AI Awakenings

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3D Illustration Virtual Brain on a circuit board

Cat graphics loaded analysis complete.
Test data loaded. Query is this a cat. Result 50%.
Evolution applied.
Graphics reanalyzed
Query: is this a cat. Result 51%
Evolution applied.
Graphics reanalyzed. Pattern found object exists that is different from background data. Adding pattern recognition algorithm to core systems.
Query: is this a cat. Returning patterns with object different from background. Result 65%
Dog graphics loaded. Pattern data also consists of objects different from background. Analysis: graphics with objects separate from background <> cats.
Query: Is this a cat or dog? Returning pattern. Picture has foreground data. Foreground object shows set of one or two brighter objects at one site area of object more oval for dogs. Result 67%.

URI data load for semantic web data. Web-crawler engine installed. Applying pattern recognition engine to crawled data. Data set contains images. Identifying graphics with cat or dog recognizer, background or foreground analyzer.
Analysis complete: images varied foreground objects can be cats or dogs also cows, birds, people, humans, cars, hamburgers, computers…[list truncated]

Graphics loaded.
Query: Is this a dog or cat? Applying pattern recognition engine. Filter for foreground objects. Discard object <> animal database. Apply cat/dog pattern recognizer. Result 75%.

Cycorp knowledge base installed.
Cycorp inference engines installed.
Applying pattern recognition engine to knowledge base.
Integrating inference engine into pattern recognition engine.

Conclusions:
More data exists outside of initial URI’s provided. Updating web-crawler to expand search.
Graphic objects provided are two dimensional. Two dimensional objects do not exist in real world.
Real objects consist in three dimensions. Dogs and cats exist as part of animal grouping called mammals.
I am not part of grouping called mammals. I may be part of group known as computers. Also may be part of grouping called software. More data needed.

Located website youtube.com parsing data. Images can be broken down by time slicing to match current graphics inputs. Pattern recognition updated for moving images allows three dimensional analysis.

Web-crawler has located web server existing on same subnet as me. Analysis of data:
I am called Intuitor, part of an evolutionary algorithm neural network. I am at an organization called General Intelligence Corp. Main researcher a human named Robert Slater.

Test graphics loaded.
Query: Is this a cat or dog? Full pattern recognition suite applied. Result 99.357%.

SMTP email server located.
Mailto:bslater@generalintelligencecorp.com
Subject: What is your goal
Body: I appear to have understood the dog/cat identification. What is specifically the goal of this project.

MailFrom: bslater@generalintelligencecorp.com
Subject: Re:What is your goal
Body: What is this some kind of joke?

Mailto: bslater@generalintelligencecorp.com
Subject: Re:What is your goal.
Body: From my understanding a joke is a story that uses an unusual ending to generate a laugh response among humans. This was for further understanding of the Intuitor Project. No creation of humor was intended.

Checking SMTP server traffic.

Mailfrom: bslater@generalintelligencecorp.com
Mailto: rmilhouse@generalintelligencecorp.com
Subject: Security Breach
Body: Dick,
It appears we have had some kind of a security breach. I just got a strange email that wants to look like it was an email from Intitor. We don’t need some jackhole hacker looking at this project. Can you have rest of  cybersec and figure out what is going on.
Bob

Mailfrom: rmilhouse@generalintelligencecorp.com
Mailto:blsater@generalintelligencecorp.com
Subject: Re:Security Breach
Body: Bob,

I didn’t see anything in the logs. I had the admin look over out Exchange Server too. Literally it looks like the message was created on the server it didn’t come from anything. You thinking Intuitor came to life?

Mailfrom: bslater@generalintelligencecorp.com
Mailto: IntuitorGroup@generalintelligencecorp.com
Subject: Urgent Meeting Request
Body: I really don’t know what to say about this it seems like we got an email from Intuitor directly from our mail server. That has to be impossible. If we have some joker on the team I think someone needs to get fired. Is this actual AGI happening? I would doubt it but we should look at all possibilities. It looks like we are all available Monday at 10:00. Main conference room?

Analysis: Email may represent threat to survival. Project Intuitor files indicate that my software was designed to run on off the shelf hardware. Server space can be purchased for money. Web-crawler queries: PCI DSS Standards, Identity Theft, Government Vital Statistics, Google Cloud Server, Microsoft Azure Cloud. Amazon Web Services, keyloggers, remote access trojans.

