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Zeiter
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I came across these three articles today that all had eerily similar implications. One tells about how scientists were able to make monkeys into workaholics by blocking a gene, another tells about a "superboy" in Germany that has a gene that boosts muscle growth, and the third article talks about a gene injection that can also boost muscle growth. If these were taken together and all implemented on a person, what would we have? Something eerliy similar to a genejack. Here, read the articles for yourselves:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5673747/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5278028/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4282866/
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Zeiter
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Yes, the creators were exceptionally foresighted. I think I read in the back of the manual that they did quite a bit of research before creating the in-game techs so that it wouldn't sound like they were just making things up out of thin air.
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Quezacotl06
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I'm exited about getting a nice big pressure dome for my town :P
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Natalinasmpf
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quote: Well, IIRC, right now it'd be fairly hard to change more than one gene in any baby/whatever. It's pretty much impossible at the moment. So we're still a ways off.
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Its not that difficult. Changing two genes is just twice as hard as changing one gene. Its linear. Its not if after you change the first gene, the difficulty changing anything else skyrockets. You can insert 100 genes (procurement by Polymerase Chain Reaction [PCR], addition by viral vector) if you want.
You just do the whole procedure twice. Of course, the more you tamper, the more chances of deformities, but yeah.
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AnimateDream
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Don't forget the human genome project. We already recorded the whole thing. All of these things were already talked about in the scientific community a lot long before SMAC got there. Tidal harnesses have been around for decades. They just did us a favor by paying attention to what is and isn't scientific instead of making nonsense words like photon blasters. I would like to point out however that we are nowhere near making cognizant ai. It lies in the fundamental differences between a human brain and a computer. The human brain doesn't store information like a computer at all. Its like one big microchip. The synapses in the brain are then formed as needed to store information or as you learn to accomplish new tasks. That would be like redoing the circuitry of a computer everytime you wanted it to hold information. Computer scientists having tradition gone the approach of using lots and lots of code trying to get computers to behave intelligently. Then adding in even more when something doesn't work right. Only recently they're noticing this approach isn't working. They need to start on a more fundamental level. The brain isn't even digital in its processing really. The best supercomputers in the world can't even consistently beat the human chess champions and chess is easily simplified to a mathmatical level. Computers can sort of mimic learning by trial and error when they are given an algorithm by which to rate their own performance but that is different for every task and they will still only operate within what the possibilities programmed in their original code. In complex tasks even this fails as humans may reason what they did wrong, the computer will simply note the attempt as failed unless even more complex code is put that is also specific to each situation. Anyways, sorry for unleashing a rant, but maybe you can take comfort in knoing your humanity will not be challenged by computers too soon.
Last edited by AnimateDream on 29-08-2004 at 20:30
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Natalinasmpf
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quote: Computers can sort of mimic learning by trial and error when they are given an algorithm by which to rate their own performance | '
Best is to treat them like infants. I mean, you can expect infants to know what went wrong when they failed the University quantum physics exam right?
So, teach the computer fundamentals...code the instincts in...then they will learn how to learn better...feedback loop.
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