XPost: rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.sf.science   
   From: JRStern@foobar.invalid   
      
   On Fri, 24 Jan 2014 15:47:53 -0700, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy   
    wrote:   
      
   >Your Name  wrote in   
   >news:250120141214165689%YourName@YourISP.com:   
   >   
   >> In article , Ryk E. Spoor   
   >>  wrote:   
   >>> On 1/24/14 3:13 PM, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>> > The point Greg made, that has not been disputed in any way,   
   >>> > is that the definition used to be "do only one thing well,"   
   >>> > until computers could do only one thing really well, and now   
   >>> > the definition has changed.   
   >>>   
   >>>  Oh, I would DEFINITELY dispute that. AI was always "A machine   
   >>>  that   
   >>> thinks like a human, only maybe better", and the Turing Test   
   >>> (as a general concept -- making one that really works is   
   >>> harder) was always the general idea of how to really measure   
   >>> it. Can it pass for human in realistic circumstances?   
   >>>   
   >>>  The fact that the concept is as foggy as our understanding of   
   >>>  what   
   >>> intelligence IS is what causes the confusion.   
   >>>   
   >>>  The definition of "thinks like" has been refined through the   
   >>>  years,   
   >>> yes. And people -- usually laymen -- would put up examples of   
   >>> tasks that "only a true AI could solve!", like chess, but   
   >>> anyone with any skin in the game knew that this wasn't true;   
   >>> enough brute-force would beat any human without any actual   
   >>> intelligence involved. It WAS thought that computers would   
   >>> never HAVE such brute force available and that, therefore, any   
   >>> computer that could do grandmaster chess must be doing   
   >>> something intelligent, but Moore's Law changed that.   
   >>   
   >> "Artificial intelligence" has never been defined as the ability   
   >> to do just one particular thing well, no matter how complex that   
   >> thing may seem to be.   
   >>   
   >> Even ignoring Turing, the true test of "artifical intelligence"   
   >> would require the ability to do many, many, many different   
   >> things, and to be able to learn to do new things.   
   >>   
   >Is driving a car "one thing"? Or is it many, many things, all   
   >performed at the same time? How about "driving and navigating at   
   >the same time, while also mointoring the physical condition of the   
   >vehicle, fuel usage, and driving conditions"? Is that one thing, or   
   >several?   
   >   
   >You can't even come up with an meaningful, objective definition of   
   >"one thing." And you still haven't addressed Greg's point, that   
   >once you do, when computers can do that, the definition will be   
   >changed again, so that computers cannot, by (meta) definition   
   >_ever_ be "intelligent," because the people doing the defining will   
   >simply not stand for it.   
      
   What you said.   
      
   But let me rant some along these (familiar) lines.   
      
   One of the first uses of the term AI was that it was going to take   
   "intelligence" for a computer to juggle multiple threads.  Now that is   
   entirely a commonplace, done with a few lines of code.   
      
   Chess is still on the bubble here, originally it was said to require   
   so much creativity and insight it was unthinkable that a machine could   
   ever do it.  Of course such statements showed gross ignorance of   
   mathematics and game theory, or at least a pessimistic view of how   
   fast computers could ever get.  Fifty years later chess grandmasters   
   still go on about how they hate being beaten by a machine that uses   
   just pure search, but if they add a few heuristics it looks so much   
   more "human" and "creative" and that makes it better.  Hmm.   
      
   So maybe there is a tad of truth to the idea that some stuff can be   
   labeled as "requiring intelligence", and then it turns out, "oh, maybe   
   not so much after all."  But what it suggests, frighteningly, is that   
   ALL things eventually fall to that process.   
      
   I think the "truth" is probably a little more tricky than that and   
   both sides are a little bit right, say you had a program you could put   
   into your PC and it acted just as intelligently as anything else you   
   can communicate with via computer.  Maybe it really is as   
   "intelligent" as you, as feeling, and as screwed up.  But, um, what   
   then?  Good topic for some scifi stories, boatloads of which have   
   already been written.  From scifi, truth.   
      
   J.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)