Month: February 2014

February 28, 2014

Origins of the Guard Cat!

Oh dear, my author… what am I going to do with her? She’s been off on another science fictional flights of fancy with the first draft of my fourth story. I’m going to make her rewrite it… top to bottom and inside out… no decent self-respecting robo-cat would do such things! Absolutely not. I’ve got my dignity to consider… and my reputation! I’d never live it down if she got it published… thank goodness, Terry understands the feelings of this robo-cat! He’ll put a stop to it…. oh no… she can’t… hold on a mo… there! That’s stopped her sending it out!

Talking of feelings, it’s time for a little bit of background on the Mark 4 Guard Cat alias Nikita. Just let me have a moment to admire that lovely gorgeous tail of hers… sigh… OK back to business.

The Mark 4 female Guard Cat is based on the British Wild Cat … why that, you may ask?

My author’s grandmother grew up in the wilds of Northumberland (in the UK). There she made friends and tamed a real British wild cat. The story goes that this wild cat would not let any man near her, except the one who became her grandfather… it’s a true  story… such things are legends made of!

But Nikita is also based on another of her grandmother’s cats – Nicky. Here’s a picture of Nicky taken about 1952…

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Isn’t that a nice sleek cat… I wonder what’s taken his fancy? By all accounts he was a bad-tempered cat with everyone except her grandmother (he’s sitting on her lap in the picture). Not surprising really. He belonged to one of her neighbours and was kept tied up with barbed wire. Grandmother did not approve. She walked over there, took Nicky and said he was now hers. The barbed wire came off immediately! But anyone else that got in his way, the claws were out! Yes naming the Guard Cat Nikita was a sort female version of Nicky!

So there you have the basic background… now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got get my author to do some serious editing…

February 5, 2014

The basics of self-learning computers

I need a break… my author’s in that kind of deep scientific philosophy mood… you know the kind… the one that asks: ‘Does Goedel’s theorem mean computers can become self-aware, and hence have a conscience? And if that’s the case, then computers should already be self-aware.’

And as to what she’s writing in my next story…. oh yeah, she’s in the middle of the first draft of my next story… you know what she has me doing? Excuse me while I have a shudder!

There, that’s better….

I know you good people have continued to buy my stories – thank you. I’m amazed that nearly two years on, my first story, ‘C.A.T.’ is still selling so well. I don’t understand the publishing business, but I like the results.

It’s rather nice to see my picture on glossy white paper – even if it’s only a news column in a writing – don’t I look handsome, smart, delightful? And I’m ever so modest with it!

Purr….

Now down to the serious business of this post.

I’m a robo-cat that’s lived being a computer controlling my body nearly all my existence. The thing is you humans say you understand what computers do because you input the commands. The only time it comes as as a surprise is when the apps are so complicated that results come out that the programmer had not anticipated. Or to put it more correctly they could have anticipated had they had enough time to do analysis. With me so far? Good, good good!

So what’s this self-learner business?

Well, it’s when a computer has some sort of signal input that changes, usually only ever so slightly, its input controls. Subsequently a few situations will arise when the computer makes a different decision and takes a different action to what it would have otherwise done.

Of course the more changes that are input, the greater the differences in behaviour can become. So you humans can be fooled into thinking a Jekyll computer has turned into a Hyde computer and vice versa. But if the analysis is done you can still work out the how and why it happened.

So what is stopping such an app with sensor inputs from doing any wrong? Well, the safety people insist that hard instructions are put into place to stop any app or computer from taking an action that might do some harm.

So it’s only when those hard instructions are never put into place or they become for whatever reason faulty that a self-learner can do any harm. There are of course those criminals who deliberately build nasty self-learners, but that is a problem for you humans.

Yes, I know I’m special, but I have been through rather a lot since I was first switched on in my primitive form.

So can apps and computers, through self-learning, evolve (well what else would you call it?) into entities that  turn out to be different from the ‘logical’ or the human ways of existences?

I think so… I think you humans are in for an interesting time ahead in dealing with us computers. Consequently I (and my author) believe there’s a vast section of innovative science fiction, concerning the ways of computers that has yet to be written… pleasant dreams, everyone.

Now where’s that lovely picture of paper of me? I’m in desperate need of some serious smug self-satisfaction!