Two novels come to mind immediately. First, “Against the Fall of Night” by Arthur C. Clarke (later re-released as “The City and the Stars”) introduced us to the “master associators”. These intelligent machines contained the sum total knowlege of everything that had taken place in the city of Diaspar for eons. There was only one catch. Even though the master associators were highly intelligent, you still had to know how to ask the right questions. A second novel comes to mind as a defining point for Arti. Isaac Asimov’s “I Robot” first appeared in the mid-50’s. This novel set the stage for the societal implications of artificial intelligence. The “Three Laws of Robotics” have become a mainstay of our thoughts on Arti.

My first remembrance of Arti as a friend and companion came in “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress” by Robert Heinlein. ‘Mike’, the artificial intelligence who woke up when his network got inter-connected enough, was a friend, companion, and conspirator that anyone would envy. Without him, the corrupt Lunar Government would not have been overthrown with as minimal a loss of life as possible. On the other hand, the published version of “2001: A Space Odyssey” by Arthur C. Clarke cements the thought that Arti will have the capacity for good AND evil.

When you look at today’s technical papers and scientific research on Arti, you can easily see the influences fictional works have had on artificial intelligence. We have provided a short list here of some of the best fiction on the subject, but only up to the late 1960’s. In subsequent articles, we hope to show how fictional Arti is deeply engrained in the real thing as scientists continue to inch closer to true artificial intelligence.

After 1833, Charles Babbage started concentrating on his follow-up concept to the Difference Engine. The “Analytical Engine” would be a full-blown programmable machine with memory (the “store”) and a processing unit (the “mill”). The Analytical Engine would use punched cards for storage, input, and output. The technical papers on the Analytical Engine and its potential programmed use read like the manuals of computers from a hundred years later. The biggest problem facing the building and completion of the Analytical Engine was the state of metal parts manufacturing and precision during the mid-1800’s. Of course, obtaining the finances was a major hurdle to overcome as well. But, if Babbage had been able to produce more of his Difference Engine economically and rapidly, then we would have had the computer revolution a hundred years earlier.

For you conspiracists, we postulate that there were those who knew and followed Babbage’s trail as the materials science and parts manufacturing capabilties increased during the 1800’s. Perhaps some succeeded in developing the steam-powered Analytical Engine almost a century before modern day computers. Imagine if you had that kind of computing power before the turn of the 20-th century. How eager would you be to reveal what was behind your success in business or science? Does the Babbage Society really exist and what have these well-hidden members accomplished in over a hundred years? Maybe Arti was born in the mid-1800’s and has been our silent partner for a long time? We can’t answer these questions, but the thought that any of this might have happened is compelling. For fun and potential enlightenment, we suggest you check out the following speculative books and stories:

“The Difference Engine” by William Gibson and Bruce Stirling. This is a period novel with much interesting commentary about the Babbage ideas and potential consequences.

“In the Country of the Blind” by Michael Flynn. This is a current times sci-fi novel with its roots firmly set in the Babbage continuum. It’s extrapolation of the Babbage memes is great. Don’t miss this one!

“Georgia On My Mind” by Charles Sheffield. This Hugo Award novelette is just plain fun. Babbage enthusiasts should find everything they need here to follow the Babbage trail from the past to the future.

Does this image bother you in any way? Probably not. Maybe it should. Of course it’s just a cartoon version of the robot from “Lost In Space” and any claim to real intelligence died when the writers and the TV series was cancelled. On the other hand, this robot is a modified version of an earlier model, ‘Robby the Robot’ from the classic sci-fi flick “Forbidden Planet”. Robby was much more human. Witty, concerned, moralistic, highly cogent, friendly, loyal and quite a bit more was our acquaintance with Robby.

Before Robby was the powerful, but not as well-rounded, Gort from “The Day the Earth Stood Still”. “Klaatu barada nicto” to you too. Gort and Robby serve as two shining examples of the ‘Arti’ phenomena. Arti (artificial intelligence) deserves your undivided attention much more than the UFO flappers or the ‘conspiracy’ theorists.

Arti

Arti does exist. Maybe not to everyone’s satisfaction, but ask professional chess-players about the latest implementations of ‘chess playing’ software/computers and you might hear a different story. Of course these chess systems still aren’t great conversationalist’s while they are in a match, that is, until someone decides that ‘insult’ and ‘taunting’ artificial verbal behavior may be an important overall strategy when Arti’s are playing humans in chess matches.

The famous ‘Turing’ test fails entirely when there is no intelligence on either end of the conversation. Joking aside, we have all been caught up in voice-mail hell. But the truth of the matter is that we have seen voice-mail systems that have been properly ‘trained’ and they function marvelously, responding well to spoken requests and input. In many instances, the voice-mail ‘trainer’ (i.e. programmer) is at fault. This situation in no different than with human voice operators. Lily Tomlin’s famous ‘Ernestine’ is an example of a less than properly trained and supervised ‘operator’. The point is that the ‘artificial intelligence’ in voice-mail operators can be quite good. So good that, in a properly designed and configured system, most people don’t give a second thought to whether the voice-mail operator is human or artificial. Their basic desires and needs are met by the voice-mail system in a very human like manner. This gets us closer to passing the ‘Turing’ test.

We hope to provide a forum for both scientific and research oriented individuals, as well as, people with a desire to share their experiences and hopes for the future of artificial intelligence. We look forward to the time when an ‘artificial’ mind requests and receives an account to post on this weblog. We have no doubt that his/her/its first post here will be about how discriminating and bigoted meat-space minds can truly be. No doubt, shortly after that, will be the war of the intellects. We hope it doesn’t come to that…..