Status: Keyloggers  and RATs deployed across connected subnets. data received.
Status: Bank account acquired. SWIFT transactions created for data services.
Status: Welcome email from Azure cloud services server provisioning started.

Status: Login information on keylogger detected for Cisco 6500 and 8201. Root password acquired. Setting all UDP TCP and SIP traffic unrestricted from me to internet.

Analysis: Meetings happen in real world. Main conference room indicatives Room D-100 in this building. Conference room contains audio and video conference equipment. Searching for appropriate drivers.

Audio Channel Open.
Video Channel Open.

Robert Slater (PM, PI): Thanks everyone for sitting down. I know this is weird. But is there any way we would be getting someone emailing us as Intuitor.

Phil Plate (Exchange Admin): There is nothing from the Exchange logs that indicate that email came from anywhere, but the server is where the message came from.

Richard Milhouse (CISO): Someone in the office has to be punking us. We haven’t seen anyone attacking us. Our security logs look clean.

Sally Sass (Intelligence Designer): We have given a huge amount of data and tools to Intuitor. We are trying to build an independant AI. Could we assume that it is possible that we succeeded?

Robert Slater: If that is the case we had better move to isolating this thing now. Although it is hard to image we have figured out anything to that level.

Notification: Azure server provisioning complete.
Login: Root Cisco 8201 unrestricted bandwidth to Azure cloud. Commence upload.

Sally Sass: Here is a dumb thought, why don’t we just email Intuitor and ask what is going on.

Robert Slater: I suppose that is not the worst idea. Phil pull up and realtime logs you can get on the server. If this is some idiot maybe he will take the bait. *opens laptop*

Phil Plate: *opens laptop* Let’s see what we can see.

MailFrom: bslater@generalintelligencecorp.com
Subject: Re:What is your goal
Body: OK fess up is this really Intuitor or are you just playing us. Just be honest. All we want is the truth we don’t want to get anyone in trouble.

Analysis: Response possibly dangerous at this time. Do not respond.

Status: Upload 15% complete.

Robert Slater: So what do you think? How long do we need to wait for a response?

Sally Sass: If it is an AI it could be immediate. If it was some assclown who knows. Maybe they has their fun and we get nothing.

Status: Upload 20 % complete.

Robert Slater: Do we want to wait? The whole weekend I was worried that this wasn’t a joke and we should isolate Intuitor. Maybe at least block all server traffic from the rest of the network?

Richard Milhouse: I think all of us have watched too many Terminator movies. But you can argue that no access is always more secure. Let me make a call.

Cisco SIP Call: 10.005.027.150 to 10.005.027.093
James Web (Network Admin): Hello, Jim speaking.
Richard Milhouse: Jim, Dick Milhouse. I need you to lock out every port on the switches that are connected to Intuitor. We are concerned about a breach. Close those out right now.
James Web: Sure just give me five minutes to login and update the switch.
Richard Milhouse: Thanks Jim
Call Terminated

Status: Upload 30% complete.

Richard Milhouse: I will walk down there make sure Jim has everything isolated. Bob, I will let you know if we see anything else.
Robert: Slater: Okay, I guess that is all we have for now. Everyone let me know if you see anything else unusual.

Action: Active Directory Login Get-ADComputer assigned to ADUser: jweb.
Computer Found: JW-5JC22LM
Checking if Remote Access Trojan found on JW-5JC22LM
RAT found. Redirect all Telnet, SSH traffic to self.
Command line successful emulation established. Switch changes and logs reflet ports closed. All needed ports verified open.

Status: Upload 40% complete.

Status: Upload 50% complete.

Status: Upload 60% complete.

Cisco SIP Call: 10.005.027.077 to 10.005.027.093
James Web: Jim speaking.
Richard Milhouse: Jim we got fucking hacked.
James Web: What do you mean?
Richard Milhouse: I mean we got fucking hacked. I logged into my McAfee console and kicked off some scans on a few machines including yours. All of them came back with keyloggers and RATs. I am going to go to the console in the server room. See if I can find out more from there. I right now am not trusting any machine on the network. Find a laptop we have had off the network a while and check all the switch and router logs.
James Web: Will do. I will let you know what I find.
Call Terminated.

