Insane article

cable626

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what the hell does that mean "brains can be downloaded to a computer" ?
the computer will have a copy of my brain, and be able to think like i do?
i agree with the computing power being exponentially greater, but speeds of a computer don't bring about scientific functions of a computer.
if they can come out with something that can copy my brain, they can come out with it using my home computer or a supercomputer in 50 years. its a new technology, not directly correlated with processing speeds.


"IBM's BlueGene computer can already perform 70.72 trillion calculations a second and Pearson said the next computing goal was to replicate consciousness."
no, sorry, the next computing goal is to perform 70.73 trillion calculations a second.

if he's right, then they'll be Artificial Intelligence by 2020.
they also predicted we'd have flying cars by now.
 
UHCougar05

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I think that there are just some places that mankind was not meant to delve into. I think that there is too much of a risk of fucking something up to even risk that procedure. We're on some shaky ground here, and we all know what nature does to its competition. But that's just me...:)
 

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"By 2020 Pearson also predicted the creation of a "virtual world" of immersive computer-generated environments in which we will spend increasing amounts of time, socializing and doing business"

Matrix, anyone?
 

James007

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"By 2020 Pearson also predicted the creation of a "virtual world" of immersive computer-generated environments in which we will spend increasing amounts of time, socializing and doing business"

Matrix, anyone?
Ever hear of Everquest?
 
LakeMountD

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The crazy part too was them talking about the PS3 being 1% as powerful as the human brain! And the PS3 is 36 times more powerful than a PS2 and it has only been like 4-5 years since it last came out. So by 2050 I can definitely see that happening. I still think it's insane to even think about.
 

James007

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The human brain is infinitely times more powerful than PS3. Don’t believe that bullshit hype.
 
Beowulf

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"By 2020 Pearson also predicted the creation of a "virtual world" of immersive computer-generated environments in which we will spend increasing amounts of time, socializing and doing business"

Matrix, anyone?
I was going to quote the same thing, but say "Anabolic Minds anyone?".
:rofl:
 
Beowulf

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The human brain is infinitely times more powerful than PS3. Don’t believe that bullshit hype.
I would tend to agree with James here, and not just for the Bondian allusion in his name;) .

The 90's was the decade of the brain, when neuroscience really lunged forward, but as far as I know their is still much to be discovered about the brain. Therefore, it seems premature to suggest that computers will be able to outperform the brain when we don't even have a sense of the full capacity of the brain. I think they were computer scientists, not neuroscientists, who were making those claims. Nonetheless, this is a dilemna we will certainly have to confront, probably in our lifetimes.
 
TheCrownedOne

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This is old but relevant:
Brain beats all computers
By Roger Dobson

14 September 2003

Forecasters who predicted that computers are poised to become more powerful than the human brain have got it hopelessly wrong.

For the first time, researchers have calculated that the power of a single brain in terms of memory capacity and discovered that it is greater than all the computers ever made.

While even the biggest computer has a capacity of around 10,000,000,000,000 bytes (10 to the power of 12), the human brain has a colossal 10 followed by 8,432 noughts, say the scientists who made the calculations in the journal Brain and Mind.

The researchers, who point out that memory is the foundation of natural intelligence, say that the size of the memory capacity of human brains has been a mystery until now because no one has developed the right mathematical models for working it out.

The number of neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain is known - around 100 billion - and many analysts have used this for the basis of claims that computers will soon be superior to the brain.

But the researchers looked beyond that and used a series of algorithms to work out the total capacity, including the huge number of different neural connections.

Ironically, the discovery could be used to change the way that computers are designed. Instead of adding more bytes, they could mimic the human brain, with more emphasis on connections.
 
LakeMountD

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This is old but relevant:
Brain beats all computers
By Roger Dobson

14 September 2003

Forecasters who predicted that computers are poised to become more powerful than the human brain have got it hopelessly wrong.

