.jpg)
By James Knudsen
act-ing. noun—behaving/doing truthfully in the imaginary circumstance. –Sanford Meisner
A couple of weeks ago I was listening to NPR’s Radiolab. The topic was AI, Artificial Intelligence. Various forms were examined: Cleverbot, online dating programs, the Loebner Prize, Furby...yes, Furby, the furry, talking toy from the late ‘90’s. Cleverbot I found particularly interesting. It is a program that remembers every conversation it’s ever had. And when it begins a new conversation it pours over all of the stored data or “responses” and then calculates (I guess that’s what computers do) the best response for the current conversation it’s having. It does a pretty good job of holding up its end of a conversation. But it does have its limits. During the course of the show the host, with aid of a guest, tested Cleverbot. It went something like this:
NPR: Hello, I’m feeling blue today because an asteroid hit my house this morning.So, we don’t have to worry yet. It should also be pointed out that Cleverbot’s creator reported that a teen-age girl had spent 11 hours talking to Cleverbot with only three 15-minute breaks. At least she wasn’t texting.
Cleverbot: I woke up at 1 p.m. this afternoon.
But Cleverbot got me thinking about more mundane, day-to-day issues like customer service. Nowadays, assuming you get an actual human on the phone, they are probably working from a script, it’s probably more like a flowchart and the “human” has been trained to follow the flowchart to its logical conclusion—“Have you considered upgrading your cable service to our premium plan?”
My epiphany was that the corporate world in its quest for certainty has strived to remove the human element from as much of its business model as is humanly possible. If they’d just ask me what to do....
On October 4 I’ll open another show. This one’s called From Up Here, by Liz Flahive. Rehearsals are going well and I have every reason to expect that the show will be ready opening night. As with all endeavors, some things get easier with age and others become more difficult. Learning lines is more difficult. Being onstage is easier. At this point in my “career,” I can notice problems in a performance or a line reading as it’s happening. That doesn’t mean I can correct mid-sentence, but at least I am now aware of it and can hopefully avoid the same mistake next time.
Concurrently, I’m teaching a course in Theatre Appreciation. During our last meeting we discussed things like “how to attend theatre” and “the willing suspension of disbelief.” The latter is crucial to experiencing theatre because it is after all make believe, imaginary, fake. Everything except the actors. We are real. Ago ergo sum. When we smile, it’s real. When we are angry, the rage is real. And when we are sad, the tears are real. And done properly, each response is appropriate to the moment.
For... the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure....A lecture I’ve made a part of every class, every semester is the one having to do with “what are we humans going to do when technology is able to do everything?” The answer is of course, “that which is uniquely human.” This assumes humans that are allowed to be human.
A Remembrance
Last Tuesday saw the passing of an old friend. Marshall Kendzy was part of a group of friends that I first met with my then wife Sharon MacMillan. They, Marshall, Gene, Rick and Gene held court on the patio of The Yukon Mining Co. restaurant in West Hollywood, California every Saturday. A native of Illinois and veteran of the closing days of WWII, Marshall’s lesson to the world was this: enjoy life. He did, boy did he ever.
Marshall arrived in post-war LA and soon found himself enmeshed in Hollywood. His exploits were never chronicled officially, but the book Full Service, by Scotty Bowers, covered much of the same territory. Reviewed in the NY Times: “Hollywood Fixer Opens His Little Black Book.”
A friend of Marshall’s who would drop by our table on the patio once said Marshall had lived three lifetimes when compared to what most people experience. All four, Marshall, Gene, Rick and Gene, long before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell served honorably in the Armed Forces or Merchant Marine. I will remember his humor, the mischievous twinkle in the eye and the wicked zingers that peppered our conversation. He will be missed.
_______________
Copyright © 2013 by James Knudsen
| Please comment |
They say by 2049 they will have developed a computer with a bigger brain than a human being..........wonder how that will go down?!
ReplyDeleteWhat do they mean, "bigger"? We might have a computer with more transistors than a brain has neurons, but a transistor isn't a neuron. I'll worry about when we understand just what it is that a brain DOES. We aren't even close.
DeleteThey have been saying that about computers from the time a computer that took up a whole floor in a building and couldn't do as much as the one in my lap.
ReplyDeleteOh! I'm also still waiting for my jet-pack, which they promised we would all have[smiley]
James, when old farts like your friends and Morris and I, along with others go, we'll take a history with us that will never be read. I friend once said: "When someone dies; a library closes its doors."
