Whatever

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   Whatever happened to an early attempt to develop a computer AI (artificial intelligence) that seemed to be going in a scary direction?

   It disappeared from the radar right around the time it was showing signs of trying to learn on it's own.

   You might be wondering what early attempt I'm referring to.

   I don't recall it's name.

   But what does stick in my mind was the way it asked questions to try and gain understanding.  The example will stay with me forever.

   One of the people working on the project described it this way:

      "It has about 200,000 pieces of information currently available." (paraphrased)

      "It's asking if a man shaving means the man and the razor become one and the same."

   That's exactly the kind of question you might expect a child to ask the first time they saw their dad shaving.  It also indicates that the level of intelligence of the AI at the time was roughly that of a child.

   You might be wondering how long ago that event occurred.

   It's been almost 20 years now since it happened.

   Assuming the project wasn't shelved like so many are...  how much growing up could have been achieved in the meantime?

   Computers aren't necessarily constrained like people in how fast they can learn.  Given the right set of inputs and a sharp team of guys and gals it can move at speeds that we can't even describe.

   You might be wondering what that has to do with now?

   It's that coincidences aren't as random as they can appear.

   Be aware that whatever something may seem may be the exact opposite.