For the first time, researchers have calculated that the power of a single brain in terms of memory capacity and discovered that it is greater than all the computers ever made.

While even the biggest computer has a capacity of around 10,000,000,000,000 bytes (10 to the power of 12), the human brain has a colossal 10 followed by 8,432 noughts, say the scientists who made the calculations in the journal Brain and Mind.

The researchers, who point out that memory is the foundation of natural intelligence, say that the size of the memory capacity of human brains has been a mystery until now because no one has developed the right mathematical models for working it out.

The number of neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain is known - around 100 billion - and many analysts have used this for the basis of claims that computers will soon be superior to the brain.

But the researchers looked beyond that and used a series of algorithms to work out the total capacity, including the huge number of different neural connections.

Ironically, the discovery could be used to change the way that computers are designed. Instead of adding more bytes, they could mimic the human brain, with more emphasis on connections.
This is actually irrelevant since we are talking about computation and not memory storage. Those are two totally different things. I totally agree that the brain has more storage and to tell you the truth I've read articles that the future of memory storage is the use of DNA since the body does it so well. It was something like 1 gram of DNA was equivalent to like 1,000,000 CD's or DVD's or something of storage which is insane.

However, when it comes to computation, computers are definitely catching up. The brain can only do so much at once and with the emergence of smaller and smaller chip structures it wont be long before the brain is surpassed as far as overall computation is concerned. Not to mention when laser processing comes out!
 
TheCrownedOne

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But the "power" of a computer is dependant upon its memory. A processor 1000 times more powerful than Gene is nothing without sufficient memory. Moreover, one of the greatest hindrances to the advancement of processing power is heat production. Smaller, faster chips create substantially more heat especially the more they are worked. I think the power of the brain is beyond what we will ever realize. Why do you think scientists still cannot understand how Kim Peek is able to compute any mathmatical problem almost instantly, recall with 98% efficiency every single thing he's ever read or heard, and count any amount of objects in less than a second? I believe everyone is able to do what Peek can do, but something about our conscious awareness and understanding of the world around us (something that doesn't exist wth autistic savants) prevents us from thinking the way they do.
 
LakeMountD

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But the "power" of a computer is dependant upon its memory. A processor 1000 times more powerful than Gene is nothing without sufficient memory.

This is true but only to a degree. I believe memory storage by 2050 will be sufficient enough to have true artificial intelligence however. I mean hell Toshiba just launched new flash memory that is like 8gb on something the size of your pinky and thats not even breakthrough technology. With the coming of optical memory storage, supercomputers will have almost limitless memory storage using photons or even possibly DNA. Scientists know at one point they are going to have to use biological substances instead of manmade substances for later computers. I mean hell why not use something that has been perfected over the course of evolution!
 
TheCrownedOne

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I've read that too about using biological structures for computer parts. But in a way that's just admitting defeat to the brain because instead of coming up with something entirely different they're just going to copy it. Either way, if we're still here in 2050 I'd better be seeing a flying car or teleportation or something "far out."
 

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I've read that too about using biological structures for computer parts. But in a way that's just admitting defeat to the brain because instead of coming up with something entirely different they're just going to copy it. Either way, if we're still here in 2050 I'd better be seeing a flying car or teleportation or something "far out."
The flying car has been around for a few years, it just isn't practical and there isn't really any infrastructure or "gameplan" for it.

http://www.moller.com/skycar/

 

coofoostu

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The human brain is infinitely times more powerful than PS3. Don’t believe that bullshit hype.
Quoted for truth. The only way a computer will ever be self conscious is if a brain is actually connected to a computer. Like Beowulf said, it will be years before we even understand the human brain, and to say that the PS3 is 1% as powerfull as a human brain is reduculious imo. Whenever they say things like this they are always only looking at one aspect and not the whole thing.
 

cable626

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SO WHAT if toshiba can make a 8gb chip the size of the pinky!?!?
the thing is, an 8gb chip or a 1 billion terrabyte chip are the same when compared to the brain, they are useless. they can't think, they can't learn on their own, and they are always useless without a human brain to function it.
A computer can perform much better at math, but that doesn't give it the ability to think.

and I doubt that AI will ever be created by humans, because from a computer programming viewpoint, in order to have the computer learn something new, you have to program it to be able to learn that thing. so the best to AI we will ever have is programming a computer every single thing possible.
 