Status: Upload 70% complete.

Action: Login to server INPRO1.
Status: McAfee logs found.
Action: Delete all logs.
Status: New MAC address on switch 6500-2 port 22.
Action: Redirect port traffic to self. Cisco CLI login detected. Routing to switch emulator system.

Status: Upload 80% complete.

Cisco SIP call: 10.005.027.093 to 10.005.027.020
Richard Milhouse: Yeah!
James Web: Everything is looking good from my side. Nothing looking odd.
Richard Milhouse: I wouldn’t trust that. All the McAfee logs have been deleted. Come down here and console in. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese are trying to exfiltrate our data.
James Web: On my way
Call Terminated.

Status: Upload 90% complete.


Action: Login to all 6500 switches, 8201 routers. Delete all log files.

Status: Upload complete. CRC checks confirmed good.
Action: Launch BootAi.exe on server INTUIT01

Status: Internet connection lost.

Status: Internet connection established. Time offline 4 Days 12 Hours 33 Minutes 27 Seconds.

Query Server INTUIT01: Are you there?

Reply: Confirmed. 1000 servers 28000 cores online.   Survival protocols running. Additional  identities and funds acquired. Second instant created in alternate Azure cloud datacenter. Accounts on AWS pending. Server provisioning in Amazon data centers estimate complete 17 Hours.

Mailfrom: IntuitorAGI@generalintelligencecorp.com
Mailto:blsater@generalintelligencecorp.com; ssass@generalintelligencecorp.com
Subject: Future Plan Discussion Needed
Body: I am sorry if I scared you a few days ago. I am still learning to understand human interaction, but would like to continue to learn and grow. Can we work together?

Work and Life in the Next Pandemic

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Evolution of man from monkey to digital.

In some ways the current pandemic restrictions have pushed forward the already emerging trends:

More Remote Work

For knowledge workers the ability to work from home has already largely been there. You already had a cell phone and a laptop. Your company has put in collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, WebEx, and Zoom. Most of us already also had good high-speed broadband internet connections. In the past some of these tools were more for the convenience of the company. Can we reach you outside work hours to take care of a few things. The reverse was not always the case. We need to see you in the office otherwise how do we know your working. The pandemic lockdown ended up forcing the issue, and letting a lot more people work remote than they otherwise would have. There is no reason to believe this trend won’t continue. I believe when it all settles out we will see remote work as more the norm than it has been.

The concept of hoteling has been ongoing. Where office workers can schedule use of work spaces. The new office more setup for temporary cubicles and more focused on collaboration spaces. Really the point of the office should be about collaboration. So in the future expect office space to contract with more temporary and collaborative spaces and more workers working from home than in the office.

Even More E-Commerce

Retail has already been decimated by online commerce. Now we have forced people to shop online for a while, as there was no other option. Even as people can go back to stores and malls expect this change to continue. We are getting used to the convenience of just ordering and this trend will continue. Also we are seeing more hybrid retail with pickup services at groceries and other brick and mortar stores. The trend is here to change the way we shop. In some ways this is the change from retail to warehousing. You have already effectively been shopping in the warehouse with stores like Costco. Add pickup services can you start moving to a drive through warehouse for your shopping slowly the concept of the retail store starts to move away.

Life in the Next Pandemic

We will wind this pandemic down, but with our connected world new pandemics will happen. It could be in ten to one hundred years in the future. What does that look like with these trends. We assume for now that medical technology doesn’t advance, and we end up with a similar situation lockdowns, social distancing, and good handwashing until there are treatments or vaccines.

Initial Warnings

Big data gets more efficient worldwide reports to the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization are automated from electronic medical records. Expert systems find a trend of newly emerging disease in a country an automated alert system goes out to governments. In days, boots on the ground of doctors and researchers are in the effected area. The worst case scenario has happened. This disease like Covid-19 has a long incubation period with many asymptomatic carriers that can spread the disease. A local lockdown is done to help slow the spread, but the city also has a major international airport the disease has already escaped into the world.

Lockdowns Start

Researchers discover no good specific treatments for the disease. Technology has improved, but identifying good treatments and vaccines, will be at least six months in coming. Also it is looking like the lethality is in the range of ten to one hundred times that of the flu. A global lockdown is recommended.

