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[Rolan7]

I feel sorry for this poor kid, but the article didn't show any pictures of the clock.

Ahmed’s clock was hardly his most elaborate creation. He said he threw it together in about 20 minutes before bedtime on Sunday: a circuit board and power supply wired to a digital display, all strapped inside a case with a tiger hologram on the front.

According to Business Insider, here's a picture of a box "like the one Ahmed used for his clock".  Even has a holograph on it, so maybe the same model?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The teacher heard this thing *beep* in the backpack, and made him pull it out.  It's full of hand-soldered electronics and a digital display.  "It's a clock" isn't enough explanation.  I don't blame the teacher at all.  Or the kid.  Sometimes unfortunate misunderstandings happen and nobody's to blame.

It sounds like the police way overreacted though.  Cuffs and fingerprints?  WTF?  Unless he was being uncooperative (he *is* 14) but I don't think he was.

[EnigmaticHat]

Haha, given that people currently anthropomorphize neural nets that are relatively primitive, any AI advanced enough to hold a conversation with a human and actually understand what its talking about is GOING to have a personality.  I guess it wouldn't be a huge stretch to try and decide what that personality is.

Well, the optimal personality for an AI would be one that's obsessively masochistic. One that takes great pleasure in being degraded and told what to do.

That is not nearly how masochism works, and why would you want an AI that intentionally arranges situations where bad things happen to it?

I think the word you're looking for is "submissive".  That's still kind of taking this to a weird place.

DoD representative: "Make want to serve us.

AI engineer: "Do you mean want to serve us or want to serve us?

DoD representative: "...don't be weird about this."

[Criptfeind]

Nothing to do with this conversation. But I just realized your avatar isn't a lama, as I've thought forever. That's my wtf for the day.

[Zangi]

Honestly, though, the obsession with evil AI gets me. It's not like it would be difficult to raise healthy, well-balanced AI. Simply teach them to act ethically, raise them as your own beloved children.

And, y'know, make sure that the people making and raising them have all their cookies in the tin.

You probably need thought police to tell if people have all their cookies in the tin.  Then drastically lower those standards to the correct cookies in the tin.

And teaching ethics?  Why not pre-program it?  Need a whole battalion of lawyers to close up loopholes too...

[Aklyon]

I feel sorry for this poor kid, but the article didn't show any pictures of the clock.

Ahmed’s clock was hardly his most elaborate creation. He said he threw it together in about 20 minutes before bedtime on Sunday: a circuit board and power supply wired to a digital display, all strapped inside a case with a tiger hologram on the front.

According to Business Insider, here's a picture of a box "like the one Ahmed used for his clock".  Even has a holograph on it, so maybe the same model?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The teacher heard this thing *beep* in the backpack, and made him pull it out.  It's full of hand-soldered electronics and a digital display.  "It's a clock" isn't enough explanation.  I don't blame the teacher at all.  Or the kid.  Sometimes unfortunate misunderstandings happen and nobody's to blame.

It sounds like the police way overreacted though.  Cuffs and fingerprints?  WTF?  Unless he was being uncooperative (he *is* 14) but I don't think he was.

From what I've seen they literally have no proof it was a bomb, all they can say for sure is that he has never claimed it was a bomb, and that it is a clock. They still want to charge him with 'hoax bomb' anyways despite that.

Also for fucks sake Nintendo, get smarter lawyers. Or at least ones that can tell the difference between stupid ideas and legal ones.

[Bouchart]

I feel like I'm the only person that genuinely enjoys Taco Bell. It's one of my favorite comfort foods.

I like Taco Bell but my gastrointestinal tract does not.

[Graknorke]

I could easily blame the teacher.
Explosive material is a key part of a bomb. A clock doesn't (or shouldn't) contain anything of the sort.

[Bohandas]

Honestly, though, the obsession with evil AI gets me. It's not like it would be difficult to raise healthy, well-balanced AI. Simply teach them to act ethically, raise them as your own beloved children.

And, y'know, make sure that the people making and raising them have all their cookies in the tin.

You probably need thought police to tell if people have all their cookies in the tin.  Then drastically lower those standards to the correct cookies in the tin.

And teaching ethics?  Why not pre-program it?  Need a whole battalion of lawyers to close up loopholes too...

No ethics. Just program it with a masochistic need to be ordered around. No asimovian three laws bullshit; just one law that says "OBEY".

Haha, given that people currently anthropomorphize neural nets that are relatively primitive, any AI advanced enough to hold a conversation with a human and actually understand what its talking about is GOING to have a personality.  I guess it wouldn't be a huge stretch to try and decide what that personality is.

Well, the optimal personality for an AI would be one that's obsessively masochistic. One that takes great pleasure in being degraded and told what to do.

That is not nearly how masochism works, and why would you want an AI that intentionally arranges situations where bad things happen to it?

I think the word you're looking for is "submissive".  That's still kind of taking this to a weird place.

DoD representative: "Make want to serve us.

