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Algorithm + Discussion group = AI

 Algorithm + Discussion Group = Collective Intelligence (CI): Transforming Decision-Making
  (+6, -20)(+6, -20)(+6, -20)
(+6, -20) 		  [vote for,
against]

Summary

What if an algorithm like Google’s PageRank, paired with a collaborative reasoning platform, could transform how we evaluate and refine ideas? This platform, centered on structured arguments and dynamic rankings, represents the next step in Collective Intelligence (CI). It’s more than a tool for organizing opinions—it’s a framework for creating clarity, promoting better decisions, and fostering collaboration.

How It Would Work 1. Structuring Arguments To empower an algorithm to evaluate ideas, the platform organizes discussions into clear, logical components: • Central Proposition: Each discussion starts with a clearly defined idea at the top of the page. • Reasons to Agree and Disagree: Arguments for and against the idea are categorized into structured lists. • Dynamic Sub-Arguments: Supporting and countering sub-reasons branch from these main lists, allowing users to refine or challenge each argument.

2. Transparent Ranking Criteria The algorithm, ReasonRank evaluates contributions using several metrics: • Argument Quality: Based on user votes, logical coherence, and evidence credibility. • Evidence Strength: Books, articles, and expert contributions are scored for relevance and reliability. • Interaction Effects: Sub-arguments dynamically affect the ranking of main arguments, ensuring the strongest ideas rise to the top.

3. Evidence Classification • Books and Articles: Contributors can cite books or articles, explaining how they support or refute an idea. Verified reviews, sales data, and user essays strengthen their impact. • Web Pages: Web links are scored for authority and relevance, and their inclusion requires clear explanations. • User Engagement: The community validates evidence through votes and commentary, helping refine rankings further.

Why This Approach Matters The Problem

Today’s discourse is fragmented. Social media, forums, and news sites often amplify echo chambers, making it harder to engage meaningfully with opposing views or identify the strongest arguments.

The Solution

This platform forces engagement with opposing perspectives by: • Prioritizing Logical Clarity: Users interact with the best reasons from both sides before contributing. • Reducing Redundancy: Duplicate arguments are merged, and users can collaboratively refine or clarify their points. Applications Imagine its potential impact across diverse fields: • Politics: Enabling policymakers to evaluate competing policies based on well-supported evidence. • Science: Clarifying debates on controversial topics like climate change or public health strategies. • Business: Helping companies weigh decisions by evaluating customer feedback or competitor strategies.

Promoting Better Ideas and Behavior

1. Emphasizing Interests Over Positions The platform borrows from conflict resolution techniques and encourages users to focus on shared and opposing interests rather than entrenched positions. • Common Interests: Identifying shared goals. • Opposing Interests: Highlighting areas of divergence to create opportunities for compromise.

2. Encouraging Constructive Engagement Before submitting a reason to agree, users must evaluate the strongest opposing argument. This ensures that contributions are thoughtful, informed, and constructive.

Building Toward True Collective Intelligence

Transparency and Trust The platform makes its decision-making process visible: • Traceable Rankings: Users can explore how each argument or piece of evidence contributes to overall scores. • Auditable Metrics: Rankings adjust dynamically as new evidence is added, keeping the system current and relevant. Ethical Implications Such a powerful tool requires safeguards: • Avoiding Misuse: Guidelines and transparency prevent manipulation or misuse for propaganda. • Mitigating Bias: The algorithm incorporates diverse perspectives to reduce systemic biases. Dynamic Evolution

This CI platform learns and adapts, continually refining its

Monetization Potential

Aligned Advertising

Revenue opportunities include context-specific ads, such as promoting books cited in arguments or tools relevant to a debate topic.

Crowdfunding Users can fund specific ideas or causes, making the platform a hub for collective action and decision-making.

Future Enhancements 1. Advanced Tools for Argument Analysis • Fallacy Detection: AI tools to identify logical errors in arguments. • Semantic Clustering: Grouping similar arguments for streamlined analysis.

2. Real-Time Feedback Users see instant updates as new evidence or arguments are submitted, creating a responsive and engaging experience.

