..here we will be tackling 'assumed software'.
I know that sounds vague but trust me it is no more vague than some of the syllabi I have encountered. It is also the thing that is on my mind as of this moment and is also of paramount importance to the poor prospective student.
Here is what has me nearly up in arms tonight. Very close to physically acquiring a gun and hunting down an instructor or two, actually. The system is so skewed to the use of certain programs that if you don't have access to these packages the message you seem to get is essentially get lost you poor piece of shit. Specifically, while trying to access a proprietary format 'powerpoint' presentation. Here is the thing, while I appreciate standards, I can't seem to find any benefit in relying on a closed standard. The fact that I should be required to use an overly expensive piece of software from a gluttonous corporation such as micro$uck just to review an instructors class notes basically infuriates me. Why in the hell would a public university or a local community college (that supposedly caters to poorer or less fortunate students) allow their faculty to distribute course material in a proprietary format that is not usable on an open and free platform? It boggles the mind. And while I can't access the instructors material, unless I use a school machine with the needed software, I am here bitching about it. Good use of time no?
Another aspect of that is that most of the classes I have taken so far distribute there text documents in either word or powerpoint. And while most M$ systems come with works (the el cheapo version of word) and you can get a powerpoint viewer for free it is just utterly retarded for public institutions to rely on private sector proprietary systems and virtually force their students to incur more debt to acquire full versions of these packages. If also occurs to me that many of my fellow class-mates may not know about the 'el cheapo' versions or the availability of free viewers. Hell on my first trip to the bookstore last year I had a guy in front of me buying a copy of Word '07 because he just had to have it to do class work. Not only was it a third more expensive than he could have bought from other vendors (trust me I will get to the bookstore bullshit soon) it was also a 'student' version which is about half crippled right out of the box. Seriously fuck the bookstore and the system that lets them operate a legal scam(again trust me I will get to these fuck faces).
It would be easier, in a sense for these places to use PDF as the universal university format. At least there is a easily recognized and well known PDF reader available for free and there is virtually no system that doesn't have it to begin with. That doesn't really solve my current problem but at least I would be able to view the shit my instructor wants me to know without jumping through a bunch of ridiculous hoops. My current problem is that even though my homework is available on PDF, it isn't editable in it's native form unless you have the Pro version. So what am I and most people in this class to do? Buy the pro version? Print out the pages, work out the problems, scan it back in and then email it? Or what. The system is just fucking retarded and so are the people that play into this, which brings me to a final point...
Yesterday, the first day of class for the term, I talked to another student and asked him where he got his book. He said he got it from the bookstore. BIG FUCKING MISTAKE. I paid 12 bucks for the text on Amazon and he paid over ten times as much for the same thing. His reasoning was that he didn't want to fill out paper work to get reimbursed after the fact and it 'didn't matter anyway since the government was paying anyway.' I could of strangled this fuckhead but then I realized it wasn't really his fault and he didn't know any better. And that is the topic for my next rant. And oh boy will this be a big steaming pile of ranty goodness.
See you soon.
Cheers
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Going back to school: a few annoyances...
...actually, annoyances is a little understated. In this post I want to talk about one of several 'annoyances' I have experience while being back in a university setting. Fair warning there are several and this may wind up being a series. A series of more or less rants. But hey that's why you are here right? I did mention that in the first post that "this is a place for me to rant..." Also comments are welcome but also from the first post remember whose sandbox this is. Anyway, on with the show.
Actually a series is warranted. The topics will include(and likely more) in no specific order, the bookstore, assumed software, communication (or lack thereof), early finals, stupid policies, advising hiccups, reverse 'isms' (surely a sensitive topic to which I may tread into uncomfortable territory for a bit) and idiots in general (I'll likely save that for last as it will end up being a post about random idiots and their mind-numbing buffoonery which could very well be the most interesting but at the same time could also be the most long-winded and directionless post yet).
