Team Aims To Create Pure Evil AI 527
puroresu writes "Scientific American reports on the efforts of Selmer Bringsjord and his team at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who have been attempting to develop an AI possessed of an interesting character trait: pure evil. From the article, 'He and his research team began developing their computer representation of evil by posing a series of questions beginning with the basics: name, age, sex, etc., and progressing to inquiries about this fictional person's beliefs and motivations. This exercise resulted in "E," a computer character first created in 2005 to meet the criteria of Bringsjord's working definition of evil. Whereas the original E was simply a program designed to respond to questions in a manner consistent with Bringsjord's definition, the researchers have since given E a physical identity: It's a relatively young, white man with short black hair and dark stubble on his face.'"
How do you define evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well Bringsjord's definition quotes
To be truly evil, someone must have sought to do harm by planning to commit some morally wrong action with no prompting from others (whether this person successfully executes his or her plan is beside the point). The evil person must have tried to carry out this plan with the hope of "causing considerable harm to others," Bringsjord says. Finally, "and most importantly," he adds, if this evil person were willing to analyze his or her reasons for wanting to commit this morally wrong action, these reasons would either prove to be incoherent, or they would reveal that the evil person knew he or she was doing something wrong and regarded the harm caused as a good thing.
So I guess all they have to be is a religious nutjob who thinks killing heathens/infadels/etc etc is alright.
Re:At what point... (Score:5, Insightful)
A fair few studies suggest that a face that looks about like that one, with more or less unpleasantly masculine features, rates low on perceived trustworthiness and high on perceived threat. Of course, the evil that you don't recognize is way more dangerous than the obvious one, so choosing that is kind of silly; but I'm not too surprised that they did.
Re:How do you define evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything, the most dangerous nutjobs are characterized by their extreme degree of value-rational conduct. In the case of pretty much any religious nutjob of note, you'll find, either around them or in the society that spawned them, numerous people who embrace the same epistemological and metaphysical convictions who, nevertheless, are only modestly dangerous, at most, because they do not follow their convictions through to their rational conclusion.
Re:How do you define evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
Evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
This sounds to me more like cruelty, which is certainly a kind of evil, but by no means the only one. It's also more than a little cartoonish: this is someone who appears to do harm simply for the sake of causing harm (i.e. for the lulz?), rather than the more carefully rationalized evil seen as realistic today. How useful will that really turn out to be?
Re:How do you define evil? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not necessarily. You're getting into the regions of moral relativism. What one person sees as evil, another sees as good.
What ever action you take, or choose not to take, has social ramifications. Depending on the scale of your (in)action, multiple societies will cast their opinion on it. And each will see your act differently.
In a "good" person, we see someone who cares more for the good of the society, and society's opinion of them, then they do for their own desires.
In a typical person, we see a balance of personal desires against societal needs and social expectations.
In an "evil" person, we see someone who cares more for their own personal desires than societal needs and social expectations.
For a pure evil person, we would need someone who not only cares more for their own personal desires, but finds achieving their personal desires at the expense of society to be fulfilling. For the most part, see Heath Ledger's rendition of the Joker.
So I would argue that it requires less personal energy and resources to be evil than it does to be good. The trade off though, is that most western societies have ways of dealing with evil people.
-Rick
Re:How do you define evil? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think any sufficiently intelligent entity would abandon being evil on the grounds that it leads to waste of energy and resources.
You obviously forgot to factor in the entertainment vector. There are only a few reasons to disintegrate a populated orphanage with high explosives--and fun is right on the top of that list.
Re:At what point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:At what point... (Score:4, Insightful)
How nice of you to notice.
Re:How do you define evil? (Score:2, Insightful)
Didn't people say that about the martians in Mars Attacks? Maybe said entity is like an internet troll or those martians, tormenting people just for the hell of it.
Of course if we listen to "liberals, intellectuals and peacemongers" like you we'll end up getting wiped out. Why do you hate humanity so much?
Re:How do you define evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
Except that evolution is science, not philosophy, and atheism is disbelief, not philosophy. There is nothing in atheism that "commands" anything, and there is nothing in evolution that "commands" anything.
Re:How do you define evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How do you define evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
What if your dog tells you to do something....like kill people?
Are you evil or is the dog?
The dog is evil, and you are silly for blindly obeying the commands of a dog.
The real question is, what if your God tells you to do something.. like kill people?
Are you evil, or is your God?
Re:At what point... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I foresee (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop choosing the lesser evil. (Score:4, Insightful)
After reading the article I think the kery thing this research has proven is that being a great computer scientist does not necessarily guarantee you'll be an even passable philosopher or psychologist.
Re:At what point... (Score:1, Insightful)
well if you didn't let everyone do it it would be discrimination, and thats wrong. So white devil it is.
p.s. I think a grinning skull would have been cooler and way more P.C., but i bet it would probably start freaking out the geeks working on it. Better the fake devil you know i guess.
p.p.s Evil programming = WTF!!
Re:I foresee (Score:3, Insightful)
You're all idiot's.
Re:How do you define evil? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ob. Pratchett quote:
"And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."
"It's a lot more complicated than that--"
"No it ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts."
"Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes-"
"But they Starts with thinking about people as thingsâ¦"
Why a "white male"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why not a white female? Why not a black male?
