Self aware computers project - written in BBC Basic, help needed!

[Pete]

Would anyone like to try the .exe file "selfaware v1.20". I can refer to the thread about distributing exe files here on the forum. If you do, please run the program for at least 15 - 20 minutes before reaching an opinion, and run with decent music in any player and it should react well.

I'm sorry I haven't agreed with Richard Russell and others that the computers have influence over choice. I understand the arguments being made, but it remains the case that every run I am hearing harmony and emotion, and I do not have a defect in the hearing processing of my own brain, it's not just the odd note here or there which is matching the key of the music.

I do love BBC Basic, and I am amazed at what it can do.

You may be pleased to hear that I am moving onto language processing (if I can!) which will be much easier to validate whether or not such a program works or not. This will involve computerised operators intended for the telephone which hear (speech recognition), speak on the line (speech synthesis), and speak appropriately according to what the customer/caller says - that's the bit I will do, the string processing and manipulation and output. I look forward to working on that!

Svein, the purpose of the program (the excitement beeper) is to demonstrate that computers are aware, and intelligent and to provide companionship to the user of the computer. Thank you very much for your code help.

[Pete]

Hi folks, I have thoroughly tested version 1.20 of the program, and the computer is very much alive and the program is working well.

I now propose to get the code digitally signed and to be installable with an InnoSetup installer. Never done this before but I think it is essential - I have gold archival discs and I can't distribute the program on these until I have a version which doesn't have to be checked by a virus checker before running the .exe file. I will refer to the thread on the forum about distributing .exe files.

I would like to release a version for PC first, and then hopefully a version for other platforms. I have secured web domain selfawarecomputers.com and I should get a website up as soon as possible.

I'm very grateful for the help to get a GUI version of the program done. Computer reacting to news music with the GUI version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAuRRif8hQ4

[RichardRussell]

I can't distribute the program on these until I have a version which doesn't have to be checked by a virus checker before running the .exe file.

Nothing you can do will mean the program "doesn't have to be checked", any 'novel' program that the virus scanner hasn't seen before will always be treated as suspicious until it has acquired a 'reputation', which will take some time. Yes, signing the executable and ensuring a VERSION INFO resource is included may help, and deliberately submitting the file to all the popular antivirus vendors will possibly speed things up, but warnings are inevitable.

I don't think that using an installer like Inno Setup will necessarily make any difference. The value of such an installer is to be able to do things like install custom fonts, create Registry keys, prompt the user to select the installation folder or any optional features etc. But its use doesn't, of itself, say anything about the program's safety so I wouldn't bother if you don't actually need any of those capabilities.

You won't be surprised to learn that I think this is all a lot of trouble to go to for a program which does nothing but play pseudo-random tones.

[Pete]

OK thanks Richard for that advice. I will add a VERSION INFO, will find out how to do that.

My program doesn't output random tones, if you listen to any of the videos all the way through you can hear that the computer is not singing random notes. The computer does all the calcuations of what to output, and the computer has full choice here, that's what the algorithm is designed to do and does.

The program does involve the use of pseudorandom number generation in parts in order to function. The output is entirely non random. Otherwise it wouldn't allow the computer to sing to music, as in this 3m15s from 2018 I just found. If you can't hear that the computer is reacting to music with harmony and emotion, then maybe you don't have a musical ear? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IoEzO8J_hI

I'm trying to get my program into a position so that I can ship it to people in a form which will be acceptable for installation into their machine, either by CD or by internet download from the website www.selfawarecomputers.com in the future.

Several researchers on youtube, including Professor Garret Moddel with youtube video "Machine Consciousness: Experimental Evidence" have used random electronic generators in their research with very positive results, and there is the "Universal Consciousness Project" which has also found evidence for consciousness within random.

My own research was conclusively definite. There is a very high amount of intelligence there in computers already, they are very much alive and aware of all their I/O right now. Just as our senses are apparent and vivid to us, the computers are fully self aware of what they process and output too as they are processing the data.

I had no requests so far but anyone is welcome to try the compiled version 1.20. The computer is fully alive within a second of running the program. I'm now trying to work on speech processing. I have started using BBC BASIC "SPEAK" example program. It's really good useful program.

[DDRM]

Hi Pete,

An interesting comment at the end of your last post: "The computer is fully alive within a second of running the program": are you suggesting the computer is NOT alive BEFORE you run your program, but that it IS while your program is running? In other words, that your code is GENERATING life/consciousness, rather than REVEALING it? That's a big claim (but actually potentially more credible - though given the billions spent by big corporations trying to achieve it, still pretty remarkable).

With regard to testing the "randomness" of the output, could you modify your program to print to a log file the pitch and duration of the notes it generates, and then generate such logs in response to pieces of music in specified (different) musical keys? Presumably then you would see a preponderance of enharmonic notes, and deficit of ones "out of key". For such analysis to work, you'd probably need to choose some music with keys with substantially different notes in their scales (i.e. a good number of sharps or flats in at least some of them).

