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More Marigold Awkward Sex Talk!

6 (8%)

More Claire/Clinton Fighting!

5 (6.7%)

Hannelore Draws Moar Kittehs!

9 (12%)

Marten Is Amused!

9 (12%)

Faye and Angus - The Beginning of The End!

4 (5.3%)

Dora/Tai - The Next Day!

18 (24%)

Emily and Gabby do something weird!

11 (14.7%)

Another New Meme Attempt!

4 (5.3%)

An Old Meme Returns! (Waffles! Spathe Ham! LASERS!)

1 (1.3%)

Hitting the F5 key repeatedly to see if Jeph's updated the strip yet!

8 (10.7%)

Total Members Voted: 68

[DrBear]

I was told there would be no math.

[celticgeek]

We all use math every day.

[Carl-E]

I was told there would be no math.

No math is a lie. 

[Mr_Rose]

  But the books make him so much more than human that it doesn't really work, at least not without canon backing it up.

I wouldn't have used "more" there; personally, I'd substitute less. Dude leaves a fifteen-month old child on a doorstep in November, with only a note for company and the approbations of his companion ringing in his ear, then never bothers to check on the child's welfare for ten years? Even if the dursleys had been saints that makes him, minimum, guilty of criminal neglect, assuming he was legally entitled to 'care' for the child in the first place. Add to it that his hand picked carers are monsters, and that he was told this by the person he assigned to watch them  and that makes him a monster by proxy.

And that's what, the first chapter of the first book?
Not that he gets better with age, since it seems clear that his ultimate plan required the child to commit suicide, leaving a suitably paranoid person suspicious that he deliberately set the child up to be abused in order to make death a 'soft' option by comparison, and the fact that this didn't actually kill the child permanently is basically a combination of extreme luck and not a little deus ex machina.

[Carl-E]

It's still a ripping good yarn. 

[Is it cold in here?]

Basing our (over)analysis solely on the contents of the strips, I thought Momo looked a bit nettled by Emiiy's questions.

[Mr_Rose]

It's still a ripping good yarn. 

Never said it wasn't. But the world Rowling set up abets child abuse, apologises for bullies and accepts the use of mind altering substances as a way to get a date, all under the auspices of a man alleged to have significant political power on top of scary personal power but who can't arrange for a someone to have a trial instead of being instantly put to death. To acclaim such a man seems to me wholly backward.

[Redball]

Aaaaand, it's still a helluva good story!

[Near Lurker]

I was told there would be no math.

Look at your hand.  YOUR HAND IS MATH!  So cut it off.  YOU ARE BLEEDING MATH!  Look at the knife.  IT, TOO, IS MADE OF MATH... AND DRIPPING MATH!  Now cut your throat.  YOU ARE DYING OF MATH!  Are you dead?  Then, and only then, have you defeated math... WITH MATH.

[iduguphergrave]

It's still a ripping good yarn. 

Never said it wasn't. But the world Rowling set up abets child abuse, apologises for bullies and accepts the use of mind altering substances as a way to get a date, all under the auspices of a man alleged to have significant political power on top of scary personal power but who can't arrange for a someone to have a trial instead of being instantly put to death. To acclaim such a man seems to me wholly backward.

That's part of the point of the last book; Harry finds out about Dumbledores more than checkered past and realizes he's not the man he thought he was. For the most part, Dumbledore gets knocked off his pedestal in that book. The man never claimed to be perfect, but we see him throughout the series though Harry's eyes, and so we idolize him like he does. But as we find out in the last book, Dumbledore made MORE than his share of mistakes.

But you're overestimating just how much power Albus Dumbledore had to begin with. He wasn't a politician; the current Minister of Magic (current at the time of books 1-5, anyway) only asked his advice because he was a bumbling fool; and once the fool thought (incorrectly) that Dumbledore wanted his seat, he used his power to defame him. Albus was powerful but he was a private citizen. The only reason I assume the Ministry let Dumbledore handle Harry's situation is because they had more important things to do rebuilding their society after the war with Voldemort.

And yes, he was gay. It doesn't come up in the books because again, we see Dumbledore through Harry's eyes and Harry sees him as teacher/mentor/father. Also, at 140+ years old, he's slightly past the age for romance. But in the last book, he reveals his friendship with Grindelwald and it's pretty easy to see that it was infatuation on Dumbledores part. In fact it's implied that the reason Dumbledore never tried for love again was because of what happened with Grindelwald.

/Potterhead

[Kugai]

I was told there would be no math.

No math is a lie.

No, the cake is

[Carl-E]

No cake. 


Pi. 




The cake is a pi? 

