om

I went through all the tutorials behind the non-broken links. (time to
do some maintainance at www.squeak.org!). I am pretty sure I have my
bearings at this time. In this posting I am going to sketch out the
project project I am about to attempt. If it were anything easier I
could probably manage on my own. As AI is a really wierd area of
software, it has some highly unusual requirements. While all the
algorithmic work will be my own, I could use some advice about how best
to use squeak features for this. 

The AI will attempt to simulate the cognitive processes of an immaginary
user. It will function by analysing the pixel pattern of the screen and
moving the mouse. It will also be able to type at an immaginary
keyboard. Since it has an unlimited number of fingers, it will be able
to use the entire ASCII set. =P 

The special requirements are as follows: 

There needs to be a windowed bitmapped display of a pre-defined
unchangable resolution, say 800x600x32 bit -- 4 bit may be easier to
analyze... 

After each display update the AI needs to receive an exact cepy of this
data which it can check for changes and update its analysis. -- It may
be possible to link the updating with the perception of change, but that
may be too complex. 

There needs to be an seperate AI pointer that will be entirely
controlled by the AI. It must have all the capabilities of the mouse but
be confined to the common region of the AI's world. 

In this area there will be a common region and a user region. The common
region will be some strongly bounded subset of the window to which the
AI's pointer will be confined. Outside of that there will be a box for
buttons, a text input line, and a column for logs and other data. 

AI is the wild unknown. It is not at all clear what capabilities (if
any!) the system will have. It will be important to start the AI off
with simple learning toys and gradually move it up to more and more
complex tasks. I have been reading many things about the future of AI,
particularly that at www.singinst.org . The predictions at that site are
shocking to say the least. Part of my reason for undertaking this
project is in response to what I have seen there. =\ Because of this, I
will want to ensure that every possible step has been taken to controll
the rate at which the AI gains power so that I can be confident that it
will not become a risk to anyone. Basically, I want to treat the AI as a
highly untrusted user and then gradually lift restrictions as it grows.

All of the functionality I have mentioned will be in an "AI testbench"
package. Asside from its wierd IO requirements, it shouldn't be too much
of a challenge, and be quite useful to many in the field. 

-- 
Linux has more source code than my brain.
http://users.rcn.com/alangrimes/