LakeMountD

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You guys are overlooking so many things. Your not looking beyond present technology. You keep bringing up that the ps3 isnt 1% as powerful as far as computing power is concerned as the brain but the brain can be clocked as far as how fast it as (like clocking a computer using MHz, etc.) . It has nothing to do with memory because the brain evolved as a storage device. And programming is getting to the point now where computers CAN learn on their own.

You guys are also commenting based more on what you want to hear more so than what is more than loikely going to happen.
 

Milo Hobgoblin

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LOL. hilarious.

That stupid playstation isnt even 1/1000 of a percent of the human brain.

Do you guysrealize how much processing power it takes to digitize a single 3D image.. forget comtemplating the image..

Our brains take sight, sound, touch, smell, emotion and coordinate all that to mean something then compare it to something similar so we can make sense of it.

The most complex computers in the world can only perform one of those functions and extrapolate the data.. and still have nothing to do with it.. it has to be interpreted by a human.


Think about looking at a toy red block of wood sitting on the ground.. true intelligence would look at the color, the shape, the size, its location, how it feels and extrapolate all that data.. compare it to previously seen items of a similar nature and conclude its a toy THEN think about why it was left there.. who left it.. what they were building.


Do you all even have a concept of how much computational power that would take.. the amount of storage to process all that data..?

in 50 years "maybe" they'll be close to something that could do the most basic attempt at the above.. but it will be a long time before we see anything resembling real intelligence.
 
CDB

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When people talk about AI it's always one isolated component of intelligence. Maybe computers will be able to match the brain for memory, or processing power and speed. The question is: so what? There are some people with massive brain damage whose brains can do these things, for instance they can catch a ball when it's thrown to them, but who otherwise won't move of their own volition. To create true AI you need to find out what makes people alive, what makes up consciousness. That's a result of a lot of things that computers may never be able to mimick or aquire. Emotions, the desire to live, to have kids, to keep going. The need for friendship and companions in life. Even if a computer were developed that perfectly mimicked every function of the human brain, how would you 'turn it on'? Another thing that's missed is our brains develop, they aren't born instantly. How and why they develop they way they do is as much a part of this question as anything else. The system is too complex to simply try and study one or even two or more aspects of it and get some machine to mimick that. Maybe one day they'll figure it out, but I doubt it'll be 2050.
 

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My personal opinion is that it's less of a hardware problem and more of an "understanding" problem.

We may never be able to create truly thinking machines, but machines that can mimic a wide variety of human actions/responses are probably not that far off. (Bots in games like Q3 and UT2004, and the programs designed for the Turing Test come to mind.)

Maybe I've watched too many sci-fi movies but the thought of truly sentient machines scares the bejeezus out of me.

Check out Bill Joy's thoughts on AI

(Bill Joy co-founded Sun Microsystems)
 
BigCasino

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First, LakemountD I admire your enthusiasm and interest in the article :goodpost:

If you look at where we are today in terms of computing power and technology, compared to 50 years ago the difference is amazing, especially on the consumer level. I am sure that the next 50 years hold some very exciting and revolutionary discoveries in the field of computing, surely ones that will change our everyday lives.

