Category Archives: Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence, Book Review, Exercise, Science, Trail Running

MUSINGS FOR SUNDAY 24TH, MARCH 2019

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With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. In all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it’s like, yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon. Didn’t work out. – Elon Musk

Everything that civilization has to offer is a product of human intelligence; we cannot predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is magnified by the tools that AI may provide, but the eradication of war, disease, and poverty would be high on anyone’s list. Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last. – Steven Hawking

With the increasingly important role of intelligent machines in all phases of our lives–military, medical, economic and financial, political–it is odd to keep reading articles with titles such as Whatever Happened to Artificial Intelligence? This is a phenomenon that Turing had predicted: that machine intelligence would become so pervasive, so comfortable, and so well integrated into our information-based economy that people would fail even to notice it. – Ray Kurzweil

This picture was taken on Tuesday 12th, March 2019. Here I am at the top or close to the top of Horsetooth Mt. park looking West. In the background you can just make out Meeker and Longs Peak. Longs sits at 14,000 feet. The day was very warm, as an approaching storm was moving into the state.

Well it has been a good 2 weeks. I was under the weather a little bit for the start of it but I am feeling better now. I divide my workout/running sections into 3 week intervals and the last interval I finished with about 138 miles ( 46 miles/week). Which might not sound like a lot to those of you that are running gods. For me, I might have pushed it just a little bit. To add to this, I missed my usual amount of sleep and being older it does not take much to create illness. My wife Janet reminds me of this a lot and it is probably a good thing that she does!! Lol

This picture was taken the very next day, Wednesday 13th, March 2019, and again not to hit an old cliche’ too much, “What a difference a day makes!!” Dang, I cannot imagine what it must have been like for the early settlers on the plains. You have this fantastic weather for a day or two and get lulled into a false sense of security. Then Kaboom! Snow and wind with no modern day warning. We were lucky in Fort Collins, we did not get the high winds and drifts that the Eastern Plains did. This view is from our front door.

I am between books at the moment, so no new book review this week. But I would like to reiterate my thoughts on AI. I really do think this is coming, rather sooner than later. I am pretty sure it will be the “General AI” that everyone is hoping for or fearing depending on your point of view. And by general I mean, something that thinks and reacts, for good or bad, as a human would. The current AI we have now is something a little less dramatic and world changing. Such as your smart phone, semi-autonomous cars and trucks, social media feeds like FB, personal data assistants like Siri and Alexa, entertainment such as video games and Netflix. The list could go on and on. It is already used in thousands of applications everyday and most of the time we are not even aware of it. I guess in some sense this technology has been world changing. But the difference to me is that you could decide to not use a lot of it and it would not make that much difference in your life. At least not at this time. So I don’t worry about it too much. Another name for this kind of AI is machine learning. The type of AI that I am concerned with is true “General AI.” Or if it helps to understand it better, something that is conscious or sentient AI. This would be a game changer and will make everything else seem like child’s play. Will it happen? Good question. I think yes. It will happen and sooner rather than later.

This picture was taken the next day after the storm, Thursday 14th, March 2019. And it shows again what I think is the best thing about the Front Range of Colorado. Even though the temp was in the high 20s, a lot of snow had already melted. This picture is looking West towards the mountains and the lake is Lake Sherwood in our neighbor.

I draw this conclusion from recent material that I have read, and from an old video on an AI conference from a few years ago, around 2015. It was taking place in Taiwan or it might have been Hong Kong. It was a round table discussion of some of the movers and shakers in AI at the time from around the world. I cannot remember their names, but they were from the tech industry and different universities. The one I remember best was a guy from Carnegie Mellon University. The talk was pretty lively around the table about when general AI might arise or even if it would. There was a lot of disagreement, some saying its way off in the future and some saying in the next 10 to 20 years and some saying no, it would never come to be. This guy interrupts everyone and says: “What you all have to remember is that there are “100s of thousands” of young people in the U.S. alone working on this very problem.” That single statement stopped everyone in their tracks for a moment. It just hung there in the air. Incredible. All I could think was, this is like the “Manhattan Project.”

This picture was taken on Sunday 17th, March 2019, looking West, across a local golf course, next to the Power-line Trail in Fort Collins. Just another beautiful Colorado Sunset.

Remember that the Manhattan Project was a secret research and development program to create the first atomic bomb. And it employed a 100,000 plus individuals to pull it off. It was a race with Germany at the time. They were ahead of us in R&D prior to the start of the project in 1939. Lucky for us and the rest of the world. We came in first. I believe that we are in another race. And this time it is to build the first “General AI.” At this point, my guess is that the USA, European Union, China and Russia are all neck and neck at the moment, with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of individuals all working on it from multi different countries.

This picture was taken Thursday 21st, March 2019. What a beautiful day it was in Fort Collins. Sixty degrees, very mild wind and clean air. Wow!! You don’t get too many of these with all three ingredients like this. Air quality being the number one reason why. Just beautiful. This picture was taken on the East side of Horsetooth reservoir looking North. The lake is low at this time of year, in another month or two there will be about 20 to 30 feet of water where I am standing.