So now that the intro is done, I'll put that up for anybody to salivate over while I work on the first of the series.
Cheers,
Actually a series is warranted. The topics will include(and likely more) in no specific order, the bookstore, assumed software, communication (or lack thereof), early finals, stupid policies, advising hiccups, reverse 'isms' (surely a sensitive topic to which I may tread into uncomfortable territory for a bit) and idiots in general (I'll likely save that for last as it will end up being a post about random idiots and their mind-numbing buffoonery which could very well be the most interesting but at the same time could also be the most long-winded and directionless post yet).
So now that the intro is done, I'll put that up for anybody to salivate over while I work on the first of the series.
Cheers,
Friday, May 27, 2011
I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that.
Thoughts concerning free will, robots and the application of both in regards to combat and morality...
Philosophers have been struggling with this question for about as long as there have been philosophers. As it stands I will have to take a rather philosophical position on this topic. The best I have been able to say about free will and whether humans have it (or if machines can) is that from my perspective it sure as hell seems like I have free will. I can decide to get up when the alarm clock goes off or I can choose to hit that snooze button. I can pick what meal I would like to eat. But if you take a step back it is easy to see a lot of impinging outside influences that affect our choices. From the big things like identifying as one religion or another (the influence here is based mostly on where and to who somebody is born and the same could be said of political stances or languages used) to the little things like my girlfriend used all the milk for her smoothie so instead of cereal for breakfast I will have some toast instead. I do still seem to have a choice but those choices are diminished or increased depending on a whole bunch of other criterion that are not necessarily up to me.
A machine, I believe, would have the same sort of influences. At a high level of functionality a machine's free will would appear to be like our own. At least in the sense that it would be allowed to choose between the options available to it at the time a choice was needed. At the low level of functionality machines clearly have little choice and at times this is true of humans as well. If one is asked to choose between morally ambiguous matters such as sacrificing one for the good of the many then how do we define responsibility and choice of action. Is one choice better than the other? Do we prefer logic and utility over a possible range of "gut" feelings and intuitions? Is one to be held responsible for making a choice that seems right which ultimately turns out to be wrong in hindsight? How about when no choice is made between two equally bad outcomes? Is a decision to not make a decision grounds enough to hold somebody accountable? Furthermore, will we be quicker to judge an artificial system more harshly then we would a human? Evidence has proved that we are indeed more likely to blame a machine for malfunctioning than we are a person. I don't think that this is necessarily fair but it is a reality. As the machines gain more autonomy and begin to show signs of free will I can only assume that this trend will increase.
These sorts of questions unfortunately lead to circular arguments and that is probably why there has not yet been a solid answer to whether or not free will exists at all. All I can say is that given the overwhelming abundance of evidence that I personally have access to (my own mind and memories) it sure seems like I have free will.
As for machines there is a threshold out there when they will have something approximating what we all think of as free will. When that point is reached is when we will really need to think about what it means to be sentient beyond selecting a tasty breakfast. And of course that is the central idea to this course and this discourse. We need to get ahead of the game before these sorts of machines become a reality. What I mean by this is that since we will be the creators be have a duty to try and make these machines as moral and ethical as possible from the ground up.
This brings me to the main point that I would like to make about machines built for the purpose of combat. To me it seems irrelevant if we can produce war machines that are able to understand and follow the laws of armed combat, or specific rules of engagement. I am sure that we can but that isn't the question I want to ask. I want to ask whether we should. At no other point in time has mankind been so close to being able to wipe itself from the face of the planet than in the last 70 years. Increasing that possibility with autonomous gun toting robots seems to be very counter intuitive. If and when we produce a machine capable of thinking for itself I truly want it's answer when asked to kill not to be "yes sir" but "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that."
