Artificial Intelligence

I said:
: What do the software jocks say?  James?  Mark?  Richard?

Richard Sez:
}ME!?  A software jock!?  Scott you've been sampling the biochem'
}department's throwaways!

Hey!  Who told *you* about my Jekyll-Hyde formulae!??!

On AI programs:
}I assert it's more a
}matter of hardware than software at this point.  We can do anything,
}given enough code.  :=)

That's my guess, but then again, I'm strictly a computer-0 type myself.

}Actually, my view of machine intelligence is that when it arrives,
}it will in no way mimic human intelligence.  Well, maybe superficially.
}After all, the robot - Si creature that it is, rugged, semi-immortal,
}with different sensor apparatus, has about as much in common with us
}as does the fruit fly.

Sounds cool, but what would *that* be like?  What would it think like?
I'd guess it would mostly depend on who built it and for what purpose it
was designed.  And for the moment, in traveller, we are supposing that
the robots are built by the known traveller races.  These races will build
bots with purposes in mind, specific to their own percieved needs.  That is
gonna limit how alien the bot is in relation to it's creators.  Building
an intelligence that you can't use might be an interesting experiment, but
not one with much practical application.

But, also, AI is *supposed* to be TL 17.  So will it REALLY take 9 tech
levels from now to get a true AI?  I doubt it.  Does anybody else out there
bemoan the downgrading of TL16?  I seem to remember that TL 16 was supposed
to be the 'magic' level when they quoted A.C. Clarke in Supp 3 Spinward
Marches.  Now it seems that the Darrians weren't really that great after all!
I don't know how their TL 16 fleet is supposed to have survived the thousand
years or so it's been sitting around dormant!?   Seems to me all their TL 16
gadgets would have broken down LONG ago.  Making them essentually TL 13!

Rambling on...

Scott