Re: Some FT background stuff (guidelines for writers)

More rambles....

Allan Goodall wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 10 Feb 1998 15:59:50 -0500, Thomas Barclay
> <Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca> wrote:
> 
> >Space is NOT emptier than southern Saskatchewan. I've been there. If
> >you look in the dictionary under 'empty', that is what you see.
> 
> Yes, but space is curved while Saskatchewan is flat. Isn't
> Saskatchewan's motto: Can't Die from Falling?

There's a joke about Saskatchewan I once heard:  "A farmer living in 
Saskatchewan watched his dog run away for three days."	

(8-)

> >The more we
> >make microprocessors capable of, the more practical even brute force
> >solutions are, and there is no reason that in the future one cannot
> >conceive of a fighter capable of outflying a human ace (the human
> >with all his intuition etc. still follows subconscious patterns which
> >can be evaluated and acted on) and a good AI with a good 'brain'
> >could easily best the human in thought, and definitely in reflex or
> >capability to take Gs. (Humans can take about 9 in suits.... a
> >computer can probably take 40Gs .... that makes up for a lot of
> >skill).
> 

I just thought of something; brute force solutions are only practical 
when the algorithm has access to all the data required for processing.
(Kasparov vs. Deep Blue II comes to mind, where DB II was optimized to
match and beat Kasparov at his own game.)

Now, what happens to computer pilots when their radar is jammed?  Or 
fails?	Or returns ghost signals?  

I guess my point is:  in a 1 v 1 scenario, head-on, no positional 
advantage, the computer pilot does have the edge.  But how many times
does this happen in warfare?

I don't know; if their was a radical breakthrough in AI perhaps (and, 
once again, since this is all future speculation, we can speculate
whatever the hell we want (8-) ), but brute force computations aren't
the answer for a combat AI.  Perhaps some kind of optimized neural
net...

The nightshift is taking its toll... (8-)

J.

-- 
Jerry Han -  CANOE Canada - jhan@canoe.ca - http://www.idigital.net/jhan
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