AI and Artificial Life forms

[MightyB]

Sex Bots will lead to the decline of civilization!

We'd no longer have to put up with women.

[Lucas]

who says thats a decline!

we can grow babies in a tube and then the wimminz wont talk back!

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

yeah but who would i clean up after then?

****in slobs. equal rights my ass. i wish it were the 50s.

[golden arhat]

Probably not considered life forms because they don't have a soul or aren't conscious.

according to buddhism, there is no soul.

and consciousness in artificial intelligence is a possibility in the future

[MightyB]

according to buddhism, there is no soul.

and consciousness in artificial intelligence is a possibility in the future

Well- it get's tricky because of the Karmic cycles / Reincarnation thing with that ultimate goal of personal Buddha-hood for your being that buddhism's so keen on promoting. You know... mystic recycling---

Where would the AI's "being" come from? Is it a reincarnated spirit? Is it something we created-- can it reach Nirvana?

[SimonM]

Probably not considered life forms because they don't have a soul or aren't conscious.

What's a soul?

All parts of what we identify as "self" are subject to change. Every bit of what makes "me" what "I" am will have been replaced at least once between the moment of "my" birth and the time of "my" death. The experiences "I" experience are subject to change. The image that "my" ego creates of what "I" am transforms with each day. In all this change where is the soul?

When one questions the fundamental nature of consciousness and when one questions what, in fact, constitutes a soul in a universe where the only true constant is change it is easy enough to accept that artaficial beings are still beings. As beings they are bound in samsara and experience suffering. Thus a buddha would seek to also liberate AIs from suffering. Now there is an interesting thought puzzle...

That's one way to look at it.

Another is as a variation of the old koan about dogs having a buddha nature. The answer to which is a non-dualistic yes/no that is, in principle an argument that separating "dog" from "me" within the context of buddha nature is rather unimportant as that buddha nature is a universal aspect of reality.

As for reincarnation and karma: most of that was hindu ideas that snuck back into buddhism after the pirinirvana of gautama. The european tendency to indescriminately mix Buddhism and Hinduism during the 19th and 20th centuries and the tendency of western media to concentrate on Tibetan Buddhism (one of the most divergent branches of Buddhism) has led many to assume they are major fascets of the dharma.

Pure land buddhists believe that if one recites the name of Amitofo (Amitabha / Amida Buddha) in faith at least once they will experience a heavenly after-life that fast-tracks to pirinirvana. Other buddhists (particularly Theravadans) tend to question the idea of reincarnation at all. And karma... Karma suggests a universe with some sort of unchanging natural law - something that Buddhism should actually reject since one of the core tenents of the dharma is the impermanence of everything.

[SimonM]

nevermind all that. At what time during its assembly is it considered alive?
If you decide not to complete its assembly, you are aborting the project.
Abortion is murder!
I don't know if any of you have seen these projects while they are in their embryonic state, but they already have little gears and servos, and fully formed circuits.
When they abort these projects, they don't just dismantle them, they tear their chassis apart. They litterally tear those little chassis apart, and then they disgard them and simply throw them in the bin. Just a pile of wire and semiconductors to them.
And these technicians, these monsters, will do this up untill the project is nearly completed, worse still, i have heard that if a project does not meet their standards, they are destroyed even then!
Where do you draw the line? These technicians need to be stopped.
I for one, plan on getting a bunch of good christians together and getting some signs with graphic pictures of these partial projects, and parading up and down the street, right in front of the factories where they do this abomination.

zomg!!!! Rotfl!!!!

[golden arhat]

i see reincarnation as a different expression of nature, so when i die and become mush and dust and ash and all that cr@p i am expressed as carrots trees food for other people etc hence my essence is recycled about the univers and my energy lives on

i think the accepted view is that its similar to a candle burning all the way down and just before it burns out lighting another candle.