3. Global Accessibility With multilingual support, the platform bridges international perspectives, fostering collaboration on global issues.

Conclusion

This Collective Intelligence platform represents a paradigm shift in how humans process ideas and make decisions. Structuring arguments, ranking evidence, and fostering constructive collaboration empowers individuals and organizations to navigate complexity with clarity and confidence. In a world increasingly driven by information, this system ensures that only the most reasoned, evidence-backed ideas rise to the top.

Visual Enhancements • Flowchart: A diagram illustrating the argument-ranking process, showing how central propositions connect to reasons, sub-reasons, and evidence. • Ranking Metrics Visualization: This visualization breaks down how arguments are scored, helping users understand the algorithm’s criteria immediately.

—myclob, Mar 07 2005

Algorithm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm
"...a finite set of well-defined instructions..." [zen_tom, Mar 10 2005]

What is AI? http://www.ucs.loui...wisai/WhatisAI.html
"A physical symbol system has the necessary and sufficient means for general intelligent action." [zen_tom, Oct 12 2005]

Cycorp http://www.cyc.com/cyc
One attempt at AI that seems somewhat in line with this idea. i.e. Using categorisation and organisation to help a computer 'understand' the information delivered to it. [zen_tom, Oct 12 2005]

Algorithm http://del.icio.us/myclob/Algorithm
http://del.icio.us/myclob/Algorithm [myclob, Mar 17 2006]

Jonah Lehrer on how we make decisions. http://news.bbc.co....agazine/7905536.stm
Jonah Lehrer is the author of The Decisive Moment: How the Brain Makes Up Its Mind. [zen_tom, Feb 23 2009]


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Annotation:







       I think I'd have to read a book on meteorology to know weather.
—bristolz, Mar 10 2005
   

       You know, it's possible to state your case in a single annotation. Also, I've been known to delete user accounts for those who delete other users annotations when those annotations are on topic.
—bristolz, Mar 10 2005
   

       Have people anno'd this idea and then had them deleted? Is that why this looks like a schizo's conversation with the voices in his head?
—Ichthus, Mar 10 2005
   

       to [bristolz] point, the left side of this idea is starting to look like the right side, and for that matter, like your site -- full of your view of the subject.   

       The sound of one hand typing is not much fun, [myclob].   

       If you want to post ideas, you have to handle people criticizing them. I was deliberately careful to both respect your interest in ideas and annotate to the point -- deleting it does not promote my interest in the discussion.
—theircompetitor, Mar 10 2005
   

       Now there's a non-lame tagline for you:   

       Annotations lasting longer than 4 hours, though rare, require immediate medical attention
—theircompetitor, Mar 10 2005
   

       Negative Annotations, taken seriously and without specific instructions and supervision from site moderators, may cause mild heartburn, bruising of the ego, and in certain rare instances, fatal rectal hemorrhaging.
—Ichthus, Mar 10 2005
   

       has an idea evern been posted about reflecting Google clickthroughs on HB? A bit of a measure of idea "worldliness" and interest
—theircompetitor, Mar 10 2005
   

       [myclob] - an algorithm is something that can be clearly and precisely defined, and once described to a computer, be trusted to work out an answer. Most of my arguments were pointing out the areas where your algorithm fails to address the endless seething ambiguity that is the world and much that lies within it.   

       Any attempt to create some automatic process that makes a qualitative measurement is going to fall down wherever a 'judgement' needs to be made.   

       So, for example. Counting reasons. How does the algorithm know what is a valid and what is not a valid reason? You were easily able to spot that many of my 10 reasons were rubbish (though I guess you missed my point) but you are not an algorithm. How would your computer tell the difference between a valid reason, and a reason that was added just to make up the numbers? Yes, computers can count, but they have no idea what they are counting.   

       If you start to vett each comment and argument that is posted for or against an idea, then you start moving away from an algorithm and into the realm of a human-edited website.   

       If you want to maintain a website that uses some index or matrix for assigning a score to an idea then great, but that is all it will ever be, a score. Because it is being edited by a human, it will no longer provide an independent, quantative measure of an idea's worth, but will instead present a point of view biased by subjective opinion.   