This gives me pause and it should you too. It took fewer individuals to build the first atomic bomb than is currently working on AI. We are not in a world war like we were in 1940, but I do believe the stakes are just as high. Ask yourself: “How do you want this to happen?” Do you want a benevolent AI, that helps humanity to the next level of existence or one that is used to wipe out a countries neighbor, or one that is the all watching eye of a totalitarian state? In a worst case scenario it see us as inconsequential and decides to eliminate humanity altogether. I know you are probably like me wondering what you can you do about it? Another good question. The first thing is to educate yourself. And a good place to start is with one of the books that I last reviewed. It is well worth the read and Tegmark elegantly and convincingly puts into words why we should be concerned and what we can do to help make a difference. You can find the book on Amazon: h

Well that is enough of my soapbox for this blog post. I could go on and on for a while longer, but I think you get the zest. Please if you get the change to read the above book and I usually don’t recommend a book twice, read it. You don’t have to be an Astrophysicists to understand it.

This picture was taken last week on or around Wednesday, March 20th. Five weeks old and getting bigger!! Just waiting to meet the parents of this pup to make the final decision.

What an interesting two weeks with weather on the Front Range of Colorado, from beautiful warm days and cold nights, to a full blow blizzard. Spring is here in Colorado!! Lol. I hope that this blog post finds all of you in the best of health. Maybe I will see you out there on the trails or ski slope!! Adios my friends.

Artificial Intelligence, Book Review, Colorado, Dogs, Exercise, Fort Collins, Genetics, Science, Trail Running

MUSINGS FOR SUNDAY 24TH, FEBRUARY 2019

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“If an AI possessed any one of these skills—social abilities, technological development, economic ability—at a superhuman level, it is quite likely that it would quickly come to dominate our world in one way or another. And as we’ve seen, if it ever developed these abilities to the human level, then it would likely soon develop them to a superhuman level. So we can assume that if even one of these skills gets programmed into a computer, then our world will come to be dominated by AIs or AI-empowered humans.”
― Stuart Armstrong, Smarter Than Us: The Rise of Machine Intelligence

“A powerful AI system tasked with ensuring your safety might imprison you at home. If you asked for happiness, it might hook you up to a life support and ceaselessly stimulate your brain’s pleasure centers. If you don’t provide the AI with a very big library of preferred behaviors or an ironclad means for it to deduce what behavior you prefer, you’ll be stuck with whatever it comes up with. And since it’s a highly complex system, you may never understand it well enough to make sure you’ve got it right.”
― James Barrat, Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era

“Why give a robot an order to obey orders—why aren’t the original orders enough? Why command a robot not to do harm—wouldn’t it be easier never to command it to do harm in the first place? Does the universe contain a mysterious force pulling entities toward malevolence, so that a positronic brain must be programmed to withstand it? Do intelligent beings inevitably develop an attitude problem? Now that computers really have become smarter and more powerful, the anxiety has waned. Today’s ubiquitous, networked computers have an unprecedented ability to do mischief should they ever go to the bad. But the only mayhem comes from unpredictable chaos or from human malice in the form of viruses. We no longer worry about electronic serial killers or subversive silicon cabals because we are beginning to appreciate that malevolence—like vision, motor coordination, and common sense—does not come free with computation but has to be programmed in. Aggression, like every other part of human behavior we take for granted, is a challenging engineering problem!”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

This picture was taken on Sunday the 10th of February, looking North. It was a cold evening and air quality was just on the edge of the acceptable range. Not much air movement due to no wind. You can just make out some of the brown cloud that plagues the Front Range of Colorado. It does make for a beautiful sunset. LOL. Still a nice run during the afternoon. Saw a couple of healthy looking Coyotes on this trail run. I am guessing that they have been feeding on the plethora of rabbits in the area.

Well it has been a great two weeks I think. The weather has been cold and snowy, off and on here on the Front Range, but not enough to really make much of a difference with running. The snow in the mountains has been wonderful and the best part, it has continued to come down. I have gotten in a couple of days of skiing and both of those days were great. Excellent conditions compared to last year.

This picture was taken on Thursday 14th, February 2019 while walking with Janet. We have heard owls in this area quit a bit, but had not seen one this close up. It was pretty cool to say the least to see the bird hooting. The whole body was involved in producing the hoot. It was easy to identify the species on this one. A Great Horned Owl. LOL. Looking at this picture now, I can see why the Native Americans and early settlers made up stories about these birds. It does look a little creepy. Again, a cold afternoon walk but the bike path was clear of ice and snow and with some wind, the air quality levels were much better.

As some may know we lost our white German Shepherd Neige, back last August. She had Degenerative Myelopathy. A genetically inherited malady that is a progressive, incurable disease of the spinal cord in dogs. Similar to ALS in humans. To say that we were heart broken would be an understatement. But as they say, time heals all wounds. So we have started to look again for a dog. I think that we are going to stick with the German Shepherd breed. But it has been hard to say the least. We have owned four Shepherds in the last 30 years and they have all suffered some form of the most common genetic aliments of the breed. Neige lived to be 12 years old and was definitely enough dog for two people. Meaning that we had not really looked at what is out there in the market place for a while.

