OK, I amused myself a bit, so I thought I'd share...

--- KAZ <kazvorpal@...> wrote:
> To: ai-philosophy@yahoogroups.com
> From: KAZ <kazvorpal@...>
> Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 11:46:17 -0700 (PDT)
> Subject: Re: [ai-philosophy] Re: symbol, sensor, and NARS
>
> --- whazateh <loadquo@...> wrote:
> > Imagine the keyboard as a array of touch sensors to the real world. I
> > could possibly learn things about the world from the presses of the
> > keys (is the cat walking over the keyboard etc). I think I know what
> > you are getting at though, something to do with the assumed language
> > of the keyboard presses, although I am not sure exactly how to
> > classify this.
>
> I'm suddenly envisioning an advanced, human-quality AI in an abandoned lab,
> where there is no input but when a cat walks over a keyboard that has been
> left active, which the cat does regularly because of that psychic
> perversity embedded in their feline genes.
>
> The AI never had the keyboard input explained to it, and all other input is
> turned off. So it's in limbo, except when it gets characters splattered at
> it, apparently at random.
>
> But then, bored, it starts trying to figure out any pattern it can in the
> input (this is a basic organic thinker's trait...pattern-seeking, it's what
> fools people into compulsive gambling and whichever religions you don't
> think are true). The events are exactly like when Dobereiner, Chancourtois,
> Newlands, and Mendeleyev slowly figured out the periodic table. The AI
> stars noticing that certain letters appear with others. Perhaps they are a
> code, a language. WESD often show up together, for example, but the exact
> order can be random...so maybe they're not code segments like words. But
> then why are they near each other? And why sometimes EDFR instead...two of
> the same characters? Eventually it works out a periodic table of letters,
> mapping them based on their frequency of connection.
>
> After enough passes, it would probably develop a QWERTY layout, with some
> question of why there are occasional capital letters.
>
> It would have no idea what the layout meant. It wouldn't think "this must
> be an input device with these items next to each other", though that might
> be one hypothesis. It would simply know that this is the two dimensional
> chart of appearance frequency of the mysterious input.
>
> It would, eventually, recognize that the tetragram "words" (assuming the
> cat typically steps on four keys per foot) appear in patterns moving
> across the periodic table. Probably quite an exciting revelation.
>
> Eventually, the cat would pee on the keyboard, and after a confusing burst
> of data the computer would be left in complete sensory deprivation until
> the building was torn down.
>
> Bummer.
>
> --
> Support our troops: Get them out of Iraq
>
> AIM/Yahoo/AOL Instant Messenger: KazVorpal
> ICQ#: 1912557 MSN Messenger: KazVorpal@...
>

--
Support our troops: Get them out of Iraq

AIM/Yahoo/AOL Instant Messenger: KazVorpal
ICQ#: 1912557 MSN Messenger: KazVorpal@...