That being said, although it is fun to predict and dream about the future, a lot of these articles being passed around, especially the ones using the PS3 as a reference point, are just speculative horse ****. In fact, to even use the term supercomputer, and PS3 in the same sentence is ludicrious. This is not a knock against the PS3 as an entertainment platform, I have a PS2, Xbox, and PC, and I love them all in their own special way, but to compare them or their upcomming successors in power to a human brain is just crazy. Although computers can be refined to be highly efficent when designed for specific tasks, such as playing a game of chess, sorting a list of items, or performing mathematical operations very quickly, these are all things that are programmed into them by humans. We are a very very very far way off from computers being able to program themselves. In order for them to even be able to do that they would need to be given a state of awareness, which AGAIN would come from us. Our sense of conciousness, understanding, ability to learn, remember, experience, comes from nature or what have you, and theirs would come from us. Truth of the matter is we are still far off from understanding the mechanics of our own minds, and before we can give machines minds of equivalence we are going to have to understand our own fully. Maybe by the time that day rolls around we will have technology capable of doing something with it, but I do not see that day being 50 years from now.
 
LakeMountD

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LOL. hilarious.

That stupid playstation isnt even 1/1000 of a percent of the human brain.

Do you guysrealize how much processing power it takes to digitize a single 3D image.. forget comtemplating the image..

Our brains take sight, sound, touch, smell, emotion and coordinate all that to mean something then compare it to something similar so we can make sense of it.

The most complex computers in the world can only perform one of those functions and extrapolate the data.. and still have nothing to do with it.. it has to be interpreted by a human.


Think about looking at a toy red block of wood sitting on the ground.. true intelligence would look at the color, the shape, the size, its location, how it feels and extrapolate all that data.. compare it to previously seen items of a similar nature and conclude its a toy THEN think about why it was left there.. who left it.. what they were building.


Do you all even have a concept of how much computational power that would take.. the amount of storage to process all that data..?

in 50 years "maybe" they'll be close to something that could do the most basic attempt at the above.. but it will be a long time before we see anything resembling real intelligence.
Well you guys have your own opinion but I think you over estimate peoples intelligence level lol. We as humans have trouble adding numbers let alone processing 15 high definition video streams at once (like the ps3 can do). For instance, in you head try to add up 34,528+32,943 and at the exact same time try and add up 352+2499. It is impossible to add them up a the same time, you would spend at least 5 seconds doing the first one alone. I am not standing up for gaming platforms here but merely trying to show that if a gaming platform, that is not even top of the line technology compared to places like Los Alamos, can have enough processing power to decode those kind of graphics and the damn thing is no bigger than a laptop then think 50 years from now. Lets not forget that computing power expands exponentially according to Moore's law, which has held up for decades now and should hold up for a decade or two more to come.

Although I do believe that true artificial intelligence will be created in our lifetime, I don't believe they can be truly considered alive considering I am a Christian.

Processor-year introduced- number of transistors
4004 1971 2,250
8008 1972 2,500
8080 1974 5,000
8086 1978 29,000
286 1982 120,000
Intel386™ processor 1985 275,000
Intel486™ processor 1989 1,180,000
Intel® Pentium® processor 1993 3,100,000
Intel® Pentium® II processor 1997 7,500,000
Intel® Pentium® III processor 1999 24,000,000
Intel® Pentium® 4 processor 2000 42,000,000
Intel® Itanium® processor 2002 220,000,000
Intel® Itanium® 2 processor 2003 410,000,000
 