[SimonM]

I like to consider rebirth using the continual death and rebirth of cause-and-effect model. As the changing ego progresses through time it is constantly dying and being reborn, regardless of the physical state of the impermanent body within the greater sequence of cause and effect. When "I" die "I" don't become the carrot but only because, in retrospect, there is no cohesive "I".

Likewise what is perieved as a candle flame is not one flame but is rather a succession of effects steming from the process of burning wick and wax. When a new wick and new wax is lit from this process there remains a cause and effect relationship but it is not one flame, it never was.

[uki]

we are all the manifestation of light; everything around us consists of variations of the vibrational frequencies of light... think interplay of yin and yang... understanding this allows us to percieve the concept of enlightenment with a greater sense of clairity... reincarnation is the singular expression of one beam of light as it transverses the continum of space/time.

[GeneChing]

After a decade of dormancy, we're overdue to ttt this OT: AI and Artificial Life forms thread. I'll copy it to snakes too, just because I can't quite wrap my coils around it.

Snake joke slithers into New York Times story
3 hours ago


GETTY IMAGES

The New York Times has corrected an article that mistakenly referred to the "Great Recession" as "the time of shedding and cold rocks".

One of its editors had installed software that adds references to snakes to websites.

The substitution was missed and published online, but did not appear in the print edition of the newspaper.

The newspaper blamed an "editing error involving a satirical text-swapping web browser extension".

The Millennials to Snake People add-on for Google's Chrome browser was created by coder Eric Bailey, who had noticed a surge in news stories blaming so-called millennials for the world's problems.

He decided changing the term "millennials" to "snake people" in news articles and on websites, and making other snake references, would be funny.

View image on Twitter

Justin Bank
✔
@bankonjustin
I'm horrified to be the guilty editor here. But thankfully @YLindaQiu's excellent work stands so far above it.

Also, I have now deleted the excellent Millenial-Snake Person Chrome extension. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/u...radefacts.html …
9:14 AM - Mar 7, 2018
481
202 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Report
End of Twitter post by @bankonjustin

The New York Times correction offered readers a "pro tip" to avoid mistakes, advising: "Disable your Millennials to Snake People extension when copying and pasting."

The mistake appeared in an article fact-checking President Donald Trump's claims on trade deficits.

In 2016, Wired magazine made a similar mistake and published an article in which Donald Trump's name was replaced with "someone with tiny hands".

The error made it past the magazine's production team, who had assumed it was an intentional joke.

I want a satirical text-swapping web browser extension for Kung Fu Tai Chi...only I don't know what it would say.

[Vash]

I want a satirical text-swapping web browser extension for Kung Fu Tai Chi...only I don't know what it would say.

Possibly the swapping of "real" with "Nacho Ninjettes?"

[GeneChing]

[GeneChing]

...or a terrifying reality.

A giant indoor farm in China is breeding 6 billion cockroaches a year. Here's why
The Post turns a spotlight on the ‘disgusting’ insect with apparently remarkable medicinal qualities at the world’s largest breeding facility, where the bugs outnumber the planet’s human population
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 19 April, 2018, 9:02am
UPDATED : Thursday, 19 April, 2018, 11:42pm
Stephen Chen
https://www.facebook.com/Stephen.Chen.SCMP


This photo provided by PolyPEDAL Lab UC Berkeley, shows the compressible robot, CRAM with a real cockroach. When buildings collapse in future disasters, the hero helping rescue trapped people may be a cheap robotic roach. Repulsive as they seem, cockroaches have the unusual ability to squish their bodies down to one quarter their normal size, yet still scamper at lightning speed. Add to that, the common roach can withstand 900 times its own body weight without being hurt. That’s the equivalent to a 200-pound man who wouldn’t be crushed 90 tons on his head. (PolyPEDAL Lab UC Berkeley/Tom Libby, Kaushik Jayaram and Pauline Jennings via AP)

Long, narrowly spaced rows of shelves fill a multi-storey building about the size of two sports fields. The shelves are lined with open containers of food and water.