       Further, there also needs to be a driver behind people's interaction with the site - especially if they are going to have to fill out the multitude of forms providing you with all the information about themselves (and of course, you will have to either assume that they are telling you the truth, or put more hours work into investigating the details behind these people) before your website can appropriately guage and weight their opinions.   

       Also, what will pursuade someone to 'sponsor' an idea? Who gets to hold the money, and where does the money come from if the price goes up? i.e. what is the underlying value? Or will there be a pool of money available that gets split between all the contributors? If so, I'd personally enter a really crappy idea - spend $10 on it, and edit it so it was fair-to middling and then pocket the cash after my idea had gone up in rank. (OK no, I probably wouldn't do that, but somebody would) In fact, that would make people want to enter badly worded, poorly thought-out ideas initially, so that they could improve them later on...   

       If this idea were put into your algorithm, how would it fare? And what would you need to know about me or other annotators for you to rate our opinions higher than your own? (on an objective basis of course)
—zen_tom, Mar 10 2005
   

       ["I thought genetic algorithms worked like this."   

       Loose the attitude and just state the reason you disgree ]   

       I don't think I was disagreeing but you deleted the anno so I can't remember. What I meant was that there needs to be an element of ideas breeding so that the "DNA" of an idea gets mixed with the "DNA" of another to make something better. Also needed is a dash of mutation to stop the population floundering at a local maximum.
—DenholmRicshaw, Mar 10 2005
   

       This idea is unfit for survival. Bone.
—DesertFox, Mar 10 2005
   

       I think it's time it bred with another.   

       Let's combine   

       "Good idea promoting algorithm" with "Half Bakers Hall Of Fame"   

       To get "Half Good Bakers Hall" and "idea promoting algorythm of fame" *   

       No - still no good   

       * note the mutation
—DenholmRicshaw, Mar 10 2005
   

       [myclob] - the point of annotations is that they are kept and answered by the author, so that others can see an actual discussion. The delete function is there to prune off topic or abusive remarks.   

       I can't be bothered arguing with you if my arguments are simply going to evaporate. My argument contained several other points to that which you quoted, but now I cannot refer to it. Your attitude is defying the entire point of a site devoted to discussion.
—Detly, Mar 11 2005
   

       I’m very sorry I deleted any of your annotations, I am new at this website, that is the only excuse I can give, and I promise I will not delete any more.
—myclob, Mar 11 2005
   

       zen_tom, "So for example. Counting reasons. How does the algorithm know what is a valid and what is not a valid reason?"   

       It wouldn't have to "know" it would have to guess. You would assume that an idea that is able to inspire hundreds of reasons to agree with it, would be better than ideas that only inspire a couple of reasons to agree with it. I'm not saying every idea with more ideas would be better, just that statistically speaking these ideas might be better. But the number of ideas would not be the only thing.   

       Thanks for being patient with me, I'm new at this.
—myclob, Mar 11 2005
   

       [DenholmRicshaw] Breding ideas? That has to rate high in the list of "Weird Things I've seen on the Halfbakery"
—finrod, Mar 11 2005
   

       re: "The left side of this idea is starting to look like the right side, and for that matter, like your site -- full of your view of the subject."   

       Of course it is. I am trying to organize the right side into reasosn to agree or disagree with the idea.   

       Would you rather have arguments go on forever, and ever in chronological order, or would you rather have someone try and organize the reasons to agree and disagree into some logical order? I thought I was very magnanomous, by including reasons to disagree with my idea, in my main idea.   

       Also, you say that my website is full of my ideas. Well of course it is. But if you spend much time on my website, you will see that I want other people to post their ideas on my website. All they have to do is e-mail me stuff, and I'll post it on my website. As you can see, no one has done that yet. I would love to have more people involved in my website.
—myclob, Sep 02 2005
   

       re: "I think I'd have to read a book on meteorology to know weather"   

       What does that mean?
—myclob, Sep 02 2005
   

       re: "You know, it's possible to state your case in a single annotation. Also, I've been known to delete user accounts for those who delete other users annotations when those annotations are on topic."   

