Re: Some FT background stuff (guidelines for writers)

On Thu, 12 Feb 1998, Jerry Han wrote:

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

Well, if its one of the reactive networks/subsumpive I spend a lot of
time
hacking on and developing at work and for my own amusement, it reacts a
whole /heck/ of a lot faster than a human operator to the change in its
imput quality (after all, you'd be an idiot to not put in a detection
module that does nothing but recognize when a sensor input is of
diminished quality, which would then remove some of the activation
energy
that modules depending on that data receive ...) and proceeds to 'open a
keg of whup-ass' on its opponents.

> 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?

Never, which is why reactive/subsumptive/spreading-activation networks
are
becoming such a hot topic in robotics these days along with hybrid
designs
which incorporate traditional AI techniques alongside the newer
less-hierarchial styles.

A human is just a really big parallel neural network, after all. 
There's
no reason to believe that there's some mystical falderall which will
forever seperate the performance of humans and machines, /especially/ in
high-stress, limited-field areas like combat via machines themselves
which
depend heavily on computational power in the first place.

> 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 AI community hasn't done simple brute-force computation of over a
decade now.  Wake up and smell the 90's.  :)

-- 
[  Alexander Williams {thantos@alf.dec.com/zander@photobooks.com}  ]
[ Alexandrvs Vrai,  Prefect 8,000,000th Experimental Strike Legion ]
[	     BELLATORES INQVIETI --- Restless Warriors		   ]
====================================================================
"Here at Ortillery Command we have at our disposal hundred megawatt
    laser beams, mach 20 titanium rods and guided thermonuclear
 bombs. Some people say we think that we're God. We're not God. We
   just borrowed his 'SMITE' button for our fire control system."