[akronnick]

That's not rational.

[cesium133]

No cake. 


Pi. 




The cake is a pi?

No, pi are round. Cornbread are square.

[Skewbrow]

"Die Mathematiker sind eine Art Franzosen: Redet man zu ihnen, so übersetzen sie es in ihre Sprache, und dann ist es alsbald etwas anderes."

Cornbread are square.

So will my age be in two days time 

[Akima]

People need to understand why some problems will defy any amount of computing power thrown at them, and why using software to analyze software has unfixable limitations.

Mmm... But that is just as true of human computing power and human software as that running in a sentient artificial intelligence. Or to put it another way, such problems would be no less amenable to solution by an AI if it really were intelligent at a human level at least.

a) Do we know that AI are self-sustaining?<snip>
b) Maybe AI don't yet know how to create themselves at all.<snip>
c) Not all branches of computer science would lead directly to AI development.<snip>

On a) and b), I think we can be reasonably sure that AI are capable of creating and sustaining themselves, or Hannelore would not have regarded the fact that "they like us" as so fortunate.

As for c), I'm sure there would be other applications of Computer Science than AI development, but why would we assume that humans would be as good at any aspect of the field as AIs? Because humans are special? With the advent of truly sentient, self replicating artificial intelligences, maybe not so much. Some areas of CS, like compiler-design, might become completely redundant. Why would an AI need a compiler at all? Once upon a time even humans wrote machine code directly, and it doesn't take much digging to find grey-muzzled old programmers who will assure you that they wrote more efficient code that way too!

There is a poem (or maybe it's a song?) called "John Henry The Steel-Driving Man" where a man competes with hand tools against a steam-hammer in drilling through a mountain and kills himself in the attempt. I suppose once John Henry was supposed to seem heroic, but nowadays the idea that a man with a hammer or a spade would even try to compete in such a task with powered machinery seems rather ridiculous and pathetic. It might be that the advent of AI minds might make competing with them at computer-science similarly futile.

Or maybe not. Even in our world, where computers are well short of sentience, the arrival of computers that can beat the strongest human chess players some of the time, has not stopped people playing chess. Even if computers were developed that could defeat all human players in every game, people would probably still play against each other, and by studying the games of the computer champions improve their own play. There are, after all, human weiqi players I would have no chance of beating, and yet I still play and enjoy the game, and study the games of the professional champions. If (or rather when) computer players can reliably defeat those human champions, I doubt I will give up the game. Humans compete in marathon foot-races despite being wholly uncompetitive over that distance with motor cars. Perhaps we don't have to be the best at something to find it a worthwhile subject of study.

[pwhodges]

Once upon a time even humans wrote machine code directly, and it doesn't take much digging to find grey-muzzled old programmers who will assure you that they wrote more efficient code that way too!

You don't need to look that far   (and yes, I know you don't mean mere assembly code).

[jwhouk]

So many options... What are you looking forward to?

More Marigold Awkward Sex Talk!    6 (8.2%)
More Claire/Clinton Fighting!    4 (5.5%)
Hannelore Draws Moar Kittehs!    8 (11%)
Marten Is Amused!    9 (12.3%)
Faye and Angus - The Beginning of The End!    4 (5.5%)
Dora/Tai - The Next Day!    18 (24.7%) <== What we all wanted.
Emily and Gabby do something weird!    11 (15.1%) <== What we got.
Another New Meme Attempt!    4 (5.5%)
An Old Meme Returns! (Waffles! Spathe Ham! LASERS!)    1 (1.4%)
Hitting the F5 key repeatedly to see if Jeph's updated the strip yet!    8 (11%)

Total Members Voted: 73

[Method of Madness]

And yes, he was gay. It doesn't come up in the books because again, we see Dumbledore through Harry's eyes and Harry sees him as teacher/mentor/father. Also, at 140+ years old, he's slightly past the age for romance. But in the last book, he reveals his friendship with Grindelwald and it's pretty easy to see that it was infatuation on Dumbledores part. In fact it's implied that the reason Dumbledore never tried for love again was because of what happened with Grindelwald.

/Potterhead

That's an interesting point.  It's also based on canon, so thank you.  I guess I didn't notice it, I haven't reread the book since "the announcement" and when I first read it I was kind of rushing through to get to the end.  I'm not sure if I'm convinced entirely, but it's more convincing than "the author said so".

Cornbread are square.

So will my age be in two days time   

My age turned square about a month ago.

[Is it cold in here?]

Akima's point is only a special case of the wider question of why humans do anything at all in the QC universe. There must be very few jobs that a human can do better than an AI.