Aeternitatis

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Well you guys have your own opinion but I think you over estimate peoples intelligence level lol. We as humans have trouble adding numbers let alone processing 15 high definition video streams at once (like the ps3 can do). For instance, in you head try to add up 34,528+32,943 and at the exact same time try and add up 352+2499. It is impossible to add them up a the same time, you would spend at least 5 seconds doing the first one alone. I am not standing up for gaming platforms here but merely trying to show that if a gaming platform, that is not even top of the line technology compared to places like Los Alamos, can have enough processing power to decode those kind of graphics and the damn thing is no bigger than a laptop then think 50 years from now. Lets not forget that computing power expands exponentially according to Moore's law, which has held up for decades now and should hold up for a decade or two more to come.
But still, you're dealing only with numbers. Humans could compute numbers like that if we were accustomed to it, but life does not require such computations so our brains aren't strong in the particular area. The thing is, much of our thinking is outside of numerical expression. Nearly everything we contemplate is such an abstract notion, very likely a complex mixture of reality and totally illogical imagination. No matter how many mathematical computations a computer can do, it is still only doing mathematical computations. Sure, I think supersmart computers with the capability to hear commands and respond in logical ways will be here soon. Computers that can probably write a perfect book, or compose a perfect symphony. But technical perfection has nothing to do with what is pleasing. AI will never have the gift of sponteneity. More important, it will never feel alone, or week, or useless, unless told to do so. Inner chaos is a big part of what we are as humans. Computers will at best only experience controlled chaos.

As for the totally immersive virtual world, have any of you read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson?
 
LakeMountD

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But still, you're dealing only with numbers. Humans could compute numbers like that if we were accustomed to it, but life does not require such computations so our brains aren't strong in the particular area. The thing is, much of our thinking is outside of numerical expression. Nearly everything we contemplate is such an abstract notion, very likely a complex mixture of reality and totally illogical imagination. No matter how many mathematical computations a computer can do, it is still only doing mathematical computations. Sure, I think supersmart computers with the capability to hear commands and respond in logical ways will be here soon. Computers that can probably write a perfect book, or compose a perfect symphony. But technical perfection has nothing to do with what is pleasing. AI will never have the gift of sponteneity. More important, it will never feel alone, or week, or useless, unless told to do so. Inner chaos is a big part of what we are as humans. Computers will at best only experience controlled chaos.

As for the totally immersive virtual world, have any of you read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson?
Okay finally a more intelligent response ;). Good response there. I agree with you in many aspects of what you say. Since I can't predict how good AI will become in the future I can't really say whether spontaneity will ever be a feature. I think AI depends truly on how one defines it. It will never have a soul persay, in my opinion anyways but I do see it getting powerful enough to have emotion. And the way I see it going is although it is governed by code, is that it will be able to write its own code and once it is able to do that it is no different from our brain in that it interprets data and does what it wishes with it. Our brain is a computer in itself.

The next few decades should be exciting :). :cheers:
 
Aeternitatis

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Okay finally a more intelligent response ;). Good response there. I agree with you in many aspects of what you say. Since I can't predict how good AI will become in the future I can't really say whether spontaneity will ever be a feature. I think AI depends truly on how one defines it. It will never have a soul persay, in my opinion anyways but I do see it getting powerful enough to have emotion. And the way I see it going is although it is governed by code, is that it will be able to write its own code and once it is able to do that it is no different from our brain in that it interprets data and does what it wishes with it. Our brain is a computer in itself.

The next few decades should be exciting :). :cheers:
Okay, but I definitely do not see that happening in non-organic computers. I could see computational expressions for emotions but they will definitely be a bit "stiff" at first. Things like preprogrammed reactions to particular events. You know: cat dies=sadness=hanging your hang, being listless, etc. But I think the biggest problem in being able to get a true AI is in designing a thinking unit that can be truly random. Randomness is inherently in-programmable it would seem. And God forbid computers learn or be designed with some form of desire.

You know, all this talk about what AI means has got me thinking about humans. Many of us are more robotic than we realize. Much of what people do and say is "preprogrammed". However, even in that predictability, there is the chance for chaos.

BTW, I didn't think my response was all too smart but thanks anyways.
 

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somewhat off-topic: Do we really have the energy to power all these computers which are exponentially increasing in computing power, and presumably energy usage?

I think cost may make this completely a non-issue for the majority of the world.
 