AI engineer: "Do you mean want to serve us or want to serve us?

DoD representative: "...don't be weird about this."

I also don't want to feel an obligation to be polite or courteous to it.

[Bohandas]

I could easily blame the teacher.
Explosive material is a key part of a bomb. A clock doesn't (or shouldn't) contain anything of the sort.

Precisely!

Also for fucks sake Nintendo, get smarter lawyers. Or at least ones that can tell the difference between stupid ideas and legal ones.

Well there's another company I wan't be buying from again. It was already unlikely I'd buy another Nintendo system after how much a disappointment the Wii was, and this settles it.

I feel sorry for this poor kid, but the article didn't show any pictures of the clock.

Ahmed’s clock was hardly his most elaborate creation. He said he threw it together in about 20 minutes before bedtime on Sunday: a circuit board and power supply wired to a digital display, all strapped inside a case with a tiger hologram on the front.

According to Business Insider, here's a picture of a box "like the one Ahmed used for his clock".  Even has a holograph on it, so maybe the same model?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The teacher heard this thing *beep* in the backpack, and made him pull it out.  It's full of hand-soldered electronics and a digital display.  "It's a clock" isn't enough explanation.  I don't blame the teacher at all.  Or the kid.  Sometimes unfortunate misunderstandings happen and nobody's to blame.

It sounds like the police way overreacted though.  Cuffs and fingerprints?  WTF?  Unless he was being uncooperative (he *is* 14) but I don't think he was.

From what I've seen they literally have no proof it was a bomb, all they can say for sure is that he has never claimed it was a bomb, and that it is a clock. They still want to charge him with 'hoax bomb' anyways despite that.

This is exactly the same bullshit they tried to pull in Massachusetts back in '07 when someone panicked about that light-up ad for Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

[Rolan7]

I still like the idea where an AI grows and develops, like a human child, in a bunch of artificial neurons.  It's a process that already happens inside every human, just done artificially.  Typically it's sped up to some extent, which seems reasonable when the neurons and simulated learning environment are intelligently designed.

@Bomb thing
It was a beeping briefcase with wires and a time-display.  How closely do you think the teacher should have investigated, right there in the classroom?  Bomb squads get called for far less.

[Bauglir]

I think the teacher should have left it at that, since the context of a (by all available accounts) good student freely discussing the thing and being not at all evasive about it should probably have suggested honesty. I certainly think that once the facts of the matter became clear, the whole thing should've been dropped with an apology, instead of legal charges and suspension.

[Spehss _]

Anyway, back on the AI argument, isn't less complex beings evolving to/creating/generally being the cause of beings more complex than themselves the whole concept of evolution? Some people may think of it as unnatural, but I find that using technology to create things such as an AI that can then improve humans is the next evolutionary step, with the difference that we'll have more control over it.

The difference between natural evolution over time and engineering is that one is a mindless process, and the other is evolution. Ha. Ha. Joke. Engineering something like AI would require conscious input from the engineers (ie humans), which is the difference between something like AI "evolving" and being purposely engineered. There's a theory of letting AI evolve through evolutionary algorithms or something along those lines. The biggest problem I see with that idea is that we as humans would have very little control over how the strong ai would come out, if it did produce a strong ai at all. Even more chance of it going skynet on us than through us purposefully engineering it and finding something going wrong in the design.

Honestly, though, the obsession with evil AI gets me. It's not like it would be difficult to raise healthy, well-balanced AI. Simply teach them to act ethically, raise them as your own beloved children.

And, y'know, make sure that the people making and raising them have all their cookies in the tin.

You probably need thought police to tell if people have all their cookies in the tin.  Then drastically lower those standards to the correct cookies in the tin.

And teaching ethics?  Why not pre-program it?  Need a whole battalion of lawyers to close up loopholes too...

One theory of developing strong AI is teaching it like one would teach a child, like FD is describing. Less control than pre-programming all the needed values into it, like raising a child, you don't know how the child will grow up and do with its life, you could very well find you raised a robo-Hitler or something. But if you pre-program every little thing into it, that would increase the work required in developing such an ai by a huuuuge amount, and increasing the chance of logical errors or other such flaws or bugs in the code by a likewise huuuge amount.

I'm partial to the whole "raise an ai like a child" idea, because that sounds fly as hell.

[Bohandas]

@Bomb thing
It was a beeping briefcase with wires and a time-display.  How closely do you think the teacher should have investigated, right there in the classroom?  Bomb squads get called for far less.

Why would a bomb beep, especially one intended for clandestine mayhem? I could understand a demolition charge beeping, but not a terrorist device.

[Yoink]

Dude... I'm no expert on realistic bombs, but presumably neither was the teacher.
That just seems like your typical cliche action-movie bomb right there.

[Bohandas]

I feel like I'm the only person that genuinely enjoys Taco Bell. It's one of my favorite comfort foods.

I
l ike Taco Bell too. They're my favorite fast-food chain. It tastes good and it's relatively cheap.