. . or they didn’t have until HESPER machines came along. But supposing you could educate FISE to the level where he knew enough about real-world concepts to be able to make commonsense decisions for himself reliably. Then you could put him through a specialist course on—I dunno, say something like steel-making—so he knows all the things you have to aim for in order to run a steel plant efficiently. Then you let him practice for a while, maybe by connecting him to another computer that’s pretending to be a steel plant. Because he’s smart he can learn from his experiences and because he’s a computer he can learn fast. Pretty soon you’ve got a hotshot manager who can run rings around any team in the business. Then you ship him out into the real world, give him a real plant to run and let him get on with it. The beauty of it is he’ll do all the right things, but you haven’t had to go through the hard labor of programming in every specific detail of every situation that might ever arise and every specific detail of what to do if it does. All you gave him was the basic capability to learn. The rest he figured out for himself.”
Laura continued to eat in silence for a while, keeping her eyes directed down at the plate before her. Her fashionable clothes, meticulously styled hair and faultless grooming made her look out of place among the casual shirts, denims and well-worn traditional jackets of a university restaurant. There was no doubt, Dyer thought, that in purely physical terms she was stunning. He found himself trying to picture what she would look like stripped of the close-fitting velvyon dress that changed its hue from midnight blue to silver as she moved.
Laura looked up at him. “If FISE is a learning computer, what’s a HESPER computer?” she asked. “I thought HESPER was supposed to be some kind of learning computer too.”
“It is,” he replied simply, “Or more precisely, it’s a programming technique. It stands for HEuristic Self-Programming Extendable Routine—a set of interrelated programs that form a structure that can learn as it goes.”
“I’m not sure I see the difference.”
“It’s a question of degree,” he said. “HESPER systems are specialized to handle one particular kind of application. You could set up a HESPER system that will optimize itself over a period of time, say . . . play a game of chess. The more games it plays, the better it gets until you can’t keep up with it. But that’s all it’s good for. But something like FISE would possess a broad base of general concepts. It could learn to handle anything. So all you’d have to do is develop it once and get it right instead of having to set up thousands of different HESPER systems all the time. It would supersede HESPER programming in the same kind of way that HESPER is taking over from the classical distributed parallel programming that’s been around since . . . aw, the 1980s, 1990s.”
Laura looked at him quizzically for a moment as if she expected him to draw some conclusion from his own words. Then she sighed and shook her head.
“Can’t you see how irresponsible the whole thing is?” she asked.
“Irresponsible?” There was no surprise in Dyer’s voice. Everything had been going too smoothly.
“Criminally! They’ve been plugging HESPER machines into the TITAN network all over the world for over a year now, haven’t they? So those things are out there, going through their learning processes and being put in control of manufacturing plants, transportation systems and everything else, yet from what you’ve just told me they’re even dumber than FISE is. How can you say it isn’t irresponsible to give idiots like that a fusion plant?”
“Because they’re not the same thing,” Dyer insisted. “HESPER machines are designed simply to be able to get steadily better at doing a particular job. They’ve been thoroughly tested, they’re well understood and there’s nothing mysterious
Laura continued to eat in silence for a while, keeping her eyes directed down at the plate before her. Her fashionable clothes, meticulously styled hair and faultless grooming made her look out of place among the casual shirts, denims and well-worn traditional jackets of a university restaurant. There was no doubt, Dyer thought, that in purely physical terms she was stunning. He found himself trying to picture what she would look like stripped of the close-fitting velvyon dress that changed its hue from midnight blue to silver as she moved.
Laura looked up at him. “If FISE is a learning computer, what’s a HESPER computer?” she asked. “I thought HESPER was supposed to be some kind of learning computer too.”
“It is,” he replied simply, “Or more precisely, it’s a programming technique. It stands for HEuristic Self-Programming Extendable Routine—a set of interrelated programs that form a structure that can learn as it goes.”
“I’m not sure I see the difference.”
“It’s a question of degree,” he said. “HESPER systems are specialized to handle one particular kind of application. You could set up a HESPER system that will optimize itself over a period of time, say . . . play a game of chess. The more games it plays, the better it gets until you can’t keep up with it. But that’s all it’s good for. But something like FISE would possess a broad base of general concepts. It could learn to handle anything. So all you’d have to do is develop it once and get it right instead of having to set up thousands of different HESPER systems all the time. It would supersede HESPER programming in the same kind of way that HESPER is taking over from the classical distributed parallel programming that’s been around since . . . aw, the 1980s, 1990s.”
Laura looked at him quizzically for a moment as if she expected him to draw some conclusion from his own words. Then she sighed and shook her head.
“Can’t you see how irresponsible the whole thing is?” she asked.
“Irresponsible?” There was no surprise in Dyer’s voice. Everything had been going too smoothly.
“Criminally! They’ve been plugging HESPER machines into the TITAN network all over the world for over a year now, haven’t they? So those things are out there, going through their learning processes and being put in control of manufacturing plants, transportation systems and everything else, yet from what you’ve just told me they’re even dumber than FISE is. How can you say it isn’t irresponsible to give idiots like that a fusion plant?”
“Because they’re not the same thing,” Dyer insisted. “HESPER machines are designed simply to be able to get steadily better at doing a particular job. They’ve been thoroughly tested, they’re well understood and there’s nothing mysterious
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