Sunday, May 26, 2013


 

Week7 - Digital automata

 

Hey Everyone this Week we are talking about a subject that has got me excited,

digital automata... automated programs that do tasks for you!

 1) What is Cyber-Twin?

 

Cyber twin is a program which uses artificial intelligence to make decisions in the way that you would make a decision.

A program that is designed to perform tasks and answer questions from an intelligence database collected on a person.

 

Does it work? ah yes, is it accurate? well not quite but it is getting there, if this type of program was near to perfection than it would be more popular.

The problem is that human logic is not ordered or consistent, like a mathematical formula.

 

 

 2) Write a one paragraph describing the Turing test and another paragraph describing an argument against the Turing Test, known as the about the Chinese room.

 

The Turing test is a proposal for a test of a machine's capability to  demonstrate thought.

Developed by Alan Turing (1950) from his paper  Computer Machinery and intelligence.

 

The Chinese Room

Searle asks you to imagine the following scenario  : There is a room. Sometimes people come to the room with a piece of paper which they slip into the room through a slot.

 

Then they wait a while until the same piece of paper comes back out of a room through a second slot.

 

You soon discover that the people slipping the paper into the room are native Chinese speakers who are sending questions into the room.

 

 Let's imagine that they have written the following question:

Fig 1: This question in Chinese means " What brings happiness?"

 

When the paper is later passed out of the room, the Chinese speakers discover that an answer has been written below the question.

The answer is also in Chinese and the native speakers determine that it is, in fact, a wise answer to the question. (We made up the question, but we borrowed a line from The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu hoping for a "wise" answer.)

 

Out of curiosity , you want to know what is in that room, what technology and/or operators, create such an answer to suit the person/s that has asked the question.

 

You bust down the door to find a man inside, he speaks english, he doesn't know Chinese, nor has he studied chinese culture or history.

Behind him is a shelf full of books that contain codes and symbols.

 

Let's say his name is Average Joe, he explains that his job is a simple, all he does is refer to the 'database' of books, finding the correct response to the data given.

 

Average Joe opens up a book on his desk and shows you to the page that was used to respond to the last (question) paper that came in, the one from the native chinese speakers.

 

 


Fig. 3: This is a page (as we imagine it) from one of the volumes in Searle's chinese room.

Click to read more on the 'Chinese room'

http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/searle_chinese_room/searle_chinese_room.php

 

The book that he is reading in this picture is a book written in English.

 

Note that the only sentences on the page are sentences that you, as an English speaker,  can understand.

 

This book is one of countless volumes that together tell this operator what output (in the form of Chinese symbols) should be given in response to virtually any input (of Chinese symbols) that comes through the slot into the room.

 

Each volume covers only a small percentage of the possible inputs. That's why there must be so many volumes.

 

This particular volume tells what output to give in response to virtually any input of Chinese symbols that begins with the first two Chinese symbols written on the piece of paper.

Average Joe does not recognize any of the symbols.

 

 

They are simply meaningless shapes to him. For all he knows, they may be nothing more than patterns for making wall-paper and not a language at all.

 

As it turns out, the symbols do have meanings.

 

They are Chinese symbols, on top of that , they are questions in Chinese being asked by intelligent speakers.

 

 

The books function as a computer program.

 

Each page gives instructions for how to manipulate symbols.

The instructions at no point make any reference to the meaning of the symbols.

 

(That is, nowhere will you find a sentence that gives the English translation of any of the Chinese symbols.)

 

None of these books is anything like a Chinese-English dictionary.

 

3) Can virtual agents succeed in delivering high-quality customer service over the Web?

 

The problem that prevents virtual agents providing high quality service, is the program's ability to cater for individual differences.

 

This theortical agent would need to understand not only the needs of the customer, but also, would need to keep up to date, with slang, and words that continue to have new meanings.

 

The other problem is that automated programs can not relate to how people feel, how would a program apologize an inconvience to a busy soccer mum, compared to a busy restaurant owner.

 

A response made to the mother may need to be intimate, empathetic and personal.

 

Although this may not be an appropriate response to a restaurant owner, involved in a business transaction, where the appropriate response would be a sense of responsibility and professionalism.



Thanks for looking if you would like to donate to Allstar's blog for future posts and blogs Click the Paypal donate button.



No comments:

Post a Comment