey (and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film), HAL was the artificially intelligent computer of a ship sent into deep space. His job was to oversee the crew's well-being and the security of the ship. He was programmed with his mission and given artificial intelligence so that he would be super-efficient and super-accurate. No HAL computer had ever made a mistake. But, when HAL incorrectly reports a faulty instrument, the crew decides to disable his higher-thinking functions. When HAL discovers their plan, he attempts to kill them. The desire to live? Not exactly something that would be programmed.

In 2001, Steven Spielberg's film Artificial Intelligence: A.I. came the closest to what I believe is true AI. The movie is about David, an android in the form of a small boy that is specifically programmed to love. David's ability to love also gives him traits not foreseen by his creators. He has desires, dreams, and faith. He sits underwater, and then under an ice shelf for 2,000 years, waiting for the "Blue Fairy" to turn him into a real boy so that his mother will love him.

My point is that I don't think AI will ever truly work. If we could create a machine that reproduced the human mind exactly, then the machine would also fall victim to the same problems that plague humans, like hate and prejudice. I say we keep to simple machines that do a specific job. Instead of human-like androids like David and C-3PO, let's keep things like the Roomba and factory automatons.

Musacks

So, after much procrastinating, I decided to post again. Until about thirty seconds ago, I had no idea what I was gonna talk about this week, so I'm gonna pull this one out of my ass. This weeks subject: music (brought to you by Faderwave Radio).

So, yeah, music. Boy has it come a long way. From a few guys banging stuff and wailing to XM and Sirius satellite radio and all these pop singers that dare to call themselves talented.

I'll begin with the drum. It's probably the simplest of all musical instruments, and probably one of the most used. Everyone knows about how the Africans used drums to communicate, but that function wasn't only used by the Africans. Sri Lankans used drums as far back as 2500 years ago. They have always been used by militaries, as recently as the 19th century, to relay orders to infantry (to you drummers out there, the flam was developed to lengthen the sound so that it could be more noticeable at long distances). These days, however, drums are used primarily as a means of rocking out.

String instruments, however, possibly predate recorded history. Carvings have been found in India that date back over 5,000 years. It is apparent that string instruments have always been a part of human culture, from the Arabian sitar to the 1976 Gibson SG. (Such a nice guitar...)

But pish-posh, that's neither here nor there. That was then. What do we have today? Today, my friends, we have the electric guitar, synth-pop, and the coup de grace of musical evolution, Electronic Dance Music, or EDM. The first synthesizer was not, as some people know, invented by the late Robert Moog. In fact, it was invented 130 years ago in 1876 by a man named Elisha Gray. While working on the telephone, Gray discovered that he could control the sound created by an electromagnetic circuit. His machine could only produce one note. In the early 20th century, there were several machines that could produce music electronically. These machines ran off analog computers, and thus each sound could only be created by manually readjusting the vacuum tubes of the device. In the 60s we were introduced to the modular synthesizer, the most popular one being the Moog, created by Robert Moog in 1964.

The Moog revolutionized music, as it could actually be used by musicians outside of the studio, due to its smaller size. I could go on and on with this little history lesson, but that wouldn't be very entertaining, would it? Let's just leave it at this: Synths gradually got smaller and more versatile. That should just about cover it.

Anyway, the synthesizer is a bittersweet tool. While it has given us the glories of EDM and all its forms, it has allowed the rise of no-talent sensations, who mask their lack of talent with electronic noise (Akon, I'm looking at you). In a way, I blame pop music for the downfall of Western civilization. Nowadays, we spend all our time watching the hijinks that Brittney and that lot get up to.

*le sigh*

Anyway, that's all I feel like typing. As always, if I've said something that is totally wrong, don't feel bad when you call me a dumbass. Just let me know what's up, and I promise I won't hate you forever. Hopefully, this update gives you a better sense of what to expect out of me, when it comes to writing style (or lack thereof). Be sure to leave comments so I know that you read! They don't have a counter on the actual blogs. Until next week...

And now, ladies and gentlemen...

I was sitting in my living room, simultaneously watching the YouTube Democratic Debate on CNN and reading the latest edition of Wired magazine. An idea hit me, in much the same way that Mike Tyson driving a Mack truck would. Between watching Hillary fumble for responses and reading about making ice cream with liquid nitrogen, I started to wonder. What happened to the whole Web 2.0 thing? Naive as I was, I was expecting a full revamp of the way the internet works. Thinking back on it, I feel rather stupid now.

As I was sitting there, making snide remarks about Clinton, I realized that the Internet isn't just a piece of technology, that can be upgraded at will. It lives and breathes. It is directly shaped by the people who use it. I remember the days when really the only ISP was AOL. I was a young lad then (and now, come to think of it), only 11 at the time. I would only get on the net to go into the "teen" chat rooms (I know now that it was really 11 year-olds like myself and our 40 to 50 year old predators) and look at random pictures. There was no real work done back then, especially since I was only 11.

But those web designers have really pulled a fast one on us. Now, the Internet is an integral part of our culture. How many times have you prayed for fire and brimstone because the net was down and couldn't check your email? Now, instead of trolling through the Internet looking for porn or random bits of trivia, we're finding porn and random bits of trivia, but now we have video. But honestly, nowadays, we have sites like Facebook and MySpace that allow us to meet other people interested in the same stuff we are, and games like Second Life, where we can go to digital mock-ups of real places and talk to people, instead of actually going places. Google can show you millions of websites in a fraction of a second, all of which have nothing to do with what you were looking for in the first place.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Everything you just read is what occurred to me in the space of about a minute. The actual purpose of my blog is to discuss the different ways that technology has evolved, and this particular post was intended to introduce this blog and myself to you, my valuable readers (both of you). As you can see, I got a little carried away. I tend to do that.

My goal with this blog is to educate those that otherwise would not have made these realizations. However, I think that most of the people who would normally be reading this already know whatever it is that I may have to tell them. Either way, I'm going to try to keep my updates as close to weekly as I can manage. You can probably expect everything from deep, insightful monologues about the impact of technology in our lives, to hot-headed rants on the stain of humanity that is 4chan.

As I said earlier (I got carried away again), this post is an introduction. My name is Kyle Herring. I live in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and have nothing better to do in this town than to write a blog. I'm only 17 years old, but I think I have a reasonably good view on things like this, and I'm not a complete buffoon when it comes to technology, so I do have something to base my opinions on. However, that should not keep you from chiming in with your two cents. Blogs are a discussion, after all, and I invite everyone who reads this to either praise me on my insightful views on things, or, if need be, tear down my idiot assumptions and edumacate a young man on the workings of the real world. Also, please leave a comment every now and then, if only to let me know you read it. Until then...