Sexism and racism aside, being evil has nothing to do with either of them. But to be frank, it sucks being a white male sometimes as it makes us the scape goat for every group that complains about anything as if my coincidence of birth makes me evil. If I like children, I am a sexual predator because only women are allowed to like children without added scrutiny. And since I am a man, I am to be feared by any unescorted woman of any age. And of course, since I'm white, I'm responsible for slavery and all manner of things done by people who were white.
Frankly, there are plenty of ways to generate a racially and/or even sexually ambiguous face for this identity of evil and that would have been the "safe route" to go in my opinion. After all, anyone who remembers installing Windows95 and seeing all those racially ambiguous people may have been left asking "what are they?" The answer is that Microsoft generated these faces in order to appeal to the largest possible audience.
And why "stubbly"? Evil people can't be groomed? I find that the people who are most interested in themselves are also the same people who are most inclined to be evil. This would mean that their appearance is most likely to be well groomed. And while we're at it, let's make the "evil character" have slicked back hair and speak with a British accent of some sort. Let's just use "Snape" as the model for the face while we're at it. All the most evil movie characters speak with either some sort of british or european accent after all.
Re:The Scary Door from "The Spanish Fry" (Score:1, Insightful)
Scientist: *a mad scientist is seen mixing chemicals* I have combined the DNA of the world's most evil animals to make the most evil creature of them all. *a pod opens flowing with clouds of steam*
Naked RIAA/MPAA lawyers: *steps out of pod* Turns out it's lawyers!
Re:At what point... (Score:2, Insightful)
As long as white men are the most powerful demographic to ever exist, then who the frak cares? It' the burden of being king of the hill...you are the easiest target for everyone else.
Re:At what point... (Score:5, Insightful)
They needed a character that wouldn't be perceived as racist or genderist, so only a white male would be the Politically Correct safe choice.
Re:At what point... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that if it is wrong to do at all, then it is wrong to do. It doesn't really matter if they are king of the hill, it matters if it is right or wrong to do. The biggest problem is that if you can justify an exception then other can and will too and it will never cease to exist.
Re:At what point... (Score:4, Insightful)
I know it's bad internet manners to use all caps, but I think this is an important point for all you children to hear:
There's NO SUCH THING as RACISM AGAINST WHITE PEOPLE.
Bullshit.
Though I digress, my point is that you can start complaining about racism against white people once people of color invade your homeland, enslave you, kill most everyone you know, then a couple of good-hearted ones finally manage to convince the others to leave you alone, but now you're left in crushing poverty in a place where most people hate you and your people.
My wife is non-white. She hasn't been enslaved, her friends and family have not been killed, she has not been left in crushing poverty in a place where most people hate her and her people. But she has been refused promotion on the grounds that the employer would never allow a non-white into a management position, and she has had a manager complain about having her on his team because he only wanted white men (she took that one to law on grounds of racial and sexual discrimination, and won). That's not what you describe, but it's still racism, and when it happens to white people (it does) then it's still racism. Your argument is a simple logical fallacy. You are arguing:
Lets try another argument of exactly the same form:
See why your argument doesn't hold up? It's called "denying the antecedant" -- look it up.
Re:I foresee (Score:5, Insightful)
I view "Good" and "Evil" to a large extent as imaginary terms that we apply to people who agree or disagree with us. True you could manipulate people for your own goals without regard for their welfare or the consequences of your actions and that would be fairly evil, but usually you view your goals as "good" and furthering them as good for everyone, even if they don't realize it at the time.
Re:At what point... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:At what point... brinks commercials (Score:4, Insightful)
The drinking and driving commercials are the same. A car driven by a white male is pulled over by cops of various races.
Re:How do you define evil? (Score:4, Insightful)
That is utterly moronic. You just stated (or copied, more like - I doubt you are even capable of thinking for yourself...) a bunch of made up assumptions (just because they are in bold doesn't make them true) and then used those made up assumptions to justify themselves. Wow, a pillar of logic you are.
You claim religion allows all of these things? That religion allows logic, dignity, and morality? Well I claim humans created religion. So from my single assumption, I can logically state that the very act of being human thus allows all of the things you claim don't exist if humans created religion. Atheists don't believe that religion doesn't exist - they just don't believe god has to exist for humans to create a religion.
Re:Pure Evil? Check out latest contract killing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bravo. If I had mod points, they'd be yours.
Truth be told, I dislike the way his plan is turning out. I'm really not sure what I should feel, as the system is so complicated that I doubt ANYONE truly knows what is best. All I do know to believe is that there are people who go broke through complicated (and often unnecessary) medical procedures. Worse, because they can't afford them, some people go without them completely and end up with worse conditions that hospitals have to deal with in the end. This is unacceptable as a citizen and as a human being.
I recall reading a Republican Representative's quote in Time magazine a while back about how if they can beat Obama's healthcare plan, they'll beat HIM. That, to me, is pure evil. They oppose a plan not because it's in the best interest of the people (or so they believe, in any case) but because they want political power.
Re:At what point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Minority white farmers in Zimbabwe care as they're driven off their land and out of the country by the powerful ultra racist black majority...
When are the people who constantly condemn the evil racist white man going to start condemning the racist apartheid black mans state of Zimbabwe?
That would be never.