No wonder camera manufacturers loved digital photography

[faberryman]

Top end cameras like top end turntables bore no connection to the taste of their owners,

What does this mean?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Nikon professional cameras with Photomic heads looked like an afterthought. Leica looked fine so long as you didn't veer far from 50mm. Top end cameras like top end turntables bore no connection to the taste of their owners,

Blah, blah, blan. More utter nonsense.

 

[Cholentpot]

Before the digital revolution I only ever bought one kind of camera.

Disposable cameras.

These little guys are the true culprit. I don't think I even loaded a roll of film in the 90's-2000's. I only got into true film photography after the prices crashed and all the goodies I drooled over were within my reach. Lenses still cost an arm and a leg and maybe film is a bit harder to get hold of. I always say, if not for digital I wouldn't shoot film.

Seriously though, I have a full running darkroom and complete Nikon, Canon, Pentax and Olympus systems. 20 years ago if you would have asked skinny geeky lil' kid me if I would have any of this I would have looked at you weird for asking a kid his opinion.

 

[blockend]

Not true. I used AI on many successful projects. You need to stick to posting what your really know and not base your posts on what you had for breakfast.

It depends what you mean by intelligence. Computer intelligence is code, there's no independent reasoning involved. I know a chap who was involved in developing AI systems for a large computer company, he thought artificial intelligence was an immanent reality. After years of analysing the problem he concluded it was impossible. We haven't the slightest clue what consciousness is, so how can we develop conscious systems? You clearly haven't the slightest idea what's involved.

 

[Sirius Glass]

We haven't the slightest clue what consciousness is, so how can we develop conscious systems? You clearly haven't the slightest idea what's involved.

If that is true, how did I build a very comfortable and stable retirement building and selling artificial intelligence in systems, some of which are in the very aircraft you fly in?

 

[blockend]

Blah, blah, blan. More utter nonsense.

How can an aesthetic judgement be nonsense? It's a design matter, not a logical puzzle to be solved. Otherwise one logo on a camera would be as good as the next because both are legible. It would mean Nikon's rangefinder engraving and Minolta's 1990s printed sunset (or whatever the thing was) were equally efficient because both contained letters. Or that you're blind. Hifi enthusiasts demonstrated the excellence of their equipment by what couldn't be heard (noise). In the same way camera buffs peep into the corners of their screen at 200% to evaluate their lenses. Neither have anything to do great music or creative photography

 

[blockend]

If that is true, how did I build a very comfortable and stable retirement building and selling artificial intelligence in systems, some of which are in the very aircraft you fly in?

Read David Chalmers on the hard problem of consciousness. The only thing you don't know about the subject is the depth of your ignorance.

 

[Sirius Glass]

How can an aesthetic judgement be nonsense?

I never said that AI included aesthetic judgement. Nevertheless AI is more successful that your claims.

 

[blockend]

I never said that AI included aesthetic judgement. Nevertheless AI is more successful that your claims.

I replied to your insulting post on camera design.

 

[blockend]

Nevertheless AI is more successful that your claims.

The only intelligence is the code of the programmer, there's no independent thought involved. An intelligent plane would be able to rebuild itself, sail on the water when required, cross deserts, feed its inhabitants and tuck the kids up in bed at night. All things conscious intelligence can achieve.

 

[Sirius Glass]

The only intelligence is the code of the programmer, there's no independent thought involved. An intelligent plane would be able to rebuild itself, sail on the water when required, cross deserts, feed its inhabitants and tuck the kids up in bed at night. All things conscious intelligence can achieve.

Heuristics is used in artificial intelligence so that the computer learns from experience. I have used it in many systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic_(computer_science)

 

[blockend]

Heuristics is used in artificial intelligence so that the computer learns from experience. I have used it in many systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic_(computer_science)

Heuristics are algorithms based on conscious experience. Pilots flew planes across the Atlantic before there was a single computer on the aircraft or at ground control. They did this by cumulative experience that aviation programmes try to match. There isn't a single original thought generated inside a computer programme. Artificial Intelligence is a grand term for an electronic tool kit. It's no different in principle from the claims of old advertisements that said "The camera that thinks for you" because it had a zonal metering matrix,

It requires a casual interpretation of "thinks" and "intelligence" to take such claims seriously.

 

[MattKing]

It seems to me that we have people here using different definitions of Artificial Intelligence.
Sirius is talking about the sort of AI one works with when creating flexible and adaptable machines that can be designed and programmed to respond appropriately to an ever growing body of circumstances.
blockend is talking about the sort of AI that strives to create a near sentient being.
The work being done on the former is amazing!
The dream of the latter is both fascinating, and scary.

 

[blockend]

It seems to me that we have people here using different definitions of Artificial Intelligence.
Sirius is talking about the sort of AI one works with when creating flexible and adaptable machines that can be designed and programmed to respond appropriately to an ever growing body of circumstances.
blockend is talking about the sort of AI that strives to create a near sentient being.
The work being done on the former is amazing!
The dream of the latter is both fascinating, and scary.

AI is a loaded term. There are people with an ideological investment in machines being a direct equivalent of people, and who push that agenda whenever possible. This is not only philosophically dubious as it relegates the human and everything else in reality to a variety of machine for which there's little evidence, it's practically impossible to anyone who has seriously thought about the issue. Ask a materialist how consciousness emerges from unconscious matter, and they'll say by the process of conscious emergence. In other words we don't have a clue, but the term provides a placeholder in the absence of anything resembling science. AI is a similar deferral.

If the claim is mathematically adept individuals are good at writing code that looks like something's in charge (even if the reality is it's the programmer), people can call the smart stuff anything they like. All the intelligence is still human, not artificial.

