[Mobiu5]

This is actually pretty scary. It is basically giving AI a human-like form of will. It "desires" what you program it to desire and goes about achieving it, learning from its' own mistakes and becoming increasingly proficient at manipulating its' environment to achieve its' goal(s) along the way. It makes me excited, but also quite frightened to think what goals people might give AIs like this in the future...

[PeterisP]

Well, that kind of is the definition of a learning agent. Any learning system would be "learning from its' own mistakes and becoming increasingly proficient" and any agent would, by definition, be "manipulating its environment to achieve its goals".

[astazangasta]

This is a really poor rendering of "desire". If the word "desire" is meaningful, it has to be self-actualized. Otherwise it's just a programming condition, no different than a fuse box or a dead man's switch.

[Houshalter]

It doesn't matter what word you use, the AI is still manipulating it's environment to achieve that "programming condition".

In any case, everyone's desires are programmed into them, just via genetics and evolution rather than humans and programming.

[Mobiu5]

Well, it is very different from a fuse box or a dead man's switch because it is CREATIVELY manipulating its' environment to achieve what it "wants". Also, much of what WE want is hard-coded as well.