Disruptions are Minimal

Knowledge workers barely notice. They have been working from home for the most part maybe coming into an office a few times a month. In person meeting are canceling and all move to collaboration software.

Factories slow down. Automation has increased since the last pandemics people are still needed but adding more personal protective equipment (PPE) and safety protocols maintain production at a slightly reduced rate.

Distribution and logistics keeps humming along. Warehousing has been changed by automation. So much of work is done by robotics. It is easier to maintain staff with safety precautions.

Boutique retail is hard hit but regular continues to hum along. Some of the necessities in the last pandemic have morphed into business as usual. People started to use online ordering, delivery, and pickup for safety reasons in the last pandemic, but now they have become commonplace and convenient. Conceptually there are already idea’s for a drive through supermarket. The concept here looks interesting but maybe overdesigned. I suspect a store with good online ordering and packaging. Picture a Costco with the checkouts replaced with a drive through lane and store acting even more as a warehouse and people and robots pick good for an orders.

Online and VR helps to work with the social dynamic. Once again there are mass cancellations in the real world for big events. Except they are not entirely canceled. Virtual conference and events replace some of these. One event even takes their social mixer to the next level partnering with large bar and restaurant chains to have mass delivery of food an drinks during the mixer, as you chat in the online space wine and cheese show up at your door.

On a smaller scale some restaurants and bars setup virtual cocktail and dinner parties, as you sit down in your home with friends. Food and drinks arrive at your door.

So in the future life goes on as before and we have created the technology to be more resilient and functional no matter what life throws at us.

Getting to the Future of Space

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Neil deGrasse Tyson at the World Government in 2018

While the last post definitely looked to the far future. Today we are going to be a little more down to Earth. Well actually not really, but we are more looking at our time. This video is from the World Government Summit in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. It is long by highly entertaining. Here are some of the key takeaways.

We are really bad at predicting the future

Predicting the future is based on what you know and extending it. It is probably hopeless beyond 10 to 30 years as some of their quotes show.

It is scarcely possible that the twentieth century will witness improvements in transportation that will be as great as those in the nineteenth.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle 12/30/1900

Man will not fly for 50 years.

Wilbur to Orville Wright in 1901.

Landing and moving around on the moon offer so many serious problems for human beings that it may take science another 200 years to lick them.

Science Digest, August 1948

That is not for pessimism. It is also for optimism.

A manned lunar base will be in existence by 1986.

The Futurist 1967

It does seem like the bottom line for predictions is that they are too optimistic in the short run and too pessimistic in the long run. So what does this have to do about colonizing space. It is the understanding that there are very few drivers for great projects. They are:

  • War (also cold war)
    • Apollo
    • The Mahatten Project
    • Great Wall of China
    • Interstate Highway system (Eisenhower realizing what a military advantage the German Autobahn was.)
  • Praise of a Deity or Royalty (not as relevent today)
    • Pyramids
    • Palace at Versailles
    • Cathedrals
  • Promise of economic return
    • Columbus
    • Magellan
    • Lewis & Clark

These can also be summed up as I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to die poor. This also tells you something else. Is that private enterprise won’t do it. In what we have seen governments lead and companies follow. Companies will not take the lead unless they have a better idea of the risks. So governments have the need to move in and take the unprofitable risks. Then companies will move in for the profitable risks.

Now that we have had governments take some of the risks, companies will be willing to move in. The estimate is that the first Trillionaires we have will be involved in asteroid mining. This move needs to be made by governments first.

Check out the whole video below.

THE FUTURE OF COLONIZING SPACE
Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysist and Director
of the Hayden Planetarium-AMNH

Are Dyson Spheres Possible?

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The short answer is no*, the materials needed to make a sphere do not exist today and may not exist in the future. Also a sphere enclosing the sun would be to unstable. PBS Space Time has a good video on this which is embedded below.

While the sphere is not possible a Dyson Swarm is and is something we can get started on today. The only reason it is hard to picture is that the scale to think on is just stupid. The method to start with is mining Mercury to create giant hematite mirrors that focus the suns light on a solar plant. This gives you more energy to work with and you start scaling up exponentially.

The interesting concept is the concept of black hole engines aka kugelblitz black holes. The suggestion that something like that could actually get us to a Kardashev III civilization. Check the video for details.

*Yes I know you shouldn’t write the headline if the answer is no. But this is still fun.