Current mood:

relaxed

crrrrr-azy!
On my flight to Denver, I had an interesting conversation with a guy who was probably about 50. I'll relay it here, in approximate form, with no exaggeration on content:


HIM: hi, are you vising for the holidays?
ME: Yeah, visiting my parents in Fort COllins.
HIM: Are you a student? what are you studying?
ME: Robotics
HIM: robotics! that's a good field.
ME: I hope so! Maybe like computers in the 70's, but probably without the explosive growth.
HIM: well, that's because these days, operatings systems are completely out of date.
ME: yeah, still based on the 2D desktop analogy. but I think a lot of groups are working in new ideas, so things might change
HIM: I don't think so. I started a company, but the CIA shut me down because it would change the industry too much.
ME: Really? The CIA?
HIM: Yup. you see, the problem with operating systems these days is that they're based on C code, which relies on 2-pass compilers. We designed a whole new computer chip and used AUI as a universal language to communicate with the computer. Because it can be compiled in a single pass, we improve the efficiency of the code by 10,000 times!!!
ME: So, if this is true, why does everyone still use C-code?
HIM: Because the CIA shuts them down! you think the CIA works for the government, but they don't. they work for big business. They go into foreign countries and smooth things out so big businesses can operate there. Our idea would have changed everything, because with only a few hundred lines of code, our system had real intelligence! It could make semantic decisions based on a value system, just like humans. years ahead of anything Microsoft has done. I starting this company with a mathematician from Berkeley and one from Princeton, but when we were about halfway done, the CIA came in and shut us down because we would put all the big software companies out of business, and it would have disrupted the world as we know it.
ME: (trying to keep a straight face, and also trying to make eye contact) I see...

ok, so after talking for a while, I figured out that "value system" means "lookup table of rules" and "semantic choices" means "given three choices, choose the one that give the highest reward after trying all three of them." and the reward is based on the value system. But it was a long conversation, going back and forth between me saying "computers run on math. They don't make subjective decisions, moral choices, or use high-level concepts," and him saying "Our robot was making subjective decisions, moral choices, and basing these choices on high-level, human-centric concepts." oh, and "Then the CIA shut us down because we were going to change everything!"

It was much better than staring at the back of my plane seat.