Re: starship-design: unmanned missions

[A West <andrew@hmm.u-net.com>]

>It's not processing speed, it's storage space and time.  
Time? time to do what? not sure I understand.
As for storage space, I remember reading that the human brain's capacity is
a few petabytes, 
and we are only a few factors of 10 off of that (for the size).  There is
plenty of research into holgraphic memory (whatever that may be :) which
can apparently hold many terrabytes per cubic inch, and there is also
research into quantum computers, which use molecules to calculate and store
information.  I personally think that moores law will hold for the next
decade or so at least... We can do things now that moore wouldn't have
known about, and the odds are certain that there will be things we cannot
know about in 50 years time.

>AI progs,
>regardless of processor speed, have to LEARN how to work.
Not exactly my, er, field, but there are computers based on "cells" like a
brain, that can learn simple things, from a couple of axioms of
programming.  I think the largest one of these is a few hundred cells, yet
it can supposedly learn from experience far better than any other computer
made to date.  Considering our brains have many, many more cells, I would
think that powerful learning machines will be a reality sooner or later..
It seems to me that learning is just responding to certain inputs, and
remembering what happened last time you tried something... And there are
little mice-like robots that can learn their way around mazes etc.

>Also, what if
>the job needs manual labour?  Give the main computer control over a robot?
Why not?

>What if the computer decides it no longer wants to be enslaved to mankind
>and starts wreaking havoc?  TTYL!
Yes well :)
Unless you give the computer control over re-programming itself, this won't
happen...
Just don't send those conflicting instructions.. :)

Andrew West