Tuesday, June 19, 2012

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Fuzzy logic and is it really fuzzy? - an excerpt about pseudo logical paradoxes, the non-impressiveness of fuzzy logic and some aspects of sensori-motor generalizing generally-intelligent systems - from "Teenage Theory of Mind and Universe", Part 4, from 2004 - for reference in a thread in the AGIRI AGI List ...

I wrote about this in my "Teenage Theory of Mind and Universe", Part 4, section 21", first published in early 2004.

(C) Todor Arnaudov 2004 (in Bulgarian)
English translation (C) 2011

21. Fuzzy logic and is it really fuzzy? [Also Truth, comparison … ], p.21 - p.25 in the formatting linked above.

This is one of the answers in a thread in the AGI List (I may add the responses here also now or later, stay tuned):

This section explains about principles of recognition and generalization in generalizing sensori-motor hierarchies, including inter-modal matching - somatosensory-proprioceptive-visual-gustatory - for finding stable patterns in the inputs.


21. Fuzzy logic and is it really fuzzy?

[Also Truth, comparison … ]

Fuzzy logic is based on, they say so, partially
true and partially false statements, whose truth
is defined in fractions, instead of binary
true/false in classical logic.

However is fuzzy logic really fuzzy?

Let's start from the concept of “truth”. In Part 3 it
was defined like this:

From “Universe and Mind” - Part 3:

50. The truth is a match if the knowledge (or
confidence, belief, persuasion [, desire])
matches something that is perceived somewhere
else later, then the new one is true, compared to
the old; on the other hand, if the new one is
different, it's “a lie” (false) or it becomes truth
and the old truth turns into full or partial false,
depending on how the new truth is different
from the old one. The more the newly evaluated
for “truth” input piece of knowledge [pattern]
matches a piece of knowledge [pattern] from the
memories of mind, the more it's “truth” and
“actual”, according to mind. Therefore,
determining a “truth” is a determination of
difference between past and wanted present.
(“Wanted” was missing in the Part 3 writing,
added here in Part 4).


[“Truth” in Bulgarian is “Istina”]

Interestingly, in Serbian “isto” means “same” -
it has morphological association to “same”,
because the statement that a given feature is
“truth” means also that:

TRUTH: The feature [specifics, detail] that is
being evaluated matches the pattern/template - it
is the same as in the pattern, at a given
resolution of perception. (*That's a definition of mine.)

The difference between fuzzy and binary logic
is that the first uses higher resolution of
perception when searching for matches. Fuzzy
logic works with more degrees of freedom,
representing the existence or miss of a match.
Fuzzy logic uses also “latent variables” which
determine whether a statement is true or not
true.

In the most simple form of classical formal
logic, there are no latent variables and the
degrees of freedom for expressing presence or
lack of ta match are only two.
Fuzzy logic uses numbers with any precision,
while formal logic uses only 1-bit. However,
many sequential 1-bit logical elements can be
connected together to construct parallel (multibit)
logical units – this topic was discussed in
Part 2.

Thus “Fuzzy” logic is a derivation of the
Classical, that is using redundancy of
information. For example, this is how usually
human recognize images [objects, by vision]:

If the image possesses at least one feature of the
remembered features for any object, and no
other object has this feature, then the image is of
this object.

For example, how do we recognize that a
bitten apple is still an apple?


Behavior always depends on specific memories
of the control unit.

If a little child bites an apple for the first time,
he would get to know, that the image of the
inside of the apple is also an image of an apple,
because the object that he's holding in his hand,
after biting a piece of, is remaining the same.
This is learned earlier the following way:
If one eats a slice of bread, when biting from it
or breaking off pieces, then the remaining keeps
being the remaining of the same thing – slice of
bread, unless an action to move out the data
recorded in hand memory is performed: to free
it from holding the slice of bread, or to input
new data to the same hand – to catch and hold
something else. If one didn't left what he was
holding and didn't get something else, but he is
keeping to feel something with his fingers and
to see it, then this should be the remaining of the
slice of bread.

Then, “remaining of a slice of bread” is a subset
of “a slice of bread” and it's a representation of
an object that is built by the tissue [the matter;
visually also the texture] of the slice of bread in
its initial state, where the Initial state is the
perception of the slice of bread in the moment
when one takes it to his hand and sees it for the
first time.

