"Hogan, James P - The Genesis Machine p174-259" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

After three more excursions round the garbage loop, Clifford sensed something different. Just for a
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20 seemed to explode in his brain, impressing itself with a clarity and. a forcefulness that excluded everything else from his perceptions. Never before in his life had he experienced anything so vividly as that one simple number for that one brief moment. Then the garbage came at him again and swallowed it up. For a while he just sat there dumbstruck.
УGot it that time, huh?Ф BobТs voice brought him back to reality.
УI think so, at least for a second.Ф
УThatТs good,Ф Bob stated, encouraging his pupil. УYouТll find for a while that the shock of realizing itТs working distracts you enough to blow it. YouТll get over that though. DonТt try and fight itЧjust ride it easy. Try again?Ф
An hour later Bob posed the problem, УTwo hundred seventy-three point five six multiplied by one hundred ninety-eight point seven one?Ф
Clifford gazed hard at the console, visualized the numbers, and almost immediately recited, УFifty-four thousand, three hundred fifty-nine point one zero seven six.Ф
УGreat stuff, Brad. I reckon thatТll do for a first session. LetТs break off for lunch and go have a beer.Ф

A week later Clifford was learning to cope with problems in elementary mechanicsЧsituations involving concepts of shape, space, and motion as well as numerical relationships. He found, as his skills improved, that he could create a dynamic conceptual model of a multibody collision and instantly evaluate any of the variables involved. Not only that, he could, by simply willing it, replay the abstract experiment as many times as he liked from any perspective and in any variation that he pleased. He could УfeelФ the changing stress pattern in a mechanical structure
split-second it was there; the concept of the, number subjected to moving loads, УseeФ the flow of currents in an electrical circuit as plainly as that of liquid in a network of glass tubes. By the end of the fourth week he could guide himself through to the solution of a tensor analysis as unerringly as he could guide his finger out of a maze in a childТs coloring book.
The BIACТs adaptive learning system grew steadily more attuned to his particular methods of working and automatically remembered the routines that it had flagged as yielding desired results. As time went on it proceeded to string these routines together into complete procedures that could be invoked instantly without their having to be assembled all over again. In this way the machine automated progressively more of the mundane mechanics of solving a whole variety of problems, leaving him ever more free to concentrate on the more creative activity of evolving the problemsolving strategy. It therefore built up its own programs as it went along; and it was all the time expanding and refining its collection. Programming in the classical sense, even with respect to the parallel programming used in the distributed computing systems of the 1980s and С90s, no longer meant very much.

Clifford imagined a single cube. He imagined that he was looking at it from the direction of one of the corners and down on to it. Having fixed the picture in his mind, he opened his eyes and found a fair representation of it staring back at him from the BIAC graphic screen. It was not badЧa bit ragged at one of the corners and the lines were a little wavy here and there, but. . . not bad. Even as he thought about it, the subconscious part of his mind took its cue from his visual perceptions and the imperfections in the displayed image subtly dissolved away.
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УTry adding some color,Ф Aggie suggested. She was the graphics instructor taking Clifford through the final part of the course. He mentally selected opposite faces red, blue, and green, consolidated the thought, then used the knack that he had developed and projected it at the view in front of him. The hollow cube promptly became solidЧand colored.
УGood,Ф Aggie pronounced. УNow try rotating it.Ф Clifford hesitated for a second, felt the first surge that forewarned the bio-link was beginning to become unstable, and caught it deftly before it could run away into positive feedback. The reaction was by now purely reflex. He settled down again and tried lifting one corner of the cube, but instead of pivoting about its opposite corner as if it were a rigid body, the shape deformed and flowed like a piece of plasticene. He emitted a short involuntary laugh, reformed the smear of colors back into a cube, fired a command at the BIAC to lock the display, relaxed and sat back in his seat.
УWent off the rails there somewhere,Ф he remarked. УWhat should I do?Ф
УYou let the idea that it was rigid slip,Ф Aggie told him. УBut even if you hadnТt, trying to rotate it by stimulating external forces is a pretty difficult thing to get right at first. ThatТs what you were trying to do, isnТt it?Ф
УYes.Ф Clifford was impressed. УHow could you tell?Ф
УOh . . .У She smiled and gestured as if throwing something away. УYou learn to spot such things. Now, when you try it again, donТt think of actually moving the cube. Imagine itТs fixed and youТre walking around it . . . as if it were a building and youТre in a hoverjet, okay? YouТll find that if you do it that way, rigidity and all the other implied concepts take care of them-
selves subconsciously. Right. So, unlock it and, give it another whirl.Ф

Three days later, early in the evening and after their serious business for the day was over, Aggie showed Clifford some games based on animated cartoons that she had produced to amuse herself during her spare time. The difference with these cartoons was that the sequence of events unfolding on the screen could be modified interactively from second to second by the players.
CliffordТs mouse scurried along the floor by the baseboard with AggieТs black-and-white cat pursuing close behind. He instinctively read the speeds and distances and sensed via the BIACТs responses that his mouse would just make it with two point three seven seconds to spare. He slowed the mouse slightly to take the corner at the bottom of the stairs and then raced it flat out along the last straight to where its hole, and safety, lay.
Suddenly he screeched the mouse to a halt. The entrance to the mouse hole was barred by a tiny door bristling with solid-looking padlocks.
УHey, thatТs cheating!Ф Clifford roared indignantly. УYou canТt do that!Ф
УWho says?Ф Aggie laughed. УThereТs no rules that say I canТt.Ф
УChrist!Ф Clifford accelerated the mouse away as the cat pounced on the spot it had just vacated. He ran it round behind the cat, who immediately began turning after it. For an agonizing second he stared helplessly searching for a way out, and then, seized by sudden inspiration, he created a second mouse hole in the baseboard and promptly shot the mouse through it.
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УThatТs not fair!Ф Aggie shrieked. УYou canТt change the house!Ф
УThereТs no rule that says I canТt,Ф Clifford threw back. УI win.Ф
УLike hell. That was a tie.Ф
They were still laughing as they removed the skullharnesses and shut off the operator station to finish the day.
УYou know, Aggie,Ф he said, shaking his head. УThis really is an incredible machine. IТd never have dreamed this kind of thing could work.Ф
УItТs primitive yet,Ф she replied. УI think all kinds of applications that even we canТt imagine will grow out of this some day. . . .У She gestured vaguely in the direction of the screen. УFor example, I wouldnТt be surprised if a whole new art form developed from little things like that. Why hire actors to try and interpret whatТs in the scriptwriterТs mind if you can get straight into his mind?Ф She shrugged and looked sideways at Clifford. УSee the kind of thing I mean?Ф
УMake movies out of peoplesТ heads?Ф He gaped at her.
УWhy not?Ф she said simply.
Why not? Somewhere, he remembered, he had heard that said before.

The final thing they showed him in Baltimore was the way in which the BIAC could function as a communications intermediary between man and man. Two or more human operators interacting simultaneously with the machine were able to exchange thought patterns among themselves in a way that was uncanny, using the computer as a common translator and message exchange. Even more remarkable was the fact that there was no particular reason why these operators had to be in close proximity to one another,