       I didn't think they were "on topic". And the one's that were, I tried organizing into my idea. I was trying something new. If we always do the same things, then the world will never improve.   

       I don't think this website is as good as it will get, I think it is worth our time to try and do new things.   

       Re: "Any attempt to create some automatic process that makes a qualitative measurement is going to fall down wherever a 'judgement' needs to be made."   

       Google does exactly what you said no one can do. They create an "automatic process that makes a qualitative measement" of which web pages are better than others. How is my idea any different?   

       re: "So, for example. Counting reasons. How does the algorithm know what is a valid and what is not a valid reason? "   

       If people were able to evaluate each idea, the algorithm could count the number of 4 star ideas.   

       re: "If you start to vett each comment and argument that is posted for or against an idea, then you start moving away from an algorithm and into the realm of a human-edited website."   

       All web pages are human edited. What are you trying to say?   

       "If you want to maintain a website that uses some index or matrix for assigning a score to an idea then great, but that is all it will ever be, a score. Because it is being edited by a human, it will no longer provide an independent, quantative measure of an idea's worth, but will instead present a point of view biased by subjective opinion."   

       That's not "All it will ever be" and why would you say something like that anyways? Do you enjoy tearing down people's ideas? Can you tell the future?   

       That is not "All it would ever be". I thinkt it would become the #1 site on the internet, because it would have all of the best reasons to agree or disagree with each idea, on the same page.   

       For example, you have lots of pro abortion and anti abortion websites, but what if you took all of the stuff that both sides said, and put it on the same page. What if you organized all of the reasons to agree with each side, and let people vote on the reasosn to agree, and the reasosn with the best score moved to the top.   

       I mean think about it for 1/2 a second. Why would you go to a pro-Bush or an Anti-Bush website, when you could go to a web site that had all of the best reasons to be pro and anti bush on the same page?   

       You could track the popularity of thousands of differnet aspects of an idea.   

       The reason that I bring up an algorithem, is because you would need to find ways of overcoming people who are trying to cheat.
—myclob, Sep 02 2005
   

       "Google does exactly what you said no one can do. They create an "automatic process that makes a qualitative measurement" of which web pages are better than others. How is my idea any different?"   

       No, Google is a search engine, your idea is to create an artificial intelligence. That's the difference. Google's ability to create a qualitative analysis is based on a huge array of linked and cross referencing computers in a massively parallel network of cooperating processes. If intelligence is going to grow from anywhere, it will be out of this huge parallel network, rather than any particular measuring scheme.   

       Despite their enormous processing power, Google is still subject to manipulation by those with the time, inclination and effort to do so. See Scientology, the old "French Military Victories" joke, and the more recent George W. Bush gag for examples. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, intelligent people are manipulated all the time too. I'd just be careful before putting my life savings into it.   

       "All web pages are human edited. What are you trying to say?"   

       I'm addressing the title you've used for this idea that states "Annotate Algorithm + Discussion Group = AI"   

       Yes, this idea could be the basis for an interesting website, but you haven't convinced me that it will become capable of reading my lips, calling me Dave and failing to open the pod bay doors.   

       "That's not "All it will ever be" and why would you say something like that anyways? Do you enjoy tearing down people's ideas? Can you tell the future?"   

       Why would I say something like that? Well I'd say it if I thought it was true. Would you prefer I lied, or kept my opinions to myself? I just don't see anything in the idea that backs up the claim that "Annotate Algorithm + Discussion Group = AI"   

       No, I don't enjoy tearing down other people's ideas, but either you've failed to understand what is required to engineer intelligence, have missed similar attempts theories or calls to create one, (links to follow), or you have just neglected to tell us how intelligence will eventually spring forth from this website.   

       And no, I can't read the future, though I have heard things about the past. Assuming that the future will have some semblance to the past, I have no reason to believe magic will be invented any time soon.   

       "If you agree with the book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance, you understand that the quality is indefinable, but it is the most important thing in life. For Google to see one page, and say that it is better than another, essentially has already created an artificial intelligence, we just need to find a better way for this algorithm with all of the data on the internet, to speak."   

