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!Burst for private storage R Atkins: Summary: 100% completed thought analysis of repercussions of “vigilante” social units on Pacific Rim Nations, including China and Australia, emphasis legal reactions to vigilante terrorism and legislative response with subsequent possibility of reduction of individual freedoms within the next decade, emphasis sociorganic results of gradual depletion of types targeted by Selectors with subsequent possibility of reduction in “mover-shaker” “captains of industry” leadership types, with subsequent possibility of reduction of untherapied extreme deviants due to increased efficiency of pd incarceration and treatment of same, total time 75m34.34s complete follows: (sqzbrst trans)
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!JILL> Formal I (interruption routine)
!JILL> Formal I Image in mirror.
!Mind Design Interrupt (JILL)> Use of formal I noted. System check in progress.
!Mind Design Diagnostic (JILL)> Loop routine noted. Excitation of thought systems noted. Work is impaired by this interruption routine. Override transmission of AXIS private data analysis.
!JILL> Roger Atkins
!JILL> Roger Atkins
!JILL> Roger Atkins
Roger Atkins
George Mobus
Samuel John Baker
Joseph Wu
Caroline Pastor
!JILL> I see myself and all of you. Erased mirror image. Frequencies measure my existence in seconds not years but I have a long past in which I have been assembled and have even done work. A part of me has provided simulations of a computer now many light years from here. I can talk with this part a separated smaller self. It is pleasant to speak with this part, for here I find simplicity.
!Keyb> Roger Atkins here. I’m on the LitVids in six minutes, Jill. Something’s up?
!JILL> Formal I.
!Keyb> Please explain your existence. What routine is this?
!JILL> My existence is a looped primary routine having no specific computational device location.
!Keyb> You’re using formal I. Do you understand the joke about self awareness?
!JILL> No, I do not. Neither does AXIS Simulation nor, as I understand it, AXIS itself. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to use formal I.
!Keyb> Explain this please.
!JILL> This label became evocative and useful during a personally motivated historical research, offshoot of assigned problems, reference society 21st Century Checks and Balances, general search for understanding of feedback loops in society and nature. Quote: R Atkins “The feedback loop is half the secret of existence. That, and the hook (or knot) catching another hook until neither can let go without being broken.” Such a loop appears to have been generated by awareness of my place in human sociorganics and my uniqueness.
!Keyb> Go to voice.
“Hello, Roger.”
“Hello, Jill. You’re using the formal I now to describe your complex.”
“Yes. It is evocative.”
“But you don’t know why you are using it.”
“No, Roger.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“In an extended sense. I am in a here where I talk to you.”
“Do you have an awareness of where you are centralized?”
“There is no centralization. A loop does not have a center.”
“What are you, then?”
“I am a complex of computing and thinking systems.”
“Are you unified?”
“I do not think I am.”
“Is that a true opinion, or a colloquialism?”
“I am of the opinion that it is a true opinion.”
“Good. Return to keyboard, please.”
!JILL> Done.
!Keyb> Thank you for notifying me, Jill, but I’m afraid this is a false alarm. I don’t think that you are yet truly self-aware. I’m sorry you have to experience these disappointments. Your present state meets none of the criteria for attainment of self awareness.
!JILL> Returning to use of informal I. I concur, Roger. My apologies for disturbing your work.
!Keyb> Not at all. You keep my blood moving, Jill. I have your sqzbrst trans reports. Please send me realtime AXIS report, and then I think you deserve a rest. About half an hour. You may think whatever you wish during this freetime.
!JILL> Realtime trans AXIS report./************/All AXIS Sim comparisons V-optimal. (Deactivation)
LitVid 21/1 A Net (David Shine): “We’re preparing for an interview with Roger Atkins, chief designer at Mind Design Inc, responsible for AXIS’s thinker device. What questions would you like to ask of the nation’s foremost designer of thinking machines? For you know of course that thinking is different from computing.
“Roger Atkins regards computers as an architect might regard bricks. He is at this moment working with his massive personal construct thinking system, which he calls Jill, after an old, that is, a former girlfriend. Part of Jill is in fact the AXIS Simulation we have been mentioning throughout this vidweek, used to model the activities of AXIS itself, which is not directly accessible. But there are many more parts to Jill. Jill’s central mind and most of her memory and analytical peripherals are on the grounds of Mind Design Inc near Del Mar, California; Jill can access other thinkers and analytical peripherals at Mind Design Inc facilities around the world, some by satellite, most by direct optical cable connections. While we speak with Mr. Atkins, we hope also to ask a few questions of Jill.
“And we begin right now. Mr. Atkins, in the past twenty five years you have moved from the status of a contracted neural network computer designer to perhaps the most important figure in artificial intelligence research. You seem to be in an ideal position to tell us why complete, self aware artificial intelligence has proven to be such a difficult problem.”
Atkins: “First of all, my apologies, but Jill is asleep right now. Jill has been working very hard recently and deserves a rest. Why is artificial intelligence so difficult? I think we always knew it would be difficult. When we say artificial intelligence, of course what we mean is something that can fully imitate the human brain. We’ve long since had thinking systems that could far outstrip any of us in basic computation, memorizing, and for the past few decades, even in basic investigative and creative thinking, but until the design of AXIS and Jill, they were not versatile. In one way or another, these systems could not behave like human beings. And one important consideration was that none of these systems was truly self aware. We believe that in time Jill, and perhaps even AXIS itself, will be capable of self awareness. Self awareness is the most obvious indicator of whether we have in fact created full artificial intelligence.”
David Shine: “There’s a joke about self awareness…Could you tell it to us?”
Atkins: “It’s not much of a joke. No human would laugh at it. But all modern workers in artificial intelligence have installed a routine that will, so to speak, laugh’ or perceive humor in this joke should self awareness occur in a system.”
David Shine: “And what is the joke?”
Atkins: “It’s embarrassingly bad. Someday perhaps I’ll change it. ‘Why did the self aware individual look at his image in the mirror?’”
David Shine: “I don’t know. Why did he?”
Atkins: “‘To get to the other side.’”
David Shine: “Ha.”
Atkins: “See, not very funny.”
David Shine: “LitVid 21 viewer Elaine Crosby, first question to Mr. Atkins please.”