Therefore the bitten apple is a state of [the
concept of] “apple” that the child remembers. If
in the previous moment the apple was in his
hand and he knew, that he's about to bite a piece
of it, then he's still having the information that
he keeps holding an apple, because in the
previous cases, after similar action he has
discovered that he was still eating an apple.

[How do we know that? Easily: ]

We know that after a bite the thing in our hand
is still an apple, because the taste of the pieces
that we bite afterward are close enough to the
taste of the previous ones. Since the taste was
the same and since we know that after holding
an object in hand it would keep existing and
staying in our hand, unless we leave it or stop
feeling its impact [on fingers, hand; weight;
warmth etc., related to permanency of
existence], therefore [we conclude] that the
object keeps being in our hand, implying that
the object – a bitten apple – is still an apple.

The representation of an object is a set of all
its states a mind has memories of. (…)


If an object has attributes allowing to
discriminate it as a sub-type of a concept – a
type of apple, bike, wheel – then it's going to be
recognized.

The representation of an object is remembered
as examples of that object. The general and the
specific is extracted from the examples.

“The paradox” of the liar:

Goodlier from the village of Good Lierville
once said, that all of his fellow villagers and him
are liars, and then he asked is he lying if he says
this?

If he lies, then he's not a lier, therefore he
doesn't lie. However, he's from Good Lierville,
therefore he's a lier. What a “paradox”, I'm
totally confused!? Really?!

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't even really call this a
“paradox”, but a play of words and “pseudo
wisdom”. What I'd answer to this Goodlier
character is:

- I don't know do you lie or not, there is not
enough input data.

I'd say him also that he's a liar anyway, no
matter is he lying in this very moment, because
probably he's trying to trick me that he's wise
(sorry, he failed).

One or two sentences in this or similar
“paradox” cases are not enough to imagine a
definite non-ambiguous what this is all about.
For example, many people would believe that
they know what a “liar” means once they hear
the word.

Well, what does a liar means? [Unfortunately],
The practical value of general concepts in
execution of direct [immediate, specific] actions
is... fuzzy in such cases.

Which one of all possible meanings and
happenings [events, stories, memories,
interpretations] that our mind has for a “liar” the
story teller meant in this particular case?
What does it mean to be “from Good
Liarsville”?

Was Goodlier born there or he lives
there, or he's a fan of the football team of the
village? Or he has relatives there? Or he is
originally from a village in this commune. It is
possible that liars are the ones for whom one of
this is true, but not all, and anyway - being a liar
[in common sense] does not mean that you're
lying in every single sentence.

Therefore it's impossible to conclude is
Goodliar lying in this very situation or not, as
it's impossible to say definitely in more realistic
cases from the daily live, where there are no
[artificially] tangled premises and consequences
[causes and effects].

In reality there are many causes and man
possibilities to explain what's happening [and
why].

Sometimes input data is not enough to
find a [persuasive] proof only on their basis.
According to my current understanding, mind
works with specific concepts, and not general;
in specific concepts everything is as precisely
defined as possible, while with the general
concepts, there are too many undefined which
easily lead to “paradoxes”, i.e. to insufficiency
of input data for determining whether a
statement belongs to a group [set/class].
Said otherwise, the description of the story is
black and white, but we're asked what color is it.

Or there are many colors on a picture, evenly
spread, and we're asked to specify of what color
is the picture: only one single color.
Overall, in the above conditions the asking unit
has too low resolution of perception and not
enough memory in order to think us precise as
the evaluating unit – us. [The answer of the
question requires to lower the resolution of the
input and to loose details].

The one asking the questions does not
understand [discriminate, recognize, perceive]
all details we do, and in order to communicate
with it, we should act according to its model.
We see the indefiniteness and the simultaneous
“truth” and “false” [error, mismatch] of each
possible actions, according to our own
resolution of perception, but we should select
from the offered possibilities.

In case we're asked to select only one feature of
all and there is no “I don't know” option, then
mind would create a model for selection of
some of all, based on other, lateral data; of data
which did not come from this specific situation.
Since the device proposing us the possibilities
lacks brains to differentiate black-and-white and
color image or a motley and one-colored
picture, then this device is forced to lower the
resolution of perception and to delete part of its
memories [records] that otherwise we would
have [possessing higher resolution of
perception].