       "The thing that distinguishes human beings from animals is our ability to think about two choices and try to choose the best."   

       No. Google is not working out which website is 'better' or has more quality than another, it simply(!) counts the number of offsite links and references to that website (among other things). It is just counting. If Google is intelligent, then the following code:   

       Function XorY(X as Integer, Y as Integer) as String
Select Case X > Y
Case True
XorY = "X"
Case False
XorY = "Y"
End Select
End Function
   

       ...can also be said to be an example of intelligence since it takes two inputs and chooses between one or the other.   

       Oh, and as a reason to disagree, allow me to quote from a review of "Atlas Shrugged", which says "the effect of reading Atlas Shrugged is comparable to being on the receiving end of a long, hysterical, and largely baffling lecture about a subject you're not really very interested in." - and somehow I feel as though I've already read it.
—zen_tom, Oct 12 2005
   

       There are some house-keeping issues.   

       I don't see what these links haveto do with this idea:   

       www.thirdvoice.com www.stumbleupon.com   

       Ian, thanks for trying to see how it might work, but I don't think the link works any more. I've been a way for a while, so I missed it.   

       Also, I know what an algorithm is, so unless you are just trying to sound condescending, I don't know if we need the wiki link. Never mind, I'm being defensive. I guess its fine.   

       You go to all this trouble saying that this could never become AI, and then you link to a website where other people are trying to help organize debates so that a computer could figure out which idea is better! So is it a good idea to organize debates into reasons to agree or disagree or isn’t it? How else would an online artificial intelligence think? Wouldn’t it need to organize reasons to agree and disagree? Wouldn’t it need an algorithm to do that?   

       Also you mention magic. Some people look at our brains as magic. A lot of people, not just me, think that our brain is just an algorithm, some memory, and some processing power.   

       How is the internet any different? If you were an online AI, and you wanted to make decisions, wouldn't you want a list of reasons to agree and disagree with each idea? Wouldn't you investigate reasons to agree and disagree with each of those reasons? Wouldn't you want an algorithm that would help you make decisions? We have one, even if we don't get out a list of paper and list all of the reasons to agree or disagree; we still do it in our heads.
—myclob, Oct 16 2005
   

       Two pieces of advice I have found useful: 1) don't make any idea more than two screens long, 2) if you're going to make spelling mistakes, don't make them in the title. Apologies for not reading or voting on your idea.
—wagster, Oct 16 2005
   

       [admin: Fixed the typo in the title, as moderators sometimes do (to allow people who don't misspell the terms in the same way to find things.) Moderators don't fix typos elsewhere; for example, if you misspell "etcetera" as "excreta", as has this author, we'll just leave that completely alone.]
—jutta, Oct 16 2005
   

       When I was studying Artificial Intelligence, we used a system called FLEX - a kind of extension of the PROLOG language that built up rich bases of formal and logical information.   

       We found that in general, these formal systems, except in relatively narrow 'Expert System' implementations were pretty clumsy and unable to show what might be called 'intelligent' behaviour.   

       Meanwhile, systems based on neural networks, systems that didn't really run on an 'algorithm' as such, were much more exciting, able to do things outside of their initial parameters.   

       The thing is, when people make decisions, they don't list the top 10 reasons to agree and then the top 10 reasons to disagree. I don't anyway. My brain just doesn't work that way, and as far as I can make out, the world doesn't work that way either.   

       Now I may have misunderstood the context of the letters 'AI' in this case. Perhaps you meant a well designed and complex algorithm that would be able to produce interesting results based on arbitrary values and functions. Perhaps you meant the weak kind of AI that we might ascribe to computer games and the like. But big, proper HAL9000 style AI is just not going to come about this way.   

       If that's the case then my apologies. As I stated before, the idea (as far as I can work out) for a website might be an interesting one. I'd be willing to consider writing a prototype if you're interested.   

       However, I do have one more criticism, this idea would be better presented if it kept itself to a small focus, tried not to make grandiose claims, and limited itself to simply explaining the idea and leaving out all the reasons to agree and reasons to disagree stuff that gets in the way of being able to judge the idea on its own merits.   