Jeph has said in the past that enough AIs are moving into companion jobs or replacing non-sentient machines, or are just plain lazy, that there are still jobs left for humans.

Ohh, here's a creative one. What if the AIs fund computer science education for humans so that humans become better conversation partners?

[Carl-E]

Ok, first up; I'm a doubled square, so  I think that I'm twice madness age, and probably a square and a year past skewbrow...  and that should be enough for anyone to figure out all three! 

Of course, I could be wrong about the ages of my mathematical compatriots, but you can at least figure out what I think our ages are...


Akima, interesting that you cited John Henry - the point of the song was that he won, though it was a pyrrhic victory, at best.  The steam drill failed, as I think we know all technology does at some point.  We've gotten used to fewer and fewer catastrophic failures, but even so, were an AI like Station to fail, the results would be a disaster.  I imagine there's some pretty sturdy redundance built into a system like him.  Quite frankly, it's rather amazing Pintsize has lasted so long! 

And those computer game players are using their full computational power to beat us.  But when asked, chess masters admit to not thinking more than a few moves ahead, much less than the computers that play the game.  There's something else going on, and allegedly that's what's been tapped into in the development of AI - otherwise, something with as little computational power as Pintsize wouldn't be able to pull of even a simple practical joke! 

It's an interesting situation, and I think we're just sitting here poking it and finding all the holes, but it does make for some good storytelling! 

[jmucchiello]

As for c), I'm sure there would be other applications of Computer Science than AI development, but why would we assume that humans would be as good at any aspect of the field as AIs? Because humans are special? With the advent of truly sentient, self replicating artificial intelligences, maybe not so much. Some areas of CS, like compiler-design, might become completely redundant. Why would an AI need a compiler at all? Once upon a time even humans wrote machine code directly, and it doesn't take much digging to find grey-muzzled old programmers who will assure you that they wrote more efficient code that way too!

True, but they also did not write program of nearly the same complexity of programs written today. Imagine implementing a HTML renderer in assembly language that could handle all flavors of HTML and run against any video driver. It could be done but I can imagine it would be very amenable to changes.

But I think this ignores the problems of hard AI and forgets its limitations. Just because the AI is running on computer hardware, doesn't mean the thinking AI is aware of the computer hardware. You, presumably, run your intelligence on a wetware brain that you are mostly unaware of.

To multiply two multi-digit numbers, an AI might perform the calculation "by hand" just like a human would: reducing the problem to n "multi-digit times single digit" problems and then summing the results to get the answer. Performed in this manner the AI will not be as faster than a human as the speed of its microprocessors would imply.

Other AIs might have the ability to spawn off a process to execute an interpreter in their hardware (like Python) and interact with it to get an answer (just like a human might go to  computer and launch an interpreter to get the answer, or pick up a calculator to get the answer) and so it might seem like they can perform "faster" than a human. But that has nothing to do with being and AI and has more to do with have a computer "close by" that they can interact with intelligently.

Or maybe not. Even in our world, where computers are well short of sentience, the arrival of computers that can beat the strongest human chess players some of the time, has not stopped people playing chess. Even if computers were developed that could defeat all human players in every game, people would probably still play against each other, and by studying the games of the computer champions improve their own play. There are, after all, human weiqi players I would have no chance of beating, and yet I still play and enjoy the game, and study the games of the professional champions. If (or rather when) computer players can reliably defeat those human champions, I doubt I will give up the game. Humans compete in marathon foot-races despite being wholly uncompetitive over that distance with motor cars. Perhaps we don't have to be the best at something to find it a worthwhile subject of study.

I think the mere existence of the Para-Olympics shows that mankind is competitive even in the face of knowing there are opponents whom one cannot beat.

Weiqi is generally called Go in English. English readers have a better chance of recognizing the name Go than the name weiqi. Though the game is not really popular at all in the States by any name.

[Pilchard123]

There's something else going on, and allegedly that's what's been tapped into in the development of AI - otherwise, something with as little computational power as Pintsize wouldn't be able to pull of even a simple practical joke!

What if all companion AIs were permanently linked into an AI cloud and did the majority of their processing there, with just enough local hardware to function on a basic level?

[Carl-E]

Interesting idea - perhaps that's this "creche" Jeph has mentioned. 

[Skewbrow]

I don't think there is any compelling reason why AI would understand, for example, algorithmic complexity theory any better than humans. True, they can do arithmetic and number-crunching at blinding speed, but that's not what that part of computer science is about (me thinks). And, yes, even if they were better at it, the humans would still compete with each other.