This device can call a motley picture with one
color and can have it's defined reasons, but
apparently it would not be able to make
inferences about many colors placed on one
canvas.
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Monday, June 18, 2012

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Човешкият разум работи със списъци - избрана статия от сп. Свещеният сметач от 2003 | Human mind works using lists/sequences

Статия относно особености в работата на човешкия ум и някои функционални абсурди на човешкия мозък, които отбелязаи и за които писах още преди 10-тина година (в "Човекът и мислещата машина", и в основополагащите части на "Схващане за всеобщата предопределеност"), а по-късно и използвах термина "Парадоксите на универсалността на мозъка" в курсовете, които водих по-скоро.

Статията съдържа някои твърдения, които Джеф Хокинс прави след това в книгата "За интелигентността/ума" (On Intelligence) през 2004 г., затова че човешкият мозък работи с поредици ("sequences")*.

Човешкият мозък очевидно няма мощна вътрешна памет с пряк достъп по (прост) адрес, всичко минава през тромави и дълбоки списъци (йерархии от списъци) или през външна памет, която има проста адресна структура и човек я гледа (лист/екран/диаграма) - виж последните статии за недостатъците на познавателните йерархии). Това е една от причините хората да са толкова зле с математиката и смятането, нещо което от изчислителна и функционална гледна точка би трябвало да е елементарно за уж толкова върховна система като човешкия мозък.


Речник с думи от юнашкото наречие:

сметалка - калкулатор
букваче - (градивен) елемент
буквосъщ - елементарен
вършач - процесор
казба - инструкция (всякакъв вид, напр. на процесор)
числец - цифра
въобраз - информация
въобразен - 1. информационен.; 2.) въображем, виртуален; съществуващ във въображение (в юнашкото наречие компютърната памет е вид "въображение")

Препечатка на част от оригинална публикация в бр. 20 на сп. "Свещеният сметач",  23/2/2003 г.:
 http://eim.twenkid.com/old/eim20/emil.htm


(C) Тодор Арнаудов

Човешкият разум работи със списъци

Очевидно е, че човешкият разум работи със списъци. На него му е най-лесно да обработва такъв вид информация, защото навързаните неврони са списъци, мрежа. За някои от видовете въобраз, с които се налага на мозъка да работи, обаче, списъкът е неподходящ, понякога съвсем неизползваем, в други случаи е много бавно средство за решение на задачата. Затова човекът, въпреки "невероятната сложност на мозъка си", се справя зле с твърде прости задачи, които са "детска игра" за буковсъщи устройства, имащи обаче стройна памет с пряк достъп. Например изчисленията са много просто нещо. ЕЛКА-22 - втората сметалка на ИЗОТ (1966 г.) съдържа около 2700 елемента, от които само 260 са транзистори, а 180 - феритни сърцевини, т.е. паметта е 180 бита.

Смешно е, например, че мозъкът, който, мозъколюбците твърдят, има памет поне колкото на трилион сметалки, изграден е от над сто милиарда буквачета, всеки от които много по-сложен от транзистор, се нуждае от сметалка или поне външна памет (нещо за писане), за да умножи, да речем, две 3-числецови числа, да не говорим за 12-цифрени, с каквито се справя ЕЛКА-22, със 180 бита памет и 260 транзистора... Затова по-важно е колко памет може да се използва, а не обемът, които "съществува някъде" в мозъка, но разумът не може да впрегне да работи в желаната посока.

Смятам и търсенията ми са насочени към предположението, че Изкуственият разум, създаден на "прост сметач" (известен още като "Фон Нойманов"), който притежава дори само един вършач и изпълнява казбите последователно, ще бъде, съответно, "по-прост" отколкото невронната мрежа, но не и по-лош като разум, а напротив. Невронната мрежа има само "стройна памет с последователен достъп" - списъци, но не и добра памет с произволен достъп, поради което е необходимо постоянно да използва външна, достъпът до която е много бавен. Например, единствено зрението е добра човешка памет с произволен достъп, всяка точка от образа си има ясно и определено местоположение в полезрението. За да пишем в тази памет, обаче, се нуждаем от външни средства, които да гледаме.

Да се върнем към списъка... Списъкът представлява въобразна постройка, при която буквачетата са навързани последователно, така че информацията, необходима за достъп до по-вътрешен елемент, е записана в по-външия, в предходния.

А-Б-В-Г-Д-Е

Ние знаем мястото в паметта само на променливата А. Това букваче се нарича "корен" или "вход". Можем да влезем само през него в списъка. А съдържа някакви данни (напр. буквата "А") и информация за местоположението на следващата променлива от списъка - Б. Б знае къде се намира В и т.н. Б обаче не знае, че произхожда от А, и В не знае, че е наследник на Б. Затова по-сложните списъци (т.нар. двойносвързани) имат връзки в двете посоки: Б има връзка освен към следващото букваче - В, и към предходното - А. При още по-сложните списъци буквачетата могат да бъдат свързани едностранно или двустранно не към един, а към много други буквачета - получава се мрежа. Невроните, например, са буквачета, които имат единствен изход, който сочи следващо букваче, и много входове, стигащи до хиляди.

Примери за списъци в човешката памет

По начало, когато научим азбуката, я помним като еднопосочен списък - знаем, че "А" е първата буква, че "Я" е трийстата - този списък има два корена. За тях е записано, че на "А" отговаря "едно", а на "Я" - "трийсет". Можем ли обаче да кажем коя по ред е еди-коя си буква от вътрешните (предпоследните и няколкото първи също бързо стават входове), например "П"? Можем ли да казваме азбуката отзад напред, ако не сме я учили и по този начин?
Когато тъкмо сме въвели азбуката в паметта си, трябва да проследим списъка с буквите и да преброим тези, през които минаваме, докато стигнем до желаната. Самото броене също е списък, но букваците му се наричат "едно, две, три..." и притежават образно представяне: 1, 2, 3...

За да знаем номера на всяка буква, създаваме нова постройка от данни. Например отваряме още входове в списъка, като запомняме местоположението на още букви, освен А и Я. Запомняме, че Е е 6-та, К е 11-та буква, П - 16-та и т.н. Чрез новите входове на мрежата съкращаваме пътя на търсене до няколко букви.

Можем да запомним и номера на всяка, ако ни трябва пряк достъп, но това изисква много повече усилия, защото на мозъка е много по-трудно да обособи нов списък, нова подмрежа; да отвори нов вход в стар списък, да запомни нов, отделен и несвързан къс знание, отколкото да наниже ново букваче във вече съществуваща мрежа, да удължи съществуващ списък. Затова колкото по-свързано, по-обединено в последователност и цялост е знанието, колкото повече връзки има от мрежата към съответния къс знание, толкова той се запомня и съхранява по-лесно в нея.



* Да, и Джон Макарти използва списъци в LISP, не знам как ги е оправдал, тогава това е била нова структура от данни в информатиката.
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Friday, June 15, 2012

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High-Performance Computing - GPGPU - CUDA - OpenCL - OpenMP - SSE-CPP-Compilers-Optimizations - Supercomputing -- Excellent Resources | Високопроизводителни изчисления, суперкомпютри, оптимизация на код на С++, графични процесори и др.

While browsing some SIMD SSE optimized image processing code and digging from some time, I reached to a few excellent free resources for boosting your software, I recommend those:

http://agner.org/optimize/
http://supercomputingblog.com/

Препоръчвам следните отлични матерали за оптимизация на код, многонишково/паралелно/матрично програмиране с CUDA, OpenCL, OpenMP, SIMD със SSE, суперкомпютри, оптимизация на код на С++ за различни процесорни архитектури.

Обработка на изображения, image processing, computer vision, компютърно зрение, manuals, tutorials, ръководства, help.

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Saturday, June 9, 2012

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News: Nimbus DS, High-Quality Audio

  • Lately I've been establishing a partnership with the start-up company "Nimbus DS" - we've just completed the first distributed version of one of their products!
  • I now got a little piece of a high-quality audio-recording equipment  which should wake up the lately sleeping media production of mine, I needed this little beauty in order to start producing the next productions.
  • Have been doing some warm-up for a major update and refactoring of my film production software, which so far I use only in-house, but aim (one day) to make it a product.
  • Other software and other projects as well...
  •  I notice I need a more flexible, multi-information-channel web site to keep and direct the visitors attention better...
  • I'm keeping myself in good physical shape.
  • And many more... :))
I'm not too wordy here lately, will tell/show more later. :)
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Tuesday, May 22, 2012

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Земетресение в Пловдив в 3 ч на 22-ри май 2012 г./ 22/5/2012 | Earthquake in Plovdiv, 22-nd of May 2012,. in 3 h AM

Разлюля ни земетресение, хоризонтално, в 3 часа и няколко минути. Токът прекъсна за миг (токов удар). Чакаме да разберем магнитуда. :) Може би около 3,5 - 4 по Рихтер?

По информация от радио Пловдив, епицентърът е бил между Перник и София, с магнитуд 5 - 5.8, което е сериозно, но в Пд я да еимало 4, я не?

На третия етаж се усети сериозно. Продължи може би 10-тина секунди, не можах да засека точно. Нямаше паднали предмети, само се раздрусаха полилеите...

Едва ли има жертви и пострадали в Пловдив, освен ако някой не е получил удар...

И Интернетът за щастие продължава да работи. :) Забелязах, че прозорците в блоковете отсреща  и в квартала светят повече от обикновено...
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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

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News: Updates about the upcoming First AGI/SIGI, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary conference, organized by Todor Arnaudov and friends, as of 9/5/2012


See the: Initial Announcement

The organization is progressing, so far the date is inclining to the first quarter of July in Plovdiv, but would be confirmed later.

I'll mention for now some of the accepted actual participants and the preliminary directions of their topics:
  • A leading researcher in Reinforcement Learning and Robotics from the Italian Institute of Technology
  • A brilliant undergraduate (as of now) in Robotics from the University of Reading, UK, with a paper that's also for an IEEE conference.
  • A very talented and experienced AI/AGI developer, with a workshop covering one special type of neural networks
  • One of my best students from practically the first AGI University course worldwide on ethical problems
  • A brilliant applied mathematician who was one of the best students in the  second AGI course 
  •  Myself with a lot of presentations on many topics in various fields
Other students among the best ones from my courses as visitors, and one friend of mine who's developer and entrepreneur and is watching the AGI field, and often notifies me to check for interesting publications (thanks, Sasho!)

There's a more detailed program of topics, but it's to be disclosed as the event date gets closer.

Cheers!
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Thursday, May 3, 2012

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BBC's "The Computer Programme" Documentery Series - "Computational Thinking" - Excellent Dcumentary Filmmaking, Storytelling and Education - and Enjoyable Watch


Beginners and general audience wouldn't really need that much new courses in "Computational Thinking", such as those mentioned in this article When Code is Hot (see the comments also) - if they knew about that BBC Documentary Series produced 30 years ago and still does excellent job, even though it talks about BASIC and 8-bit computers. ;)

To me it's awesome, excellent examples from the golden age of personal computers, better known as "microcomputers" at the time, and they are still valid, now just running at bigger scale.

The Computer Programme 03 1/3



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMQ8BH3zLgE&feature=relmfu


The Computer Programme 03 2/3



The Computer Programme 03 3/3



In the part 2 ot that episode, there's a reference which is similar to the examples I've given regarding hierarchical generalization/causations/simulators of virtual universes in my lecture for general audience:
General Intelligence Principles



A Robotic competition similar to "Robocup", with "micro mice" finding their path in a maze - 30 years ago...




Various memory media and the Encyclopedia Britanica on a Videodisc, accessed by an 8-bit computer with video-playback, in 1982:



About variables and basic programming (4 2/3): http://youtu.be/HV6W0QXoMbQ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvKVSWAzx6U&feature=relmfu

First episode, introduction to computers, "1982 - The year of the information technologies" :) - http://youtu.be/HV6W0QXoMbQ

Enjoy!

Another cool historical/retro-review channel with old computers and cool old games, I recommend if you love that stuff:

The BBC Microcomputer:



Evolution of PC Audio - As Told by Secret of Monkey Island



There are tons of nostalgic fun with IBM-PC, 386, 486s and games from all times and all kinds of platforms/consoles too.

AdLib Sound Card - Part 2: Line-Out Audio Samples - LGR



The awesome Commodore 64 - I wish I had one



The first IBM-PC: IBM 5150:


If you like that stuff, you probably know The Angry Game Nerd, this site is less popular, but a lot of fun, too. :)

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Monday, April 23, 2012

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Copyrighted Free Courses - Are the Major Institutional Fashionable Free Online Courses Really Free?

I already mentioned about that issue in a post, but then I just has glanced it. Now I checked it again before register - I was disappointed and didn't sign the conditions. I'll rather satisfy my interest using other resources.

According to my interpretation of the "Terms" at the site  https://www.coursera.org/about/, the courses aren't "free" (as in "freedom", liberated), just the opposite.

They might be "free of charge" right now, but as stated, this is a bloody corporate contract, one-side NDA - the bosses can use all you send, but you can't use what they provide, except in the course, i.e. "at work", to serve for the company's own profits, in this case it seems like advertising strategy similar to playing "free" games online.

For fundamental and natural sciences such as Biology, Maths or Neuroscience this is probably OK, they can't claim copyright for the DNA sequence or the formula of Dopamine. However in Computer Science courses I suspect this might be an issue, if you are an entrepreneur or plan to be, because the knowledge and experience (e.g. algorithms) you may gain from the course may turn into "derivative works" of material you've studied from the lectures and the assignments, or just have been exposed to, even if you have experience from other sources. By the terms - you are not allowed to create derivative works.


"Free"  is associated with GNU, GPL, LGPL, BSD, Apache, Creative Commons; Linux, GCC, Wikipedia, Firefox, GIMP, OpenOffice.org, Eclipse; OpenGL, OpenCV, OpenCL, OpenAL; Public Domain, Copyleft, ...




Copyrighted Free Courses?

See  "Permission to Use Materials" and   "User Material Submission"
I'm not a lawyer, but I agree with my ex-manager from the semiconductor industry who has remarked that  sometimes the work of engineers is like the work of lawyers, because it involves interpreting customers' or architects' requirements which often are like bad laws - vaguely defined and having catches regarding the interpretation.


I admit and suspect that the texts below might be just standard boring lawyers' copyright definitions, or consist of parts from such, "copy-pasted" here by the lawyers of those institutions. It doesn't make them sound less threatening and inappropriate, though.

There's a cite from the publicly available terms, which doesn't require registration https://www.coursera.org/about/:

 1) "Permission to Use Materials"

"All content or other materials available on the Sites, including but not limited to code, images, text, layouts, arrangements, displays, illustrations, audio and video clips, HTML files and other content are the property of Coursera and/or its affiliates or licensors and are protected by copyright, patent and/or other proprietary intellectual property rights under the United States and foreign laws. In consideration for your agreement to the terms and conditions contained here, Coursera grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to access and use the Sites. You may download material from the Sites only for your own personal, non-commercial use. You may not otherwise copy, reproduce, retransmit, distribute, publish, commercially exploit or otherwise transfer any material, nor may you modify or create derivatives works of the material. The burden of determining that your use of any information, software or any other content on the Site is permissible rests with you.


2)  "User Material Submission"
The Sites may provide you with the ability to upload certain information, text, or materials, including without limitation, any information, text or materials you post on the Sites’ public forums (“User Content”). With respect to User Content you submit or otherwise make available in connection with your use of the Site, and subject to the Privacy Policy, you grant Coursera and the Participating Institutions a fully transferable, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free and non-exclusive license to use, distribute, sublicense, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such User Content. To the extent that you provide User Content, you represent and warrant to Coursera and the Participating Institutions that (a) you have all necessary rights, licenses and/or clearances to provide and use User Content and permit Coursera and the Participating Institutions to use such User Content as provided above; (b) such User Content is accurate and reasonably complete; (c) as between you and Coursera, you shall be responsible for the payment of any third party fees related to the provision and use of such User Content and (d) such User Content does not and will not infringe or misappropriate any third party rights (including without limitation privacy, publicity, intellectual property and any other proprietary rights, such as copyright, trademark and patent rights) or constitute a fraudulent statement or misrepresentation or unfair business practice.
The Sites may also provide you with ability to upload or send information to Coursera regarding the Sites or related services (“Feedback”). By submitting the Feedback, you hereby grant Coursera and the Participating Institutions an irrevocable license to use, disclose, reproduce, distribute, sublicense, prepare derivative works of, publicly perform and publicly display any such submission.



Free?!

That doesn't sound free to me. That's an exploitation of resources send by users for free - e.g. code send by a very talented student, who sends original solution of a problem, - while the resources provided by "the good will" of the INSTITUTION" (a dreadful anti-freedom word) are locked, and "the burden of determining that your use of any information, software or any other content on the Site is permissible rests with you."
Well...


Let's see the following case:

1) A student takes a course in Compilers.
2) It consists of some theories and techniques, some of which are 50-60 years old, or 40 at least and can be found in every textbook, or even re-invented, or found in free-compilers, e.g. GCC.
3) Some time later the student then create a "derivative work" - develop a new compiler.

If it's a compiler with current meaning of "compiler" and current computers, it surely will use some or all of the algorithms that were included also in the course, and there might be code segments which would be similar to ones taught in course (well, there aren't 100000 ways to code a few steps algorithm optimally).

However, if you use those algorithms and similar code - "derivative works" and make profit, you may be taken responsible for infringing rights of the INSTITUTION (sounds like "the corporation" of which you're an employee for free, meaning - you work for free).

You may know the algorithms from other sources prior or after the course (you may have been a bad student, or quit mid term; or learn it, but then forget all and re-learn years later. Or what about studying the code of GNU C++, Open JDK, or just borrowing a few textbooks from the library?

Well, sorry - if it was in the course (if it's important, it perhaps will be mentioned somehow there), then you might be a violator of the copyright of the INSTITUTION.



Opinion: You're talking bullshit, of course nobody will interpret it like that!

Who knows and why not?  The only way to prove it won't be interpreted that way is a clarification from the organizers.

I just follow the "Permission" claims:  The burden of determining that your use of any information, software or any other content on the Site is permissible rests with you.




Cheers!


...

See also: "Всички права запазени! | All Rights Reserved! - сатирично есе относно мъгливи декларации, припомнено от SOPA и ACTA" -- http://artificial-mind.blogspot.com/2012/01/all-rights-reserved-sopa-acta.html (a reissue of an article of the copyright vagueness and absurd definitions, that I wrote back in 2003)


- News: Computer Vision, NLP etc. - On-line Courses from Berkeley, Stanford, MTU -- http://artificial-mind.blogspot.com/2012/03/news-computer-vision-nlp-etc-on-line.html
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Sunday, April 22, 2012

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News: Announcement for an upcoming first AGI/SIGI, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary conference, organized by Todor Arnaudov and friends

First Conference of the Independent Society of Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary AGI/SIGI Researchers  

AGI - Artificial General Intelligence
SIGI -
 Self-Improving General Intelligence

Location: Plovdiv, Bulgaria and on-line tele-conferencing
Languages: Bulgarian and English
Date: TBC

Target directions

- SIGI, AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), UAI
- Narrow AI, Bridging AI and AGI, Generalizing aproaches from AI
- Computer Graphics, and Virtual World Graphical and Physical Simulations
- Computer Vision and 3D-Reconstruction
- Speech/Sound Recognition
- Robotics
- Natural Language Processing/Understanding/Generation, Comparative Linguistics ...
- Neuroscience, Neurolinguistics, Neuro-... Cognitive-... Comparative Nuroscience ..
- Developmental Psychology, Child Language, Language Acquisition
- Automatic Programming/Intelligent Refactoring, Automatic Software Optimization
- Brain-Computer Interface and Advanced Intelligent Human-Computer Interaction
- High-Performance Computing and GPGPU - General purpose GPU - CUDA, OpenCL etc. for
- Philosophy, Ethics and Futurology
- Cybernetical Metaphysics
- General Evolution Trends
- ...

Format


Papers, reports, proposals, talks, discussions, workshops, ...

Participation
- Researcher and Developer, Presenter, Contributor...
- Student/Participant in discussions/Visitor - attending the events - lectures and workshops, asking questions and engaging in discussions
- Helpers/Assistants/Supporters ...
- ...

Purpose
The major one is to gather the community the organizer has always been trying (aiming) to create:
- to initiate and push a stronger exchange of knowledge and ideas
- to help the creation of teams, support and collaboration
- to provoke other young researchers to join the AGI community

So far the participants are selected and invited by the organizer Todor Arnaudov, who's author of two of the first AGI University courses worldwide.

Details are to be updated and clarified.

If you're interested about the event, ask here or at: twenkid -- at -- gmail.

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Thursday, April 5, 2012

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ДЗБЕ и Юнашкото наречие: Интервюта с Тодор Арнаудов и публикации в пресата 2003 г. и 2005 г. -- DZBE and the Yunashki Dialect - Articles, and Interviews with Todor Arnaudov in Newspapers and Magazines in 2003 and 2005


Прочетете няколко интервюта с мен/материали за ДЗБЕ и Юнашкото наречие, излезли в пресата между 2003-2005 г. - част от приноса ми/дейността ми в областта на социолингвистиката, стилистиката, литературата, българския език в първите години на 21-ви век:

http://research.twenkid.com/wp/interview_bg/ 

(Ох, каква прическа имах през 2005 г. :D)

Както знаете, преди месец обявих възстановяване на ДЗБЕ, под името ДРУБЕ - Дружество за Развитие и Усъвършенстване на Българския Език.

 http://artificial-mind.blogspot.com/2012/02/2-drube-society-for-development-and.html

Постепенно ще препубликувам материалите от предишната "епоха", ще добавя нови за развитието през годините, и ще се опитам да намеря старите ми, и нови съмишленици.

(Работите от тогава са достъпни и сега, стига някой да е любопитен ще ги намери с две кликания, но ще направя нов по-свеж сайт, и вероятно ще ги коментирам от гледна точка на случилото се през изминалите... за някои от статиите - 9-10-11 години...)


Думи: ДЗБЕ, ДУБЕ, ДРУБЕ, Дружество за защита на българския език, усъвършенстване, развитие, лингвистика, езикознание, социолингвистика, статии, вестници, списания, преса, медии, новини
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Sunday, April 1, 2012

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Jürgen Schmidhuber Talk on Ted, Creative Machines and the Omega Point | Computer Vision, 3D-reconstruction from 2D

Juergen Schmidhuber - TEDxLausanne - When creative machines overtake man



Funny as usual. :)

One critics I've got on the computers who will reach human brain computing power - brain power calculations are unreliable and not really comparable, and ironically brain computing power is specialized and probably some of the operations are redundant or unnecessary., A computer having power to simulate a brain is much more flexible and powerful. I've discussed on these issues on the blog and the AGI list. (Should do the digest...)

Computer vision problems of 3D-reconstruction from images and image and video processing, done with GPUs give some suggestions on supposed required computing power in digital terms, but human brain puts a lot of "empty cycles" before reaching to such capabilities, even while having actuators which are usually lacking yet in machines - if the agent is capable to manipulate the position of the object, the "cameras" and the focus predictably and slowly, as babies can do with their eyes, heads and body, it's far easier to detect and scale perspective laws etc.

And it takes many months to get to 3D-vision and to increase resolution and develop 3D-reconstruction in the human brain. That adds ~86400 fold per day and 31,536,000 "cycles" per year.

What computing power is needed?

I don't think you need millions of the most powerful GPUs and CPUs at the moment to beat human vision, we'll beat it pretty soon, a lot of the higher level intelligence in my estimation is very low at its complexity (behavior, decision making, language at the grammar/vocabulary levels) and would need a tiny amount of MIPS, FLOPS and memory. It's the lowest levels which require vast computing power - 3D-reconstruction from 2D one or many static or motion camera sources, transformations, rotations, trajectories computations etc., and those problems are practically being solved and implemented.

See for example:

Marc Pollefeys - ZURICH.MINDS



My estimations supercomputers were fast enough since many years, it's just the algorithms which are lacking yet.


*Thanks to Sasho for the link to the Juergen's presentation!


Words, Tags: Computer vision, 3D-reconstruction, 3D-graphics, computational creativity, Juergen Schmidhuber, Jürgen, Talks, Artificial General Intelligence, AGI, Futurology, Brain, Analysis, GPU, GPGPU, CPUs, computing power, supercomputers, 3D-models
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