Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #10718
To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: Thomas Pilgaard ascii@hum.auc.dk
Date: Wednesday, 23 February 2000 12:29
Subject: RE: BEAM: Tendency toward miniaturization
>> Also, a simple silicon neural net made to achieve a goal - same as us!
>> Personality isn't magically achieved, it is the result of an immensly
>> complex neural net.
>
>Personality doesn't causally arise with complexity. Our skills as humans is
>not a product of our brains - it is the result of not only a lifetime of
>being-in-the-world, but also a of many generations passing of "tacit"
>knowledge through genetic material. One may think of this as the hardest
>part about creating biomorphic and antropomorphic machines. In creating
BEAM
>robots for instance we are extracting a very bleak reflection of what it is
>to be a living creature and observes these creatures as having
>characteristics that are similar to their biologic counterparts. However,
>there's a difference between ascribing characteristics to a robot through
>observation and what the robot actually does.
>
>In my personal humble opinion the question is not whether or not it is
>possible to create antropomorphic (or biomorphic) machines. It seems more
>reasonable to ask: do we !want! antropomorphic or biomorphic macines. When
>we look at insects and attempt to synthesize them, we are not attempting to
>make an electronic counterpart to a biological creature; surely we are
>attempting to augment the electronic creature to satisfy some of our needs
>and help us solve problems and tasks. The same thing goes for the
>antropomorphic machines.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Thomas
>
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