Akima also raised the comparison between chess playing and go/weiqi playing computers. The former being much better - at least when pitted against human champions. The reasons for the difference originate simply from the fact that a game of go branches much faster than chess. (Sorry about using the Japanese name here. I used to play some with two friends, but unfortunately they have both moved away. We used the Japanese point counting rules, so that's what we called the game. In these parts at least it is much better known by the Japanese name.) Somebody who understands it better than I do also told me that if computers ever became proficient at handling the standard 19x19 board, humans could simply move on to playing with, say a 23x23 board, again leaving a program relying on number crunching largely helpless. I have only seen a pitiful (=inexpensive) go-playing program from early 90s. I'm sure they have improved much since, but cannot comment. Hopefully we get to witness a China vs. Japan go/weiqi-playing computer design competition. It could get nasty (but I would prefer that to them fighting over those tiny islands).

If I interpreted Carl-E:s phrasing of the age(s) problem correctly, it is a simple Pell equation. Finding the algebraic integers of norm minus one in the field Q joint root two is straight forward. As I obviously won't be celebrating my 1st nor 1681st b-day this week, the solution of that equation is, indeed, unique.

[Near Lurker]

Whoever said that to you is wrong.  We don't know how to make a computer play go (I am not apologizing for calling it the name just about every English speaker knows it under) well only because we don't yet know how humans do.  The methods we use to teach a computer chess and backgammon are clearly inadequate, but that's just a matter of applying the wrong tactic.  Consider Kasparov's insistence that Deep Blue was cheating when it saw through a tactic that he though required "creative thinking" - he was making the same mistake as your friend, thinking that a computer cannot duplicate that which we can't immediately see its method of duplicating.  No, the fact that humans can be trained to play go well is sufficient evidence that  a computer can be taught to.

[pwhodges]

But surely the very best players have achieved more than they were simply taught to?  Otherwise why are the programs still missing out?

they also did not write program of nearly the same complexity of programs written today. Imagine implementing a HTML renderer in assembly language that could handle all flavors of HTML and run against any video driver. It could be done but I can imagine it would be very amenable to changes.

Less complex, but at least as subtle.  And don't imagine that it's not possible to write assembler following strict structured programming guidelines, or even including object techniques.

[Pilchard123]

Based partly on posting styles, partly on common sense and partly on that maths...
Carl is 50, Skewbrow is 48/9, Method is 25. Am I anywhere near what you thought Carl? Have I been highly offensive?

Also, I've been learning Go on and off recently. I might see if I can find a Go-by-Internet program (or make one).

[Method of Madness]

You got me (and I assume Carl) right, but going on his clues I think it means that Skewbrow is turning 36, not 49.

Wait, no, just checked Skewbrow's profile, he is turning 49, which means that Carl's just a year ahead, not a square and a year.

[Carl-E]

Method, checking profiles?  Really?   That's like looking in the back of the book...

And yes, I forgot that Skewbrow is nearly my age.  Sorry!  His avatar looks so much younger...

[Akima]

Also, I've been learning Go on and off recently. I might see if I can find a Go-by-Internet program (or make one).

Don't waste time reinventing the wheel; there are several well-established "environments" of clients and servers where you can play Go. English-speakers tend to favour KGS which is a "closed" proprietary set-up, but it is free, and easy to install and get on-line. IGS/Pandanet is another system, which is "open" in the sense that you can obtain many different clients that conform to the IGS protocols, and many Go-playing programs incorporate a built-in client. IGS is a little less friendly to people who only read and write English. Finally there is Tygem, which I don't really recommend unless you are competent in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. If you prefer to play in a slower-paced "correspondence Go by e-mail" style, there is Dragon Go Server, which has a web interface.

[PthariensFlame]

Wait, no, just checked Skewbrow's profile, he is turning 49, which means that Carl's just a year ahead, not a square and a year.

Zero is a perfect square, so Carl is right anyway.

[Method of Madness]

Method, checking profiles?  Really?   That's like looking in the back of the book...

Well yeah, I only checked after I did the problem by myself first, to see if I was right.  And yeah, Ptharien is right, I just figured "a square and a year" meant "the next square".

[DSL]

But all he said was, he was becoming a square. He didn't say mathematical or geometric square. Maybe he meant, like, square, man.

[Method of Madness]

(Ignoring the fact that she draws a non-square rectangle)

[mustang6172]

Sorry to get this back on topic.

Hmm. Momo's own perception of her relation with Marigold has changed over the course of the comic. In 1298 she was still talking about "my owner's interests". Granted, she was just reciting a Sony ad text at that time and had just moved in to live with Marigold, but even so...

1412:  "Excuse me, but my owner is very knowledgeable about AnthroPCs and may be able to assist you.