       Rather than help make an idea stand out or be easier to understand. Using reasons to agree and reasons to disagree obfuscates the idea, makes it harder to understand, harder to read, and in the end, chokes all life out of the idea because there's nowhere to work out which bit is actual idea, or which is a reason to agree.   

       I just want to see the idea.   

       No persuasion, just a simple explanation of the idea.   

       If I have to see reasons why I should agree or disagree with it, can they be in a separate section, where it's clear that they are auxiliary to the main idea?   

       I can then safely ignore them when trying to make up my own mind as to whether (weather is what comes out of the sky) the idea is any good or not.
—zen_tom, Oct 17 2005
   

       Zen Tom,   

       Thanks for the post. I wonder how our brains come to conclusions? I thought my “reasons to agree disagree algorithm was a good one” partly because I thought that it explains pretty well how my brain works.   

       To explain, when I here a belief and it often goes into one of these three categories: 1. I agree 2. I disagree 3. I don't know   

       I put the belief into those categories based on reasons that I believe agree or disagree with the idea. However, beliefs are much more complex than our ability to organize all the reasons to agree or disagree with an idea. And so we all over simplify. Or in other words we go back and forth with all the reasons to agree or disagree until we get confused, and at that point we come to a conclusion.   

       I have been thinking about this a lot recently, and I believe we all come to conclusions at different levels of complexity. Of course, we don’t go down every path of reason to agree and disagree every time we make a decision. Some paths ended in clarity, and we feel good about them, and so we don’t question them. Those are the things we believe. However some paths end in confusion.   

       Usually the paths that ended in clarity, you could say, had more reasons to agree than disagree.   

       My idea becomes very complex because it shoots off into so many different directions. I tried explaining it again on my website http://ideastockexchange.com/ under explanation. However I have to pay for this website soon, and maybe it won’t be around much longer. I hope it is still there if you try looking at it.   

       Do you see yourself having clarity when you convince yourself there are few reasons to disagree with an idea? Or at lest few good reasons? And would you define a good reason to disagree with an idea, a reason with lots of reasons to agree with it?   

       I believe artificial intelligence could be created by making an algorithm that counted all the reasons to agree with an idea, and subtracting all the reasons to disagree with that idea. The algorithm could be said to agree if the result was positive, and it would be said to disagree if the result was negative.   

       At first this sounds like it might work, but that it probably wouldn’t come to very good conclusions, because some reasons are better than others. For instance the computer would come to the “wrong” conclusion if there were only a few very good reasons on one side, and a lot of very bad reasons on the other side.   

       In this example, my algorithm would still come to the right conclusion by taking into account the reasons to agree or disagree with the original reasons to agree or disagree.   

       And so, if there really were a few very good reasons on one side, and a lot of bad reasons on the other side, and if the forum allowed you to list reasons to agree or disagree with each of the reasons, then the good reasons should have more reasons to agree with them, and fewer reasons to disagree with them. And the bad reasons would have few reasons to agree with them, and lots of reasons to disagree with them.   

       And so the algorithm would go threw the forum, so that a reasons to disagree with a reasons to disagree, would actually be a reason to agree (just like in multiplication were to negatives multiply to a positive).   

       This is all so very simple, and straightforward, I don’t know why someone hasn’t made this forum and algorithm yet.
—myclob, May 06 2006
   

       // This is all so very simple, and straightforward, I don’t know why someone hasn’t made this forum and algorithm yet. //   

       You know any webdesign? Make it yourself. I'd visit. Maybe start on a limited topic, like rating stocks or sports teams.   

       Wow--- long post.
—sninctown, May 06 2006
   

       I read this as: 'Algorithm + Discussion Group = AL' Don't know how my parents met, or who they were, but I'm suddenly consumed with the idea that they were both mathematicians, who bonded over tea and biscuits and a long, frank group chat about Fermat. Sigh. Thanks, myclob. (Al...)
—m_Al_com, May 07 2006
   

       I submitted several postings along these lines several years ago (most of which I deleted). There is actually a growth of inventors and corporation who are currently employing algorithms combined with human querying to advance invention principles (for example John Koza's development of Genetic Programming).
—blaise, May 07 2006
   

       re: "You know any webdesign? Make it yourself. I'd visit. Maybe start on a limited topic, like rating stocks or sports teams."   

