Long ago I got to musing about, "How do you define God?". Now I   
    tried to do it from measuring the attributes of God, but how   
    would you measure them?   
      
    Think about Arthur C. Clarks dictum, "Any sufficiently advanced   
    technology is indistinguishable from magic".   
      
    I got to wondering, could you reasonably say, a being so   
    superior to us that we cannot even understand it's nature or   
    measure it's abilities be reasonably be called a god? If no, why   
    not? After all, that seems to be beyond what the measure of the   
    ancient gods was. All they had to be was immortal and have some   
    powers beyond human. Any being with a life expectancy of a   
    thousand years would be immortal as far as anyone of the human   
    race could tell.   
      
    Last night I went to the store to pick up a few items we needed.   
    On my way back to my car I saw a man carrying a leaking box,   
    which turned out to be a case of beer that had broken open and   
    spilled glass bottles on the ground. He was carrying the case   
    back to the store, I would guess to complain about it breaking   
    open.   
      
    One of the bottles was lying on the driveway broken. My first   
    thought was, if they don't get someone out here to clean that up   
    someone could get a flat tire. Then I speculated on the   
    advancement of security monitoring, and video cameras, and that   
    before too long they would have a computer monitoring such   
    things, and it would be programmed to recognize some images as   
    including actions indicating a problem. In this case, an item   
    being dropped, and a portion of the contents being left on the   
    ground. From that it would deduce a hazard left in the parking   
    lot, and automatically dispatch cleanup.   
      
    In turn, that lead to a consideration of artificial   
    intelligence. Just where do you draw the line between programmed   
    responses and artifical intelligence? If a computer monitor   
    noted a customer falling in the parking lot, it could monitor   
    that person for indications of injury, and either put a   
    responder on alert, or dispatch one just in case. However, if   
    that same monitor saw someone lying on the bench at a bus stop   
    near the highway passing the store, would it dispatch a   
    responder, or just file it as someone sleeping on the bench?   
      
    Next step, if the computer, on a sweep, detected someone lying   
    in the driveway why would it not flag that as a person sleeping   
    on the driveway, instead of injured? A child might tell you,   
    daddy's asleep and he won't wake up, when daddy is dead. It's   
    easier to program the computer to identify the difference, a   
    person horizontal on the driveway for more than 15 seconds calls   
    for a responder. A child learns the difference over years.   
      
    The computer can even be programmed to include the ultimately   
    determined causes of phenomena it observes into it's decisions.   
    It could even be programmed to use time lapses between observed   
    situations and results. If every person who falls but is   
    uninjured gets up within 30 seconds, allow a 30 second delay   
    before calling a responder. If the person falling clutches his   
    chest before or while falling is identified repeatedly as a   
    heart attack, or even found to be one in googling that behavior,   
    all such cases get an immediate responder dispatch. Noting the   
    behavior of the person falling would be part of the programming,   
    but the results would be included by the computer.   
      
    Oh, and putting out an arm while falling would mean close   
    scrutiny for broken bones, and the resulting actions associated   
    with broken bones. Such observations could be shared among   
    security computers, thus 'educating' them with what one system   
    has learned.   
      
    So, my musing analysis leads to this question, when you reach   
    the point where you can't actually tell if a computer's response   
    is just a program line, or actual intelligence, can that be   
    considered the dividing line between programming and artificial   
    intelligence?   
      
    All that from one broken case of beer. Oh and one bottle was   
    left on the driveway unbroken. I picked it up because I thought,   
    if a car hits that it could get a flat tire.   
      
    Sad that, I don't like beer. Nor does my wife. Truly sad.   
      
   BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn   
      
   ... The best thing about the future is, it comes one day at a time.   
    * Silver Xpress V4.5/P [Reg]   
   --- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5   
    * Origin: Check Out Doc's QWK Mail  Via Web BBS > DocsPlace.org  (1:123/140)