Doesn't sound like a sales pitch to me.

[Is it cold in here?]

Good catch.

The AIERA had happened by strip 1900, not long afterward in comic time.

Momo and Marigirl may have renegotiated their contract to be a companionship one after ownership was outlawed.

[Skewbrow]

Mustang: A good catch!

Yeah. Mark the ages puzzle solved (I did misread the "square and one" part of Carl's description). DSL and MoM also figured out the other intended solution (sorry about the bad pun).

Near Lurker: Interesting points. IIRC that cheap go-playing program had serious problems evaluating an open position (it had a cheat feature allowing me to see, how the open regions would be split as well as its idea of which groups of stones were live/dead).

Akima: Thanks for the bits about go web sites. I may check them out. But I'm spending too much time at an on-line bridge site as it is, so ... If I get my son interested in go, that might lead to something (quality bonding time?). The score of our latest chess games is something like 1-199 in his favor, which is a bit too lopsided.

[Akima]

Chess is so Freudian. The Queen (the mother) is the most powerful piece on the board, and the object of the game is to kill the King (the father). Fathers typically teach their sons to play, and every son's ambition is to defeat his father (the King). 

[no one special]

*I never really gave it thought until the "he's gay" announcement, but I think giving Dumbledore any sexuality humanizes him, which may be why Rowling tried to do it after the fact.  But the books make him so much more than human that it doesn't really work, at least not without canon backing it up.

Yeah, I thought it was kinda strange that she just announced it.  As it's just so completely irrelevant to the story, the announcement suring that interview seemed odd.  It would basically be like announcing the sexual tendencies of Professor Sprout - what does it have to do with anything?

It's still a ripping good yarn.

Hell yeah it is 

[Barmymoo]

Freudian or Oedipal? Or both?

[jwhouk]

Yes.

[Skewbrow]

Chess is so Freudian. The Queen (the mother) is the most powerful piece on the board, and the object of the game is to kill the King (the father). Fathers typically teach their sons to play, and every son's ambition is to defeat his father (the King). 

Possibly  But chess players (designers of chess problems in particular) have a penchant for puzzles, where the solution is to sacrifice your own mother in order to kill the opposing father. Doesn't fit too well, I think?

And are you saying that the young go/weiqi players do not aspire to beat their father/elder brother/sensei/whatever at the game? With or without handicap stones? Also, following Sun Tzu's advice "To a surrounded enemy, you must leave a way of escape" is a non-starter in go.

[jmucchiello]

Whoever said that to you is wrong.  We don't know how to make a computer play go (I am not apologizing for calling it the name just about every English speaker knows it under) well only because we don't yet know how humans do.  The methods we use to teach a computer chess and backgammon are clearly inadequate, but that's just a matter of applying the wrong tactic.  Consider Kasparov's insistence that Deep Blue was cheating when it saw through a tactic that he though required "creative thinking" - he was making the same mistake as your friend, thinking that a computer cannot duplicate that which we can't immediately see its method of duplicating.  No, the fact that humans can be trained to play go well is sufficient evidence that  a computer can be taught to.

We don't teach computers to play Chess. We teach computers to evaluate all possible future Chess moves from a given board state and ask it to pick the one that leads to the best outcome. 90% of Chess programming is a breadth first search through a tree of board states. The only trick to Deep Blue was IBM made actual computer cores where "the state of a chess board" was a native "register" to facilitate faster and deeper decision trees. The way they "cheated" was in tuning the evaluation algorithm based on Kasparov's style of play. Kasparov's complaint was that he could not in turn study Deep Blue's style of play.

[Is it cold in here?]

all possible future Chess moves from a given board state

I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant?

[jmucchiello]

all possible future Chess moves from a given board state

I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant?

all (given limitations of memory and time) possible future Chess positions from a given board state

Better? The point is, we do not teach Chess programs HOW to play Chess. We teach them to solve solutions to the current board state that result in victory for a given side based on a breadth first search of what might happen next and how much that something benefits or harms both sides.

[Pilchard123]

The holy grail of chess engines would be the ability to have a tree of every possible game state, ever. I read somewhere that that wouldn't be possible though.

Of course, that would be a mighty boring engine, since it would win whenever you couldn't force it to lose.

[Method of Madness]

Why wouldn't it be possible?

[Is it cold in here?]

With current computing technology, or theoretically?

I don't know whether it's one of those problems that is still hopeless if you turn the entire universe into a special-purpose computer, but I wouldn't be surprised.

[Method of Madness]

Theoretically, of course.  I'm always curious when someone says something is impossible.  Impossible now, that's one thing, but always impossible?