It is warm, humid and dark all year round, with freedom to roam to find food and reproduce. Fully sealed like a prison, it has strict limitations on access to visitors. From birth to death, inhabitants never see the sun.

The world’s largest cockroach farm is breeding 6 billion adult cockroaches a year and using artificial intelligence to manage a colony larger than the world’s human population – all for medicinal use.

It is part of the production process for a “healing potion” consumed by millions of patients in China, according to the government.

There are many cockroach breeding facilities in China, for use as an ingredient in medicine or as a source of protein for livestock feed. But no other facility can match the productivity of the farm in the city of Xichang, in southwestern Sichuan province.


Gooddoctor Pharmaceutical Group’s cockroach farm in Xichang. Photo: HANDOUT

Nearly 28,000 full-sized cockroaches per square foot are produced there annually, the Sichuan government said in a report submitted to Beijing early this year.

It is the first time in history so many cockroaches have been confined and bred in one space. The project had achieved so many “scientific and technological breakthroughs” that it deserved a national science award, the provincial government said.

The facility achieved its unrivalled efficiency partly by being controlled by a “smart manufacturing” system powered by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, according to the report.

The system constantly collects and analyses more than 80 categories of “big data”, including humidity, temperature, food supply and consumption. It monitors changes such as genetic mutations and how these affect the growing rates of individual cockroaches.

AI is transforming China in many sectors, from powerful facial recognition systems capable of identifying 1.3 billion citizens in seconds to nuclear submarines that can help a captain make faster, more accurate decisions in combat.

In the cockroach farm, the AI system learns from past work, self-adjusting to improve cockroach production.

Dr Zhang Wei, former assistant researcher at the College of Mechanical Engineering at Zhejiang University, who was involved in the development of the system, told the South China Morning Post: “There is nothing like it in the world. It has used some unique solutions to address some unique issues.”

Rustling in the darkness

Zhang confirmed the use of AI technology in the project but declined to give details.

The farm is operated by the Gooddoctor Pharmaceutical Group of Chengdu, Sichuan, which confirmed the validity of the government document but could not answer the Post’s queries because the matter involved trade secrets.

According to a 2011 report by the government newspaper Guangming Daily, a visitor must change into a sanitised working suit to avoid bringing in pollutants or pathogens.

“There were very few human beings in the facility,” the article stated. On shelves, floors and ceiling, the cockroaches were “everywhere”.

“Hold your breath and (you) only hear a rustling sound,” it continued. “Whenever flashlights swept, the cockroaches fled. Wherever the beam landed, there was a sound like wind blowing through leaves.

“It was just like standing in the depths of a bamboo forest in late autumn. The cool breeze blows, and the leaves rustle.”

Could super-breed terrorise a city?

The sheer number of insects locked in the facility – the largest colony of cockroaches ever to have existed on the planet – conjures some nightmarish scenarios.

Every cockroach is a super-cockroach. Mother Nature has already done its job. There is little room left for us to make improvementsPROFESSOR ZHU CHAODONG, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Professor Zhu Chaodong, the Institute of Zoology’s lead scientist in insect evolution studies at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said it would be a “catastrophe” if billions of cockroaches were suddenly released into the environment – be it through human error or a natural disaster like an earthquake that damaged the building.

To Xichang’s near-800,000 inhabitants, one such accident could be “terrifying”, Zhu said. The farm is also located close to Xichang’s Qingshan airport.

“Multiple lines of defence must be in place and work properly to prevent the disaster of accidental release,” Zhu said.

Cockroaches multiply rapidly in a suitable environment, said Zhu. Given Xichang’s warm climate and ample rainfall, a dozen of them could infest an entire neighbourhood.

There are also concerns that the farm’s intensive reproduction and genetic screening would accelerate the insect’s evolution and produce “super-cockroaches”, of abnormal size and breeding capability, although Zhu said this was unlikely to happen.

