From: jonathan.attias@ntlworld.com   
      
   On May 6, 4:52 am, "Kenneth P. Turvey"    
   wrote:   
   > On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:40:53 +0000, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:   
   > >> What I was trying to get at here was more a simple description of the   
   > >> problem complexity.  We only know of one system with human competitive   
   > >> intelligence, that is humans themselves.   
   >   
   > > Actually, I would challenge that too, for the reason that we don't know   
   > > what is essential for being either human or intelligent. Using one   
   > > ill-defined thing in order to clarify another, brings nothing.   
   >   
   > In this case it actually does bring something.  We agree that humans are   
   > intelligent beasts.  That means that such a thing can be created.   
   > Second, since we know how long it has taken humans to evolve, we can   
   > develop at least a general idea of the likely complexity of the problem.   
   >   
   > >> We also have a good idea how   
   > >> long it took to come up with a program for these systems.   
   >   
   > > But they weren't programmed. Programming is an engineering activity,   
   > > which evolution (at least in theory) is not. Even if we considered the   
   > > hypothesis of creative design, the comparison would still be invalid   
   > > because   
   >   
   > I'm not even considering creative design (no evidence for it).  The   
   > comparison is valid since using evolution to solve the problem is   
   > certainly one way of doing it.   
   >   
   > > 1. the programmer teams are different   
   >   
   > > 2. we have no idea how we, intelligent things, program other intelligent   
   > > things. We just don't, which is incidentally the whole problem...   
   >   
   > > 3. even less we know about how our alleged masters did.   
   >   
   > All three of these seem to assume intelligent design of some sort.  We   
   > got from not having a program to having one through a series of finite   
   > improvements.  This sounds very much like programming to me.  It doesn't   
   > require any goal oriented entities.   
   >   
   > >> Right now we   
   > >> have no evidence to indicate that we could do much better in developing   
   > >> the software for a human competitive system.  We could argue that   
   > >> evolution is slow, but that doesn't really put an upper bound on the   
   > >> complexity of the problem of developing such a program.   
   >   
   > > It certainly puts some time constraint, statistically. However that is   
   > > probably irrelevant as the event already happened - we call themselves   
   > > intelligent. A real constraint for Turing-complete systems could exist   
   > > if our brain used some incomputable elements.   
   >   
   > Ok, to me this is silly.  Just my opinion.  If it was not computable,   
   > then our brain clearly couldn't compute it.   
   >   
   > > OK, that would be a Turing test. I have a problem with it, because it   
   > > does not confirms anything as intelligent. It rather does that the   
   > > tester is not enough intelligent to denounce the respondent. I.e. if   
   > > this is a fitness function then for another problem.   
   >   
   > OK, you and I simply view the world differently.  I'm going to have to   
   > side with Turing on this.  If you can't tell if it apart from a human   
   > then it must be as smart as a human at least in the dimensions of   
   > interaction.  I can't tell exactly what's going on in your mind either,   
   > but I assume you are intelligent since your interaction with me leads me   
   > to that conclusion.   
   >   
   >   
   >   
   > >> Now, that said, I would be more comfortable if we broke into a number   
   > >> of dimensions and recognize that we are really trying to optimize many   
   > >> different things, but this is still an optimization problem.   
   >   
   > > Maybe we could state it as an optimization problem if we knew more about   
   > > what intelligence is, but we didn't so far. We also know nothing about   
   > > the complexity of the problem if stated in this form. Evolution is   
   > > solving a completely different problem and the best solutions found   
   > > (bacteria, insects etc) aren't any intelligent.   
   >   
   > We can state it as an optimization problem already.  We do it all the   
   > time.  That's what standardized testing is all about.  We do it in many   
   > other ways too.  When you got your drivers license you passed a small   
   > portion of a human intelligence test.  We could very easily put together   
   > 100 of these and come up with a metric for what it means to have roughly   
   > human level intelligence.  Not only would it not be hard, most of the   
   > work would already have been done.   
   >   
   > We may not have a good scientific definition of what intelligence is, but   
   > we have a very good working definition of what it is.   
   >   
   > --   
   > Kenneth P. Turvey    
   >   
      
   One thing we have to consider is that the Human brain (any brain), and   
   the "intelligence" it conveys does not exist in isolation. Rather, it   
   is an integral part of the whole body and has evolved to work with   
   that body.   
      
   If we transplant a human brain into a dog (don't try this at home   
   kids) then we wouldn't expect that dog to be able to talk or even to   
   walk. The "hardware" just isn't made to fit the "software". In fact,   
   the result probably wouldn't appear to be very intelligent at all,   
   just a blubbering wreck.   
      
   Side note: This example is actually not extreme enough because there   
   are likely to be enough similarities between human and dog physiology   
   that the brain could actually adapt and show some signs of intelligent   
   behaviour. So, if it helps the argument, consider a human brain   
   working a house fly where the eyes are constructed in an entirely   
   different way to mammals, there are too many legs plus there's those   
   flappy wing things on the back.   
      
   So, although our brains have a "general intelligence" aspect to them,   
   that can only be measured or observed within the context of system for   
   feeding it with sensory information (text in the case of the classic   
   Turing text, sight, sound, smell, touch, etc. for humans) and a means   
   to express some behaviour (text on a vdu or speech and muscle   
   activity).   
      
   In the absense of a true, measurable definition of "intelligence",   
   Turing tests are about the best we have - using one intelligent being   
   to "vote" on the level of intelligence of another being. Is an   
   earthworm intelligent? What about a frog? I sometimes even wonder   
   about some of my neighbours!   
      
   So we could devise 100 (1000?) Turing tests to cover (all) aspects of   
   percieved intelligence as a means for measurement but they have to be   
   tailored to the being as a whole.   
      
   Passing a driving test in a standard car might be a good test for a   
   humanoid robot. If it could climb in and out of a car, understand the   
   examiner, communicate back, control the car, perform the desired   
   manoeuvres and take into account everything else going on in the   
   environment then it's certainly showing a lot of intelligent   
   behaviour. In fact, that one test probably involves many other smaller   
   tests.   
      
   On the other hand, maybe it could just be clever programming for that   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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