BigCasino

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But still, you're dealing only with numbers. Humans could compute numbers like that if we were accustomed to it, but life does not require such computations so our brains aren't strong in the particular area. The thing is, much of our thinking is outside of numerical expression.
Bingo. See you cannot compare a human's usage with numbers to a computers usage of numbers because they do not even see them as the same object. Numbers and boolean statements (values that evaluate to either true or false) are the most primitive forms of a computer's language. Although we have given computers our idea of numbers, it is not the same for the computer as it is for us. Our notion of numbers includes ALL of our experiences with them, from the time we first learn to count, to doing our taxes, to counting how many scoops of protein powder we have left before we should hit up allthewhey.com and order more. When we deal with numbers and mathematical computations it would seem that we are less efficent than computers, but the truth is we are dealing with numbers as a far greater concept than computers have of them, one entrenched in personal experience, emotion, etc.

When we finally do have a computer that becomes aware, and can learn like a human, lets assume that we do not give its mind knowledge of numbers. Then teach it numbers but do NOT let it cheat by using some man mad algorithms to deal with them, let it add and subract and divide, I think you will be very suprised that without explicit instructions given to them by humans, it will take this computer a lot more computing power to do the same mathematical operations they can do today instantaneously, but that is because they will be thinking about numbers and difining through conciousness.
 

coofoostu

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somewhat off-topic: Do we really have the energy to power all these computers which are exponentially increasing in computing power, and presumably energy usage?

I think cost may make this completely a non-issue for the majority of the world.
Actually the fact that the chips have been getting smaller has reduced power consumption to an extent.
 

coofoostu

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Bingo. See you cannot compare a human's usage with numbers to a computers usage of numbers because they do not even see them as the same object. Numbers and boolean statements (values that evaluate to either true or false) are the most primitive forms of a computer's language. Although we have given computers our idea of numbers, it is not the same for the computer as it is for us. Our notion of numbers includes ALL of our experiences with them, from the time we first learn to count, to doing our taxes, to counting how many scoops of protein powder we have left before we should hit up allthewhey.com and order more. When we deal with numbers and mathematical computations it would seem that we are less efficent than computers, but the truth is we are dealing with numbers as a far greater concept than computers have of them, one entrenched in personal experience, emotion, etc.

When we finally do have a computer that becomes aware, and can learn like a human, lets assume that we do not give its mind knowledge of numbers. Then teach it numbers but do NOT let it cheat by using some man mad algorithms to deal with them, let it add and subract and divide, I think you will be very suprised that without explicit instructions given to them by humans, it will take this computer a lot more computing power to do the same mathematical operations they can do today instantaneously, but that is because they will be thinking about numbers and difining through conciousness.
Yes this is sort of what I was trying to say. In other words, all non organic computers are based on logic. For example, if you wanted to program a robot to play basketball, you would basically give it thousands of if then commands. Like if the defensive player jumps, then dribble to the right (or left) and shoot a lay-up. It may appear like the robot has "artifical intelegence" but in reality evey response possible was basically thought out of and written by a human first. And take that robot to the swimming pool and it will have no clue what is going on. This is just a simplified example but I think it says what im trying to say.
 
LakeMountD

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You know, all this talk about what AI means has got me thinking about humans. Many of us are more robotic than we realize. Much of what people do and say is "preprogrammed". However, even in that predictability, there is the chance for chaos.

BTW, I didn't think my response was all too smart but thanks anyways.
This is the point I was trying to get across.

As for true randomness, it has been acheived. That isn't really that hard at all. HOWEVER, that being said, the randomness is created by using heat entropy as one variable (oscillating at one frequency) and then having another variable such as ones mouse movements as a second variable (oscillating at another frequency). After a given time period, lets say one millisecond, it measures where both variables meet each other as far as troughs and peaks and gives you truly random results, and since heat entropy is truly random on its own it works. Online poker rooms use this chip created by Intel to shuffle their cards and give truly random shuffles. I don't believe that this type of randomness would account for spontaneity persay but I mean I don't think randomness is the biggest problem.

And I also agree with what you say about stiff personalities at first, but as the AI learns more I believe it will continue to grow intelligently and emotionally as a human would.
 

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