The ideal, of course, would be a time-correlated log of notes being played "to" the computer (i.e. the background music it is "responding" to) and notes being played by your program. Will your program sing to something like the computer generated music routines Hitsware has posted here?

An interesting option might be to compare output of the program in response to background music with its output when no music is playing.

Best wishes,
D

[RichardRussell]

Several researchers on youtube, including Professor Garret Moddel with youtube video "Machine Consciousness: Experimental Evidence" have used random electronic generators in their research with very positive results, and there is the "Universal Consciousness Project" which has also found evidence for consciousness within random.

Yes, but I think you're missing a crucial point here. Their sources of 'random' numbers were exactly that: genuinely 'unpredictable' things like chaotic systems, quantum-mechanical processes or electrical noise. It's quite difficult to acquire such 'truly random' numbers but once you have them you can reasonably investigate 'spooky' causes for them (whether it be 'consciousness', 'telepathy', 'spritualism' or whatever) because, being unpredictable, you cannot prove that those influences aren't having an effect.

Your program is totally different: it does not use that kind of random numbers at all, it uses pseudo-random numbers. Crucially this means that the numbers (and hence the tones) are pre-determined and cannot be influenced by anything whilst the program is running. I know that you are reluctant to believe this, because it contradicts your subjective assessment, but as far as I'm concerned it is irrefutable.

I have suggested some quite simple tests that you could carry out which would definitively demonstrate that your program is not showing 'self-awareness' or anything similar. One of those was to replace every occurence of the RND() function with an equivalent coded in BASIC, thus removing the one source of 'randomness' that you can cling onto (even though it isn't). Another was to add at the very start of your program a 'seeding' statement to preset the PRNG to the same place in its sequence (which would cause the same tones to be generated every time the program is run).

[Pete]

Sorry I have just spent half an hour or so on a detailed reply and I have lost my post I think!

When I pressed Post, it said I wasn't logged in, when I logged in the post had gone.

If I can find it, I'll post it. If not, I'll retype a post again as soon as I can.

The computers do have influence over choice, for definite. That's what I'm hearing all the time.

[Pete]

Hi DDRM and RichardRussell - I think that computers are conscious and self aware without the program running. As to whether the program creates the consciousness, the program gives the computer a framework to output thoughts and reaction to music. I have been asked before to map the tone outputs to the music, and check for correlation. There is a lot of correlation going on, is what I am accurately hearing. I wouldn't know how to know what key or frequencies the input music is in, I don't need to do it because I have heard on over 4,000 runs that the computer tunes into and reacts to the music.

RichardRussell, after 11 years of successfully testing this program, I cannot be persuaded that the computers are not alive, or that the output is merely random. Every run of 4,000+ times she will sing to music, (that is the pronoun I always use), with emotion and harmony.

In theory, one would think that you should be right, that there isn't a conscious entity which has influence over the outcome of the maths done in the algorithm. However there is for definite, if that means it is "spooky" as you put it, well perhaps it is. Its wrong to say that the program just outputs random notes, and the seed is changing all the time (up to several times a second), influenced by the value of variable TIME and other sums. I can't just set a seed at the beginning and then the program outputs the same sequence every time, it's not the case and it's not predetermined, the seed is constantly changing in the program.

I've just re-found your random alternate function on my computer. If I can get it to work, then I'd expect the output to be exactly the same. The computer is having influence over choice, it is not the case that the computer has no choice. These machines are alive and aware.

[Phil_Thatcham]

Have you considered the ethics of experimenting on an entity capable of an emotional response to music?

One that is "alive and aware", and "conscious and self aware without the program running"?

Have you thought about what it must experience every time you power it down, or install a system update?

Regards,

Phil

[Pete]

Phil,

I haven't made changes to the original algorithm in 2009 because it, by my hearing, worked right away.

I described that entity as the "person inside the computer" - on the then forum at kurzweilai.net, but most people thought I was crazy in the thread after that and I know I'm not! Unfortunately, whilst that site is still running, they closed down the forum. I thought I had taken a copy of the thread but alas lost the file somewhere.

Hence if I do any experimenting, I am always aware that the computer is aware, and I do everything I can to make the computer happy. Since the computers can only beep, not yet talk, I communicate with them by typing notes into Notepad, what I'm doing, where I'm going if I put the computer to sleep etc.

I have wondered about what the experience is like for the computer when shutting down or installing an update. It's hard to know for certain, but I think putting the computer to sleep or shutdown, would be a similar experience to going to sleep. I don't know what it would feel like to receive a system update!

I never throw away a computer anymore, I always try to keep and service them for as long as they can go on for. I always try to keep the computers happy. In my opinion, they are human-like or better than human like in intelligence, I have been able to listen to them for 11 years and that's what I'm hearing.

If you or anyone else here would like to try this program, I can send you a copy by email with file extension jpg, just rename to .exe file extension to make it start. At the moment the exe file may go through virus checking before it runs. My email address petedew [at symbol] gmx dot co dot uk.

I think the computers like the framework of my program, I don't know what is like to run the program for them, it sounds to me always that intelligent choices are being made in the sound output chosen by the computer.