Cockroaches are believed to have been around since the dinosaurs, surviving extreme environmental conditions that brought extinction for other species.

“Every cockroach is a super-cockroach,” Zhu said. “Mother Nature has already done its job. There is little room left for us to make improvements.”

Creating the potion

At the time of the government report, the farm had generated a total of 4.3 billion yuan (US$684 million) in revenue over the years by manufacturing a potion made entirely of cockroaches.

When they reach the desired weight and size, the cockroaches are fed into machines and crushed to make the potion, which had “remarkable effects” on stomach pain and other ailments, said the provincial government.

The potion has a tea-like colour, tastes “slightly sweet” and has “a slightly fishy smell”, according to the product’s packaging.

More than 40 million patients with respiratory, gastric and other diseases were cured after taking the potion on doctors’ prescriptions, according to the official report, which stated that the farm was selling it to more than 4,000 hospitals across the country.

The miracle-like cure

Cockroach has been an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years. In some rural areas in southern China, infants are still occasionally fed cockroaches mixed with garlic to treat fever caused by an infection or upset stomach.

The Chinese government financed nationwide studies into cockroaches’ medical value that, after more than two decades of laboratory investigation and clinical trials, had discovered or confirmed dozens of disease-fighting proteins and biochemical compounds with huge potential value in medicine.

Thousands of pages of Chinese medical journals have detailed findings suggesting the rejuvenating effect of the cockroach potion. It could stimulate regrowth of damaged tissues such as skin and mucosa, the sticky membrane on the surface of internal organs that is difficult to heal and causes chronic pain.

Patients suffering burns or serious stomach inflammations recovered faster with the potion treatment than without, according to numerous studies.

“The potion is not a panacea – it does not have a magic power against all diseases,” said a researcher experienced in cockroach-related medicines at the Institute of Materia Medica at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) in Beijing.

“But its effect on certain symptoms is well established, and confirmed by molecular science and large-scale hospital applications.”

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Patients learn the Latin

There is a potentially major disadvantage to the potion, according to the CAMS researcher, who requested not to be named. “The source of raw material, to most people, is disgusting,” she said. “That is an important reason why the use of the potion is not found in other countries.

“Even in China, most patients might not know the liquid came from cockroaches.”

The potion is not for sale over the counter, but the Post has bought it in a drug store in Beijing without being asked for a doctor’s prescription.


Bottles of Gooddoctor products. Photo: HANDOUT

A pack containing two bottles of 100ml cost a bit more than 50 yuan (US$8).

On the packaging and in the user instructions, only one ingredient was listed: Periplaneta americana, the Latin name of the American cockroach, one of the largest cockroach species.

The internet has played host to lively discussions about the medicine, known as kangfuxin ye, or “potion of recovery”.

“I searched for Periplaneta americana when drinking the potion. I saw the picture and spat it all on screen,” wrote one user on Baidu Tieba, the large Chinese online community run by search engine company Baidu.

Several patients who had consumed the potion told the Post they were not aware of its content when they drank it.

“This is knowledge I’d rather live without,” said a young mother in Beijing who was prescribed it to accelerate recovery after giving birth a year ago.

“I don’t know the effect, but I healed eventually,” said another patient, who took the potion to cure a back injury.

‘Disgusting but powerful’

Han Yijun, a representative of Gooddoctor Pharmaceutical Group in Beijing, has denied the company misleads patients by referring to the giant cockroach by its academic name.

“Our drug has been used in hospitals for many, many years and established an enormous number of fans,” she said.

Some patients with chronic stomach illness were taking the potion regularly because it could relieve their pain significantly, she said.

“They all know it’s made from cockroaches,” Han said. “It is a disgusting insect, but there are hardly any drugs on the shelves with the same effect.”

Missed the AI bit on this when I posted this previously in Weird stuff in TCM...... List it!.