Cheers
Philosophers have been struggling with this question for about as long as there have been philosophers. As it stands I will have to take a rather philosophical position on this topic. The best I have been able to say about free will and whether humans have it (or if machines can) is that from my perspective it sure as hell seems like I have free will. I can decide to get up when the alarm clock goes off or I can choose to hit that snooze button. I can pick what meal I would like to eat. But if you take a step back it is easy to see a lot of impinging outside influences that affect our choices. From the big things like identifying as one religion or another (the influence here is based mostly on where and to who somebody is born and the same could be said of political stances or languages used) to the little things like my girlfriend used all the milk for her smoothie so instead of cereal for breakfast I will have some toast instead. I do still seem to have a choice but those choices are diminished or increased depending on a whole bunch of other criterion that are not necessarily up to me.
A machine, I believe, would have the same sort of influences. At a high level of functionality a machine's free will would appear to be like our own. At least in the sense that it would be allowed to choose between the options available to it at the time a choice was needed. At the low level of functionality machines clearly have little choice and at times this is true of humans as well. If one is asked to choose between morally ambiguous matters such as sacrificing one for the good of the many then how do we define responsibility and choice of action. Is one choice better than the other? Do we prefer logic and utility over a possible range of "gut" feelings and intuitions? Is one to be held responsible for making a choice that seems right which ultimately turns out to be wrong in hindsight? How about when no choice is made between two equally bad outcomes? Is a decision to not make a decision grounds enough to hold somebody accountable? Furthermore, will we be quicker to judge an artificial system more harshly then we would a human? Evidence has proved that we are indeed more likely to blame a machine for malfunctioning than we are a person. I don't think that this is necessarily fair but it is a reality. As the machines gain more autonomy and begin to show signs of free will I can only assume that this trend will increase.
These sorts of questions unfortunately lead to circular arguments and that is probably why there has not yet been a solid answer to whether or not free will exists at all. All I can say is that given the overwhelming abundance of evidence that I personally have access to (my own mind and memories) it sure seems like I have free will.
As for machines there is a threshold out there when they will have something approximating what we all think of as free will. When that point is reached is when we will really need to think about what it means to be sentient beyond selecting a tasty breakfast. And of course that is the central idea to this course and this discourse. We need to get ahead of the game before these sorts of machines become a reality. What I mean by this is that since we will be the creators be have a duty to try and make these machines as moral and ethical as possible from the ground up.
This brings me to the main point that I would like to make about machines built for the purpose of combat. To me it seems irrelevant if we can produce war machines that are able to understand and follow the laws of armed combat, or specific rules of engagement. I am sure that we can but that isn't the question I want to ask. I want to ask whether we should. At no other point in time has mankind been so close to being able to wipe itself from the face of the planet than in the last 70 years. Increasing that possibility with autonomous gun toting robots seems to be very counter intuitive. If and when we produce a machine capable of thinking for itself I truly want it's answer when asked to kill not to be "yes sir" but "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that."
Cheers
'sup bitches...
...yeah, I know there is nobody that qualifies as "bitches" here. Whatever.
I'm working on a meaningful addition for this forum but for now here's a bit of fluff.
I've been off the grid for a while now because I've been in school. Learning some good stuff. Getting good grades too. *pats own back a bit* In addition to that I now have a steady job. While it doesn't pay all that much it is meaningful and that makes a big difference. It's also not involved with the modern day slavers I mentioned last time. I'm sure I will talk about that more soon but for now it's not that important. So, short and sweet, expect more in a few days (that is if you even give a deuce).
Cheers
I'm working on a meaningful addition for this forum but for now here's a bit of fluff.
I've been off the grid for a while now because I've been in school. Learning some good stuff. Getting good grades too. *pats own back a bit* In addition to that I now have a steady job. While it doesn't pay all that much it is meaningful and that makes a big difference. It's also not involved with the modern day slavers I mentioned last time. I'm sure I will talk about that more soon but for now it's not that important. So, short and sweet, expect more in a few days (that is if you even give a deuce).
Cheers
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