Searle's 'experiment' is silly. Searle is trying to make readers empathize with the 'person in the box'. Let's concede, for the moment, that the person in the box doesn't understand Chinese in any meaningful way. That says nothing about whether or not the SYSTEM on a WHOLE understands Chinese. Given the constraints of Searle's example (that every input produces a 'correct' output, but does so via this labour-intensiv…
Why there will never be human-equivalent AI
41–44 of 44 posts
Re: Why there will never be human-equivalent AI
#42the blogger closed discussion before I could reply so I'll reply on here for what good it does me.
Whether a technological singularity is desirable is debatable. Whether development of human-equivalent AI would lead to technological singularity is debatable. On the other hand, human-equivalent AI seems inevitable to me. Author asserts some things without much in the way of proof:
"You could take a precise reading of the structure of the human's brain and simulate that brain inside a computer. But taking this initial reading is impossible in practice right now, and may remain so indefinitely, and computers need to be, conservatively, ten orders of magnitude more powerful before the simulation step becomes possible."
Why would this remain impossible in practice indefinitely? It's only a matter of time and effort until the human brain's goings-on can be reproduced outside a human brain, no matter how many orders of magnitude "more powerful" thee equipment needs to be. Unless there is truly some human-inaccessible spiritual process that goes on alongside physical processes in the human brain to produce human intelligence, there's no reason purely physical processes can't be reproduced outside a human brain.
Re: Why there will never be human-equivalent AI
#43Someone clearly didn't read Godel, Escher, Bach . I've long pointed out that human brains are far more complex than computers. However given Moore's law it seems likely that somewhere in the 2015-2030 range (depending on how one defines the complexity of a neuron), computers will be a match for human brains in complexity. At some point after that happens I expect human level AI to appear. The growing power of statist…
> Once you hook together the right selection of abilities, I expect something that looks suspiciously like original thought to emerge. It's very unlikely to simply "emerge". Sure it's theoretically possible, but that's very optimistic. It's more likely that if we develop AGI it will be due to gaining a thorough understanding of what it means to be "intelligent". (Yes, I know the word "intelligent" is vague, but I thi…
It's very unlikely to simply "emerge". Sure it's theoretically possible, but that's very optimistic.
You are presenting a statement of opinion as if it were fact.
My contrary opinion is based on a number of things. Such as the way in which computer composed music working with a database of known music is able to come up with decent compositions. And the fact that I understand the functioning of the human brain to be the interaction of multiple components, each of which has a reasonably specific function.
Now this is not to say that it will happen by magic. But I fully expect AI, when it arrives, to be an emergent behavior that we no more understand in detail than we understand exactly how Google Translate comes to the translations that it comes to. (Yes, we know the algorithms. And we can tweak parameters, run it, and decide whether we think it is doing better. But tracing the logic is a lost cause.)
(Yes, I know the word "intelligent" is vague, but I think you and I can at least agree that we "know it when we see it", and more technical definitions do exist.)
Unfortunately we can't agree on that. Because if we set out goalposts, they will be moved when we arrive. That has been happening ever since Eliza successfully carried on conversations with people, and computers first started beating people at chess.
That's why I said "suspiciously like original thought", because when it arrives, I don't expect people to accept it until after it has become clearly better than people.
Re: Why there will never be human-equivalent AI
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Once you hook together the right selection of abilities, I expect something that looks suspiciously like original thought to emerge. It's very unlikely to simply "emerge". Sure it's theoretically possible, but that's very optimistic. It's more likely that if we develop AGI it will be due to gaining a thorough understanding of what it means to be "intelligent". (Yes, I know the word "intelligent" is vague, but I thi…
It's very unlikely to simply "emerge". Sure it's theoretically possible, but that's very optimistic. You are presenting a statement of opinion as if it were fact. My contrary opinion is based on a number of things. Such as the way in which computer composed music working with a database of known music is able to come up with decent compositions. And the fact that I understand the functioning of the human brain to be…