The what is AI question

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Well, how about the ability to respond to unexpected situations with
useful choices?   Is that low or high on the tests of intelligence?

Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????



-----Original Message-----
From:  Rob Howard
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2006 12:32 PM
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.

[ph] I think you're saying that people have frequently bestowed
'intelligence' on things that were merely predictable.  That seems to
display something of a tendency to accept mystification in place of
explanation, but I don't see the root meaning of intelligence in it.  An
intelligent person will predictably come up with unexpected points of
view and solutions for new problems.   It's the aspect of invention
there, not the mystery of the process, that displays the intelligence
involved I think. ph

>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?

[ph] This is a great issue.  Making a world model in our minds the way
we do does seem to require that the qualities of things are those we
bestow on them by changing our images of them.  All we have to guide us
is our world model, so when we change our own or each other's world
models it displays our ultimate control over the world in which we
operate.  

[ph] Another view is that things are what a scientific study would tell
you, their web of relationships with other things and the nest of
internal structures with which those other related things connect.  This
refers to a an extensive group of physical systems most of which are and
will remain largely or entirely unknown.  It's hard to have it both
ways, and the former surely seems to dominate, but getting rid of the
latter all together seems dangerous, don't you think?
 
>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