The what is AI question

[Frank Wimberly]

There is intelligence and there is consciousness.  Both have been mentioned in this discussion.

I believe that intelligence can be inferred from behavior but that consciousness cannot.  I further believe that either machines already have consciousness or that they never will.  I don't believe that machines currently have consciousness.  Therefore...

I might be wrong.

Frank

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz              [phone] or [phone] (cell)
Santa Fe, NM 87505           wimberly3 at earthlink.net
-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Rob Howard
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2006 10:32 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The what is AI question

What if the analogy of intelligence is unexpected predictability? I can roll a pair of dice, and that is unpredictable; but it?s not unexpected. I expect a Gaussian curve of totals.

A few thousand years ago, the states of the moon were unpredictable (eclipses, elevation, and to some extent, phases). Humans consequently animated it with intelligence by calling it Luna?the moon goddess. All deities have intelligence. The same occurred with the planets, weather; and even social conditions like love and war. Only when these things became expectedly predictable did they loose their intelligence. You all remember ELIZA! At least for the first five minutes of play, the game did take on intelligence. However, after review of the actual code did the game instantly lose it mystery. Kasparov bestowed intelligence on Deep Blue, which I?m sure the programmers did not.

In this sense, intelligence is not a property that external things have. It?s something that we bestow upon, or perceive in external things. Is not one of the all time greatest insults on one?s intelligence the accusation of being predictable?

I suspect that any measure of intelligence will be relative to the observer?s ability to predict expected causal effects and be pleasantly surprised?not too unlike the Turing Test.

Robert Howard
Phoenix, Arizona


From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Pamela McCorduck
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2006 3:55 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The what is AI question


On Dec 24, 2006, at 2:47 PM, Giles Bowkett wrote:

On 12/24/06, phil henshaw <sy at synapse9.com> wrote:
I'm a little confused.   If AI is the art of replicating the mechanisms
of human intelligence with machines, doesn't that assume that brain
function is digital?   I don? think that's been demonstrated as yet.

The metaphor makes sense, but the thing is, we really don't have
enough there to generalize from. In practical terms, most
implementations of AI tend to be very targeted. Like the techniques
which emulate inference and causality are very, very different from
the techniques which emulate language and grammar. (Just as an
example.) What you really have is not a grand unified theory of human
consciousness so much as a grab-bag of techniques that sorta work.
Some techniques are effective enough to offer insight into the
individual processes they emulate, but there really isn't anything
consistent enough to offer general insight into intelligence itself.

Perhaps.  Newell and Simon might disagree, and say that at a certain level of abstraction, the ability to create and manipulate symbols is the sign.

But I agree that AI has been targeted (to Minsky's loud regret) and we cannot yet draw from that a grand unified theory.  I'm serene; physics has been at it for a lot longer, and they're having trouble with grand unified theories too.

P.



"My idea of good company, Mr. Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company."

"You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company, that is the best."

                                                Jane Austen, Persuasion