Wow. Quite a quote. I'm putting tthat one on my refrigerator.
DeleteRegarding Cleverbot: I'm not so sure that response shows a lack of intelligence, so much as it shows an abundance of honesty and a lack of feigned concern. Which sort of explains the 11-hours of comfortable conversation between Cleverbot and a teenage girl: Neither really cares what anyone else thinks. If you want unfiltered honesty from someone who is much more intelligent than you are likely to realize, talk to a teenager. If you want polite responses from someone who very likely doesn't really care what you have to say either, talk to an adult.
ReplyDeleteRegarding another show: Congratulations! So how many humans still do the behind the scenes controlling of sound and lights, and how much has been turned over to some form of Cleverbot? And when does digital animation make humans non-essential even for acting roles, as it has done for many of the hottest rock concerts in Japan, where the star characters are projected holograms? Seems an odd idea at first blush, but would people rather watch a fairly hot "real" Miley Cyrus, or one who could actually dance and sing? And to bring it closer to home, would they rather watch an aging actor who can't quite fully remember his lines, or one who nails them every time and is permanently young and handsome? The Cleverbots may yet win that war.
Regarding A Remembrance: What a wonderful, warm tribute. I can't imagine anyone else could have said it any better than you.
Regarding Cleverbot: This puts an interesting spin on the Turing test. How do you judge the intelligence of something that isn't interested in what you say, and just talks past you. Could a Valley Girl pass the Turing test?
DeleteChuck, as I vaguely and very possibly incorrectly recall, the Turing test wasn't designed to judge if a computer was intelligent, but only if it acted like a human in its decision making. If my memory is correct, then yes, I would say a Valley Girl could pass the Turing test. As could a politician, most likely, despite choosing to be a politician.
ReplyDeleteTraipsing further into the realm of the near metaphysical, isn't the perception of and definition of intelligence greatly determined by its context? Does a Turing test, or any IQ test, for that matter, take this fully into account?
As a former over-the-top fly-fisher I was always intrigued by two facts: An adult brown trout, say six-years-old and 24-inches long, has been shown to have an IQ of only 3-4; yet most college-educated 50-year-old people find such a fish almost impossible to catch with an artificial fly. Match them in a game of wits and the fish will most likely win 995 times, or more, out of 1,000. Would either pass a Turing test? And does the fact that the fly-fisher continues the game despite batting less than .005 show their is no merit in an IQ test in the first place?
A little C-4 and your smart Trout is lunch. I took up Scuba Diving because I couldn't catch fish. But I can sure look them in the eye and take them out.
DeleteTuring said "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'" Since it is hard to define thinking, he replaced it with the question "Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the imitation game?" His idea is that if you can't tell whether you are talking to a man or a computer, the "thinking" question is moot.
DeleteIt occurred to me to wonder how you could conduct a Turing test if the respondent really wasn't paying much attention to what you were saying - e.g. if it were a teenager. A really funny image.
More seriously, the definition of IQ is shaky even for humans, and absolutely inapplicable to a non-human mind. That's why Turing cleverly finessed the question.
I've rarely managed to outsmart a trout. Like Konotahe, I favor C-4.
You barbarians and your manly weaponry. Meanwhile, I am a proud member of the 22/22 club: meaning I managed to catch a brown trout longer than 22 inches on a miniscule Size 22 dry fly I tied myself. A barb-less Size 22 at that, so I was able release the fish without harming anything but its pride. Which proves, if nothing else, that I have an IQ of at least 3 or 4.
DeleteAnd does the trout give a damn what your IQ is, or your membership in a club of a few egoistical fisher people. I suppose the pain inflicted upon the fish, is justified by releasing it. Now if you took on a black bear with your fly rod and won then I'd be impressed.[Big smiley here]
DeleteFlies are for girly men. A he-man likes his IEDs. ;>)
DeleteHa! IEDs are for terrorists and other cowards. Real men take on their fish in hand to fin combat.
DeleteAnd yes, I have taken on a bear with a fly rod and survived to tell the tale. We were fishing for salmon in Alaska when a grizzly sauntered out of the alders, waded into the riffle ahead of us, then started working downstream toward us. He obviously had no sense of stream etiquette so we yelled and waved our rods threateningly at him...as we retreated to the far bank and ran for our vehicle.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete