Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2017 February 21

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February 21

"Human-completeness"

A simple question but one that's very hard to answer and which probably has profound implications: can a Turing machine, or even a quantum Turing machine, simulate an arbitrary human brain exactly in finite time?

This is clearly an open question. For example, according to the article on the halting problem, we still wonder if humans can solve it. If the answer to that is yes, then computers obviously are not "human-complete".

What work has been done towards this area in (theoretical) computer science?--Jasper Deng (talk) 00:32, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

See computational theory of mind. It's widely believed that it is theoretically possible to simulate a Human brain down to the neuron level (or below), and thus that humans are no more than Turing-complete. Note that both humans and computers can solve some instances of the halting problem, just not every instance (a program without recursion or loops will e.g. always halt, and both computers and humans can figure this out). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:43, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

It should be noted that that model of the human brain is not universally accepted. See, for example, this article which refutes many of the assumptions about modeling the brain on computational terms. --Jayron32 14:11, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Actually, while that paper makes some interesting points, it is very much mistaken on several aspects. We know about associative memory and distributed representations, and I'm really very surprised about the claim that anyone should think that a complex concept is stored in a single neuron. It reads more like an attack on good old-fashioned AI, but that is very much a straw man when talking about computability and arguments about physical simulation. Nobody nowadays is claiming that the brain runs symbolic algorithms, but we very much believe that we can simulate the sub-symbolic processing of the brain using an algorithm - at least in principle, if not yet in practice. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:57, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

The Artificial consciousness article is another interesting read on this topic.

On the more practical front, great strides are being made in Artificial neural networks, and many people hope that this may one day lead to a artificial consciousness, which makes sense, but so far I don't know that there's any experimental evidence that indicates that it's possible even on a small scale. ApLundell (talk) 21:03, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Strange title on Red Lobster Lobsterfest email

I received a promotional e-mail from Red Lobster, but it had an incomprehensible title, as follows:

"Aud1 US genPop - dependent on winning SL"

They followed up, a couple hours later, with the same email, but with the title corrected to:

"Lobster Lover's Dream® is back at Lobsterfest®. Come live the dream."

I am curious as to what the first title might have meant. Any ideas ? StuRat (talk) 05:12, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Most serious web/email advertisers (including Wikipedia) try different ads on different segments of the customer base. No sense bragging about how well a Subaru handles snow or climbs hills to customers in southern Florida, but Denver is another story. so "Aud1 US genPop" is likely "first auditof this ad, send to united states general population". "SL" may be a contest customers can win, it may be a contest among salesmen or between departments, or it may refer to winning a particular contract. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:04, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks. StuRat (talk) 19:17, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

My read on the 1st part is "audience one: US general population" (the ad's target) 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:55A:7C25:5B38:2DC5 (talk) 03:50, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Computer software equivalent to human habits

A virus is the computer equivalent of a sick person. Antivirus software is like the need to make a sick person feel better.

A firewall is like the need to prevent someone from taking away your ID card.

CCleaner is like the need to go to the bathroom.

But what about a trojan virus?? Does it have special properties?? Feel free to answer this question with other special kinds of computer software. Georgia guy (talk) 23:48, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Actually, a firewall is more like a doorman who decides who can go into or out of a club. Antivirus software is like antiviral drugs or arguably antibiotics - although many security experts claim it is essentially snake oil. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:55, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• A trojan virus is a bit like a wooden horse gift that your enemies have climbed into, waiting for you to open the city gates and then...oh wait...Earl of Arundel (talk) 00:04, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

If the internet is a brothel, than a virus is a social decease. Jahoe (talk) 01:23, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

CCleaner is like burning all your paper records in a bonfire.
Sleigh (talk) 08:52, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Okay, Let's try to organize the analogies. We'll go with the brothel one because I'm immature like that.

So your computer is a brothel. A computer virus is like a gonorrhea outbreak that puts many of the girls and boys out of commission. Antivirus software is like the local doctor; as long as he's working at the brothel regularly you generally don't have to worry about an outbreak, and if you do get an outbreak there's a very good chance he can fix it. But it's not guaranteed (Stephan Schulz is right that some experts consider antivirus to be more snake oil than anything, and the reason for that is the ease with which they can be gotten around). Now, the firewall is like a bouncer who works the front door. On his own, he can keep out anyone he's been told has gonorrhea, such as dirty Frank. However, if he works with the doctor, he can prevent anyone with a new gonorrhea infection from coming in, thus helping prevent an outbreak.

So where does CCleaner fit in? CCleaner is the on-call maid service. They come, they clean under the beds, launder the sheets, disinfect and spray, to make sure not only that any trace of gonorrhea is eliminated, but that any trace of any previous customers is eliminated. That way, new customers will never slip and fall in any... 'fluids' that may remain, they will never pick of gonnorrhea from a toilet seat and overall they can come and go without worrying about who's been there before them.

Now we get to the question. So what's a trojan in this analogy? Well, a Trojan would be any customer or potential new girl/boy who has a secret that would hurt the brothel. I understand that this is vague, but it's vague on purpose. The secret might not be an undetectable case of gonorrhea. It might be that the new girl is a spy for a rival brothel, there to convince your customers to take their business elsewhere. Or perhaps the new customer is actually an undercover police officer. Possibly, they're a hostage taker who knows they can get a lot of ransom money from the people in the brothel. The vast majority of the time, they're trying to use your establishment as cover for their own illicit dealings, so that if they get caught, the cops will bust you instead of them. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:00, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

I guess any infections are free to waft in and out of the brothel through its Windows, which are always open. Akld guy (talk) 19:53, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Too true. lol ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:21, 22 February 2017 (UTC)