Re: sci.protonics.design

>> Hello my fellow electronics design engineers.

>There's absolutely no evidence that Alan Folmsbee is any kind >of electronic design engineer. >Lacking that, there's no point in paying any attention to >the rest of his post, which I've consequently snipped. >If he were posting as a would-be comedian, which is conceivable, >he wouldn't be much better placed.

Perhaps he has a point. We may have spent too much time and effort dealing with electrons and electronics. However, switching to protons and protonics is not the solution. We really deal mostly with "hole flow", which is where current is defined as the absence of electrons flowing in the opposite direction of the electrons.

Holetronics does sound a bit odd, but after a few months of mindless repetition, might prove to be survivable.

I suggest that the first step be to change the convention of having signal flow from left to right on schematics, to flowing in the opposite direction to indicate that it's really hole flow. As a side benefit, it will make schematics easier to draw by left handed engineers. Maybe also put the title block in the lower left corner, move the zero position on panel meters to the right, and require that digital displays be switchable to little-endian when displaying hole flow.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Jeff Liebermann
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I'm surprised he didn't endorse positronics so he could build Data.

Reply to
Tom Del Rosso

US Robotics holds all the patents... Just ask the as-a-shade-of-blue magician who created it.

John ;-#)#

Reply to
John Robertson

Umm.... it was US Robots and Mechanical Men. US Robotics makes dialup modems and other modem-like things:

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Right, and it was 'as a color, shade of purple-grey', not blue. Sorry Larry and David!

Opps!

John ;-#)#

Reply to
John Robertson

From the same Wikipedia

"U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men is featured in the movie I, Robot (film), under the name of U.S. Robotics (or USR)."

:)

Pere

Reply to
o pere o

The book was better than the movie. Therefore, the book wins.

I'm not sure how a positronic brain is suppose to work. However, I do know that flashing LED's are a key component because most of those pictured have flashing LED's.

The positronic brain might be built with resistors as RPU's (resistive processing units):

Note the date of the article.

Also, the length of company names are inversely proportional to the company size. When first founded as a small company, it was probably "United States Robots and Mechanical Men". As the company grew, that was changed to "US Robots and Mechanical Men". For the IPO, it was probably shortened to "US Robotics". When they inevitably locked horns with the justice department over their monopoly status, it became "USR". Other companies have gone through the same metamorphosis. "Intergalactic Digital Research" went to "Digital Research Inc" and eventually to "DRI" or "DR". AT&T and PG&E went further and dropped the "&" to make the TLA even shorter.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

us

maybe take it a step further and use transfer resistors :)

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

Are you talking about I Robot by Asimov? That was a children's short story IIRC. Hard to see there being enough meat in it to make a film out of!

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Reply to
Cursitor Doom

Sigh. 5 seconds googling would show you that "I Robot" was a book, a "fixup" collection of short stories by Asimov. But unsurprisingly that's beyond your capabilities.

There was a sequel, "The Rest of The Robots".

Later, much later, there were a couple of sequels which, as was the fashion of the time, attempted to link all the author's works into a single overarching Vision Of The Future.

IIRC with Asimov there was some success, with the notable exception of "The End of Eternity".

Reply to
Tom Gardner

Yep.

Nope. Many of the questions about robotics and AI from the 1940's and

50's are still with us today. Most revolve around how robotics and AI should be applied. For example, IBM just announce a computah that is capable of intelligent debate:

"Over time, and in relevant business applications, we will naturally move toward using the system for issues

director of research...

Right. That means that IBM will sell or lease it to telemarketing companies who will then deploy it as robocall machines. I'm sure that wasn't the intent, but that could easily be the end result. Is it right? Is it needed? Should we restrict their use to something more mundane, like robotic tech support? It's not currently a problem, but in a few years, we may need to dust off the old Asimov books, and check if he had offered some clues and advice.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

So we will have to invent audio CAPTCHAs and use them when someone calls us. Grate, just grate (sic) :(

Reply to
Tom Gardner

The film is is a mash-up of several concepts taken from Asimov and other's stories

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     ?
Reply to
Jasen Betts

I'd change that to "several barely recognisable concepts" :(

But Hollywood demands insertion of SFX and fights, and removal of anything cerebral, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

s

The quality of the computer's debate is lousy, but it's still progress.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

?s

NT isn't famous for the quality of his arguments. His judgement of the comp uter's performance as a debater may not be entirely trustworthy.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

The quality of the computer owner is not a problem. In the (near) future, one will be able to purchase a debating algorithm from an AI programmers exchange, point it at the National Library of Everything cloud servers, and engage in any debate as if one knew everything and has access to all the available supporting information. When it is impossible for a reader or listener to distinguish between a human and an AI, that's where the problems will really begin. In the future, discussions like this will be performed by avatars and backed by knowledge databases that are programmed to favor some specific point of view.

I've been watching the videos of various RPG (role playing games) on YouTube. Lately, it's been Assassins Quest. The plot, characters, dialog, rendering, and movements are almost good enough to pass for reality. When 3D display "tanks" and faster machines become common, I suspect the game will be good enough to pass for a real human. That's an open invitation to displace low level "information worker" type jobs. I've already done a few tech support chat sessions with what I suspect is an AI. I've talked to support people on the phone, who are simply the delivery mechanism for what they read on the screen. They could easily be replaced by a realistic human rendering in the style of a CGI character.

For what it's worth, I'm famous for making mistakes in what I write. That somewhat proves that I'm human. I'll be sure to program occasional mistakes into my AI avatar.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Viruses are popular too.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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Reply to
John Larkin

nd

AI

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.

The demo was I suspect the computer just finding suitable responses in the database and parroting them without adequate assessment of the merit of the argument. I say that as the logic/debating ability was fairly abysmal. Thu s I think it was a well presented image painted on what is in reality not a good machine at debate. But it is a move forward.

of course. It's impossible not to. And there's no shortage of profit to be made from doing so.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

Yesss..Auntie Virus wants_your_ bod.

Reply to
Robert Baer

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