11–20 of 111 posts
My favourite minsky story is the one where he commissioned a grad student for a summer to solve "the computer vision problem once and for all". Its a great anecdote to illustrate how so many have underestimated the difficulty of problems in computer vision in robotics and AI.
Idiocy: My thermostat has three possible beliefs: 1) It is too warm in here. 2) It is too cold in here. 3) It is just about right. Minsky is wrong about AI in the same way that McCarthy was wrong. McCarthy really "believed" that his thermostat had three possible beliefs, and that his thermostat really "believed" one of them at any given time. http://Books.Google.com/books?id=yNJN-_jznw4C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA... Searle debu…
Idiocy: My thermostat has three possible beliefs: 1) It is too warm in here. 2) It is too cold in here. 3) It is just about right. Minsky is wrong about AI in the same way that McCarthy was wrong. McCarthy really "believed" that his thermostat had three possible beliefs, and that his thermostat really "believed" one of them at any given time. http://Books.Google.com/books?id=yNJN-_jznw4C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA... Searle debu…
What you wish to discuss is philosophical, rather than scientific in nature (for the time being), and there is nothing that can be said in the span of an HN comment that can substantially change anybody's mind, one way or the other.
There is nothing which is scientific (dealing with knowledge in general, according to the Latin roots of the word), which is not also philosophical (dealing with the love of wisdom, according to the Greek roots of the word).
You are correct that I cannot change anybody's mind, one way or the other. I was only hoping to plant seeds.
Idiocy: My thermostat has three possible beliefs: 1) It is too warm in here. 2) It is too cold in here. 3) It is just about right. Minsky is wrong about AI in the same way that McCarthy was wrong. McCarthy really "believed" that his thermostat had three possible beliefs, and that his thermostat really "believed" one of them at any given time. http://Books.Google.com/books?id=yNJN-_jznw4C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA... Searle debu…
Idiocy: My thermostat has three possible beliefs: 1) It is too warm in here. 2) It is too cold in here. 3) It is just about right. Minsky is wrong about AI in the same way that McCarthy was wrong. McCarthy really "believed" that his thermostat had three possible beliefs, and that his thermostat really "believed" one of them at any given time. http://Books.Google.com/books?id=yNJN-_jznw4C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA... Searle debu…
Putting aside all philosophical questions, I do want to dispute that we're wasting money on AI. Even if you believe human-level artificial intelligence is not achievable with computers, you can't deny that AI so far has already paid huge dividends, and will continue to pay off even more in the future. Examples abound, such as self-driving cars, medical diagnosis, and automating more and more forms of busy-work that h…
For every task which is syntax only, it is a fantastic idea to make computers do the work, and relieve humans from the drudgery. I'm all in favor of that.
But for any task which requires semantics -- real human intelligence -- it is foolish to attempt to replace humans. It cannot be done.
What is required is the wisdom to know the difference between the two.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you wish to discuss is philosophical, rather than scientific in nature (for the time being), and there is nothing that can be said in the span of an HN comment that can substantially change anybody's mind, one way or the other.
The Ph.D. degree is all about philosophy, no matter what field it is in. There is nothing which is scientific (dealing with knowledge in general, according to the Latin roots of the word), which is not also philosophical (dealing with the love of wisdom, according to the Greek roots of the word). You are correct that I cannot change anybody's mind, one way or the other. I was only hoping to plant seeds.
In fact, philosophers write whole books addressing each others arguments without much in the way of changing each others' minds. This highly disincentivizes me from attempting to discuss them, at least in a forum like this one.
Idiocy: My thermostat has three possible beliefs: 1) It is too warm in here. 2) It is too cold in here. 3) It is just about right. Minsky is wrong about AI in the same way that McCarthy was wrong. McCarthy really "believed" that his thermostat had three possible beliefs, and that his thermostat really "believed" one of them at any given time. http://Books.Google.com/books?id=yNJN-_jznw4C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA... Searle debu…
> We know a lot about the physics of the macroscopic world, but can we be sure that we aren’t missing one of those crucial ingredients? The answer is yes: In certain well-defined cases, we can be very sure. [...] And while there may be unknown forces waiting to be discovered, we can say with great confidence that such forces must be so feeble that only a professional physicist like me would really care.
Not only the _detectable_ universe is entirely made of matter and energy (which is not a hypothesis: it's a tautology, if you think about it), but there isn't a single shred of evidence that our brain employs anything beyond chemicals and mundane electromagnetic forces.
"Kuhnian revolution" happens when the evidences mount up to the point the old paradigm cannot explain them away without great contortion. What we have here instead is a very confused semantic hair-splitting (no pun intended) about whether computers can do "semantics".
The modern materialistic science is supported by vast evidence and very alive and well, thank you very much.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Ph.D. degree is all about philosophy, no matter what field it is in. There is nothing which is scientific (dealing with knowledge in general, according to the Latin roots of the word), which is not also philosophical (dealing with the love of wisdom, according to the Greek roots of the word). You are correct that I cannot change anybody's mind, one way or the other. I was only hoping to plant seeds.
But there are some things which are philosophical, yet not scientific, which was what I was alluding to. My experience is that these purely philosophical discussions tend to churn over the same issues repetitively without any resolution - because there is no clear way to reach one, unlike there is with science. In fact, philosophers write whole books addressing each others arguments without much in the way of changin…
I think you are wrong here as well.
There is an entire branch of philosophy dedicated to the study of what we (can) know, and how we know it: epistemology.
Some philosophers get things wrong, just like some people get their mathematical sums wrong, and some scientists follow incorrect hypotheses for many years. But that is not a valid excuse for neglecting to search for the Truth, or failing to arrive at Truth.
Indeed, the entire aim of all of science is to arrive at Truth.
> because there is no clear way to reach one
The laws of logic are very clear, even though most people do not follow them most of the time. You cannot even think properly without obeying the laws of logic. http://En.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_thought (And sadly, indeed, many people do not think properly.)
Idiocy: My thermostat has three possible beliefs: 1) It is too warm in here. 2) It is too cold in here. 3) It is just about right. Minsky is wrong about AI in the same way that McCarthy was wrong. McCarthy really "believed" that his thermostat had three possible beliefs, and that his thermostat really "believed" one of them at any given time. http://Books.Google.com/books?id=yNJN-_jznw4C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA... Searle debu…
http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/12-out-there-mysterious... > We know a lot about the physics of the macroscopic world, but can we be sure that we aren’t missing one of those crucial ingredients? The answer is yes: In certain well-defined cases, we can be very sure. [...] And while there may be unknown forces waiting to be discovered, we can say with great confidence that such forces must be so feeble that only a…
Please come back and post your response here, or start a new Hacker-News story.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Putting aside all philosophical questions, I do want to dispute that we're wasting money on AI. Even if you believe human-level artificial intelligence is not achievable with computers, you can't deny that AI so far has already paid huge dividends, and will continue to pay off even more in the future. Examples abound, such as self-driving cars, medical diagnosis, and automating more and more forms of busy-work that h…
It is obviously not a waste when we use computers to do syntax. Chess-playing computers can now beat the best international grandmasters; this is an example of computers doing syntax. For every task which is syntax only, it is a fantastic idea to make computers do the work, and relieve humans from the drudgery. I'm all in favor of that. But for any task which requires semantics -- real human intelligence -- it is foo…
Well we don't know this for sure, do we? "It's an open empirical question whether there are actual deterministic physical processes that, in the long run, elude simulation by a Turing machine; furthermore, ... it is an open empirical question whether any such processes are involved in the working of the human brain." [1]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing_thesis#Ph...