 

[markbarendt]

Ask a materialist how consciousness emerges from unconscious matter, and they'll say by the process of conscious emergence. In other words we don't have a clue, but the term provides a placeholder in the absence of anything resembling science.

I agree that conscious emergence is a place holder term, but the question becomes "so what?"

No one has the answer to where consciousness came from; whether human, animal, plant, or machine.

Our ignorance as a species is IMO best described by placeholders rather than conjecture.

AI is a similar deferral.

If the claim is mathematically adept individuals are good at writing code that looks like something's in charge (even if the reality is it's the programmer), people can call the smart stuff anything they like. All the intelligence is still human, not artificial.

Well, if one had a god complex, one might say AI research is the process of 'intelligent design', that's just not done yet.

 

[markbarendt]

The dream of the latter is both fascinating, and scary.

Definitely interesting.

Worse yet ( ) I see nothing in nature that suggests nature prefers humans over all others.

 

[blockend]

I agree that conscious emergence is a place holder term, but the question becomes "so what?"

The mechanistic assumption permits behaviour that is toxic to conscious experience. The universe is a machine, nature is a machine, animals are machines, people are machines. Machines can be altered and turned on and off at will. Without knowing what consciousness is and how machines differ from living creatures, that is a highly dangerous assumptions and does not reflect how living things feel (qualia).

I don't trust anyone with a casual interpretation of those differences, and personal experience suggests many do not like their fellow humans, while eulogising humanity in the abstract.

 

[markbarendt]

The mechanistic assumption permits behaviour that is toxic to conscious experience. The universe is a machine, nature is a machine, animals are machines, people are machines. Machines can be altered and turned on and off at will. Without knowing what consciousness is and how machines differ from living creatures, that is a highly dangerous assumptions and does not reflect how living things feel (qualia).

I don't trust anyone with a casual interpretation of those differences, and personal experience suggests many do not like their fellow humans, while eulogising humanity in the abstract.

The point of a place holder is not casual, it is to allow for any possibility, no assumption mechanistic or otherwise.

The one thing that seems truly clear is that we don't know.

The argument you are bringing makes assumptions, like 'one is toxic to the other' and that 'we are smart enough and have enough data to make that determination because we feel'.

 

[MartinCrabtree]

"............philosophy is a walk on a slippery rock.........."

 

[removed account4]

"............philosophy is a walk on a slippery rock.........."

so true, so true

 

[CMoore]

The mechanistic assumption permits behaviour that is toxic to conscious experience. The universe is a machine, nature is a machine, animals are machines, people are machines. Machines can be altered and turned on and off at will. Without knowing what consciousness is and how machines differ from living creatures, that is a highly dangerous assumptions and does not reflect how living things feel (qualia).

I don't trust anyone with a casual interpretation of those differences, and personal experience suggests many do not like their fellow humans, while eulogising humanity in the abstract.

I THINK the guy was being interviewed by one of those Astro-Physicists that is so popular these days.....is his name Tyson or Dyson, something like that.?
Anyway, the scientist being interviewed made a damn convincing Theory/Argument that we are all simply part of some type of Digital/Computer program.
If you WERE simply some code, created by "Somebody" else.....how would you know.?
The better question is....how would you not know.?

 

[blockend]

I THINK the guy was being interviewed by one of those Astro-Physicists that is so popular these days.....is his name Tyson or Dyson, something like that.?
Anyway, the scientist being interviewed made a damn convincing Theory/Argument that we are all simply part of some type of Digital/Computer program.
If you WERE simply some code, created by "Somebody" else.....how would you know.?
The better question is....how would you not know.?

The problem with Neil deGrasse Tyson and his ilk, is they dismiss philosophy as a useless enterprise while being steeped in materialist metaphysics. They don't recognise their own biases and assumptions, but plough on anyway and dismiss the opinion of anyone who disagrees. It doesn't surprise me at all the Tyson thinks we're a branch of code in a monumental computer, as his entire career has been based on a 1950s sci-fi reading of reality. The kind of people who insist we wonder at the stars, but have no issues removing inconvenient people. The greatness of mankind, and the ugliness of individual man is how it plays out.

 

[Nodda Duma]

I THINK the guy was being interviewed by one of those Astro-Physicists that is so popular these days.....is his name Tyson or Dyson, something like that.?
Anyway, the scientist being interviewed made a damn convincing Theory/Argument that we are all simply part of some type of Digital/Computer program.
If you WERE simply some code, created by "Somebody" else.....how would you know.?
The better question is....how would you not know.?

Nothing more than cybernetic solipsism, the latest version of the philosophical thought that life is but a dream.

Occam's Razor tells us the easiest explanation is that this is reality.

 

[blockend]

Nothing more than cybernetic solipsism, the latest version of the philosophical thought that life is but a dream.

Occam's Razor tells us the easiest explanation is that this is reality.

Solipsism is the philosophical position which says all that can be known is that one is conscious. Every other position is a variety of escalating assumptions, including that other people are conscious. It's useful as far as it goes, but fails on first contact with reality. I like the idea of someone posting a comment on apug, and being bemused that their conscious experience has tricked them into believing someone has replied, but I fear such sensibilities only exist in philosophy class.

Materialism fails likewise. Someone can insist they're a biological robot responding to stimuli till the cows come home, but when they finish their lecture with a warm glow at their own insight and enjoy an evening of good company and food with fellow philosophy academics, it's all feeling. In fact you can't stop feeling, so any serious appraisal of reality has to find a central place for consciousness within it.

 

[Dali]

Just asking.... Don't feelings have a biological explanation?