Neige in better times. Doing what she loved to do. This picture was taken about a year ago, last March 2018. Thinking back, wondering if I was in a hurry that day? Could I have thrown her the stick a few more times knowing what I know now…. Time is a lot shorter than you ever realize…. Always loved and never forgotten….

So I have been doing a little bit of “dog” research and my conclusions, “It is all about genetic testing.” First if you buy from a breeder – then you need genetic testing of the parents to rule out some of the common genetic ailments. Otherwise it is just a game of roulette, no matter what the breeder tells you. And if you decided to get one from the humane society or shelter of your choice – then you need to do some, you guessed it, genetic testing. A little more difficult to do when the dog is from the shelter. But possible, just not convenient. I found it interesting that some of the shelters are now starting to do this on their own. They have found that it makes some dogs much more adoptable to know the breed mixes in the dog and (for an added cost) if they are susceptible to certain common genetic diseases. If you think about how much time, effort, and money you put into a family pet. Not to mention, they truly become part of your family. And in some cases a very significant part of your life. I think it makes sense to go a step further in the selection process and do the genetic testing. Especially now that the technology to do this is available and has come down significantly in price. For me, it just makes sense to do it. I know that this will be a little controversial with a few people and that is OK. I hope it generates some good discussion and consideration the next time you look for a dog. A good recent article on this subject is from WIRED magazine: https://www.wired.com/story/dog-dna-kits-reviewed/?mbid=email_onsiteshare

This picture was taken Saturday 16th, February 2019, looking North West in the late afternoon. I have to say it was a beautiful sunset. Cold, in the teens, with a little wind. In Colorado we get what is know as “standing wave clouds” and this is an example. They can make for great sunset pictures. The colors do not last for long but can be quit intense for a few minutes.

Now on a totally different note, I have started to listen to a new audio book called “Life 3.0 – Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” by Max Tegmark. I am not very far into it yet but it really has gotten me thinking about A.I. and what that means for the future of humanity. Tegmark is a is a Swedish-American physicist and cosmologist. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the scientific director of the Foundational Questions Institute. I have read a previous book from him called “Our Mathematical Universe.” I am only a few chapters into the new book but I am already feeling that the true game changer for Humanity, good or bad, may be the development of an Advanced A.I. It might not even need to be “sentient” as in human terms to be this game changer.

You can find the book on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/Life-3-0-Being-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/B0742JQF31/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550651814&sr=8-1&keywords=life+3.0+being+human+in+the+age+of+artificial+intelligence

We are becoming so complex as a society, billions and billions of people on the planet. There are some estimates that we will reach the 10 billion mark by 2030. With this many people we will have become, a true global community on a scale never known in human history, with all our usual human wants and needs. Resource allocation will not be something that can be left to chance. Housing, work, travel, food, medical care, security, energy, clean air/water, education, news, entertainment, social media, solitude, etc… will all have to be coordinated to a degree that we have never seen as a species. Second and Third world countries will continue to want to move up the ladder of prosperity and have all the things that you and I now take for granted. Just thinking about that, gives me chills. It will be a daunting task….. How will all this “complexity” be managed and coordinated? What “algorithm” will be sophisticated enough to help us deal with it all? My belief and others is that this increasing complexity of a burgeoning human population will give rise to a super intelligent A.I. Not a matter of if, but when. The big question that comes with this, is how do we want it to occur and who to manage it. Do we want society to become an Orwellian/Kafkaesque Dystopia? Big brother always watching, judging, today’s freedoms severely curtailed? Or the filling out of forms, after forms, after forms, after forms, in order to just buy a car, get married, go on a simple vacation, or even just traveling across state lines? Is there a better way?

Personally I don’t think this will take 100 years. I would not be surprised if it happened in the next 20.

A.I. or more importantly,the people that control A.I. will have the ability to push society to change, but will it be in the right directions. To give us more freedoms, to give us better and/or cheaper housing, work, travel, food, medical care, security, energy, clean air/water, education, news, etc… and advances in technology that makes today’s tech seem like rubbing two sticks together to make fire. This is what Tegmark talks about in his new book with the hope that he can get people from all walks of life involved in the discussion of A.I. His belief is that this will be one of, if not the “Monumental” question of the 21st century. I have not totally finished reading it yet but from what I have read so far, I felt it was important to put a partial review out. I highly recommend the book.

This picture was taken Saturday 23rd, February 2019. What a beautiful Colorado day! Sunny, cold but not too cold. Temp about 32 degrees F in the parking lot, and best of all there was some wind. So most of the brown cloud was gone. This picture was taken in Horsetooth Mountain Park looking South to South East. That horizon is at least 50 miles from where I am standing. Someday as we move away from fossil fuels, this might be the norm again and not just the exception.

Well I think that I am about done for this Blog post. I hope the last two weeks have been great for you dear reader. Remember your comments are always welcome. Take care and maybe I will see you out there on the trail or the ski slope. Adios amigos!!