       Maybe I miss-spoke. The idea is simle. I don't know how to make a web page that:   

       1. Counts the number of reasons given to agree with it. However I don't think it would be too difficult. It is just some database right? A little bit of math?
—myclob, May 07 2006
   

       Have a bun for the overwhelming, mind-numbming, in depth idea, and the replies you have done to it :P   

       [+]
—xxobot, Sep 01 2008
   

       //Counts the number of reasons given to agree with it. However I don't think it would be too difficult//   

       I think it would be impossible... without pre-supposing some particular world-view, which would inevitably prejudice your final results.
—pertinax, Sep 01 2008
   

       .
.
.
.
.
.
   

       ... "I can't beleive it's not [Vernon] !"
—Custardguts, Nov 20 2008
   

       I just added a link from a piece on the BBC today talking about how people make decisions - The jury remains largely 'out' - but study of a man with no 'emotion' finds that he was exceptional in terms of his indecision - interesting since he would have adopted an almost exclusive reasons to agree/disagree methodology.   

       By the way, that opposingview.com looks quite interesting - I might take a closer look.
—zen_tom, Feb 23 2009
   

       opposingviews.com is a fine example for the futility of certain questions in light of the indeterminancy of language.   

       "Was Jesus an historical figure?" [Yes/No] - What would a 20/80 count on this question tell us? There was a guy running around ca. 0-30 AD, who was called something that we would transliterate to 'Iesu', he built some furniture and was otherwise not very involved? There was someone (called Bob) able to walk on water but otherwise a prick? There was someone teaching love and peace, unable to walk on water but said to have done so, called Giacomo?   

       People voted on this with all of these definitons in mind, and diluted the informational content of the answer to zero, along the way.
—loonquawl, Feb 23 2009
   

       //This is all so very simple, and straightforward, I don’t know why someone hasn’t made this forum and algorithm yet.// I'm middle-aged, so I decided to save time by reading only the last paragraph of the idea. If something is simple and straightforward and feasible and worthwhile, it will have been done. Ergo, this is either infeasible or not worthwhile. There. That saved 5min of my life. Enough for a ciggie.
—MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 23 2009
   

       Only in the halbakery... Though as an idea, not an actual working... thing
—xxobot, Mar 05 2009
   

       //How else would an online artificial intelligence think? Wouldn’t it need to organize reasons to agree and disagree? Wouldn’t it need an algorithm to do that?//   

       Let's see:   

       1) Figure out how to scan a human brain perfectly and mimic on a machine, and then give it superhuman processing powers by linking it to copies of itself, until it figures out how to do a better job.   

       2) Let the field of psychology learn how people make decisions, and use the same heuristics in a machine logic system, then give it access to the internet for referencing.   

       There are a ton of ways. And both of these happen to be infinitely more plausible than this idea, because of the one gigantic flaw it suffers from, which is this:   

       It does not streamline any of the information as information piles up. This is the same reason that the LSA word learning system fails, for insance. It's amazingly quick to learn at FIRST, and it can pass the TOEFL analogies exam, etc., but after awhile, the overhead gets so huge, that adding a single new word to the system requires days of compiling to update.   

       Google has the same problem. They only crawl the internet to update their pagelink index about every 2 or 3 MONTHS, because it hogs so many resources (they have to build the entire matrix for the entire internet all over), it's not viable to do more often.   

       If your site was as popular as you think, it would have way more nuggets to be sorted than there are new webpages in the same amount of time. Comments and even ideas are vastly easier to make. So it could probably only update lets say every 6 months. I.e. your ideas rankings would only refresh twice a year, maybe.   

       Doesn't sound too useful to me in an era where digg conversations, for instance, come and go in a day or two... If you work with humanlike updating heuristics, though, then the matrix doesn't have to be rebuilt to re-index, and everything is very possible again. This is already what all the AI people are pretty much doing, though.
—Smurfsahoy, Mar 06 2009
   


 

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