What if Computers Could Process Like Humans ?

What if Computers Could Process Like Humans ? Forget that, just get them up to the lizard level.

Computers are the dumbest of the dumb, so let's really talk about software. What if we could write software that processed as well as even the dumbest animals, even sometimes plants.

To Be Specific:

To be specific what makes software insanely incapable, at least compared to humans or even lizards, is that it constantly has to be taught a very specific "object graph". Humans, even lizards, just kind of "get" the object graph.

In other words, when I am writing software, I have to make very specific objects with very specific names and very specific behaviours and attributes and give each one ( ..are we tired yet ? ) very specific "hooks" or feeds into data sets, just to do the very simplest representation of any kind of anything. It's mind numbingly tedious, and very limiting in scope, because you get the smallest number of objects scoped out do much of anything and you are already lost in so much written detail you can't even keep track of it.

Why do you think most computer programmers work mainly on either financial transactions of some sort, or else web pages or something equally limited ? Because that's about all we have time to do ! Corporations that pay us would love to model everything that impacts them, but anything beyond transactions and web pages is not affordable.

Compare this to a 5 year old human

"Junior, would you take this out to the trash please ?"

If I had to write a program to accomplish what the 5 year old does taking out the trash for Daddy, it might take me a decade. How many objects does he have to know by then ? Just writing the program to take his fingers on the end of his hand and reach up and squeeze the right muscles around the door handle at the correct angle and have the skin friction grab the doorknob and turn it to open it as he pushes it out, there's a year or two right there, assuming I have some pretty nice toolsets to help me along the way. More than a year or two for this one part if I didn't.

Arms fingers muscles skin doorknob that's the "object graph".

Reaching grabbing squeezing turning pushing those are the behaviors.

All this is already programmed in, computers have to be programmed.

Take an even dumber example.

The lizard walks up the leaf, licks off the moisture, senses movement 3 feet away decides that it might be danger so turns himself green to match the branch he is on.

How long to write that program ? How big would the object graph have to be ? Etc etc.

Nope, computers are pretty dumb. That lizard has it already programmed in.

Generalization

Even take it one step further, what if an object was many things.

The classic example is the policeman who sees a guy walking up with a steely looking pointing projectile in his hands. In one instant, without even knowing what it is, he has to be ready to react appropriately. That object could be any of dozens of things. He can gather information within nanoseconds, refining his object graph as he gets each different view of the object turning into the light, changing in angle to see more of it.

Get a computer go hold and iterate through that object graph at that speed, just try it. Good luck. All for one life or death decision - he is looking to make a generalization, Danger or No Danger.

Computers are not very capable in this area. The software just ain't up to what it would need to be to even BEGIN to tackle what animals have been doing for eons.