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Most people operate on a moving definition of intelligence as "whatever humans can do and machines can't" (thus ruling out AI by definition). If software star

Most people operate on a moving definition of intelligence as "whatever humans can do and machines can't" (thus ruling out AI by definition). If software started writing bestselling novels, it would soon become a "duh that's just what computers do" matter of fact.

Certhas 11y ago
That's why task based notions for general intelligence are rubbish. Here is what humans can do: When presented with pretty much any task, specified however poorly, they can design hardware and algorithms that can beat themselve at that task. That's a decent measure of intelligence. A decent measure of creativity is coming up with tasks that make the intelligence part as interesting as possible.
- irascible 11y ago
  Optimizing compilers do this already and they aren't 'intelligent'. Iirc alpha go is an extension of the same algo that could beat all atari games sight unseen..
- irascible 11y ago
  Optimizing compilers do this already and they aren't 'intelligent'. Iirc alpha go is based on the same algo that could beat all atari games sight unseen.. satisfying the 'novel situation' requirement you set forth..
- irascible 11y ago
  Optimizing compilers do this already and they aren't 'intelligent'. Iirc alpha go is based on the same algo that could beat all atari games sight unseen.. satisfying the 'novel situation' requirement you set forth..
fahadkhan 11y ago
Lovelace Test is pretty old though.
eru 11y ago
We still have the Turing test.
- avar 11y ago
  The Turing test is a really narrow "can you act like a human" test of intelligence, not a general intelligence test.
  - bad_user 11y ago
    That's a point of concern for using the Turing Test to assess the intelligence of a computer, but that's only because the computer has to also be trained to expose human-like features that are considered to be unintelligent. But on one hand, in order to have a shot at passing the Turing Test, a computer has to first be able to understand and speak human language. And that's pretty damn hard actually. Yes we can deploy statistical methods, deep learning or what have you for classification, feature extraction and so on, but natural language is context rich and ambiguous. NLP isn't a conscious process for us either, but our brains are capable to disambiguate effortlessly. And a big part of that is also the rich (human) experience we gain while growing up. Being able to speak natural language is the one big trait that separates us from animals. It's why we can cheat death, because our children can learn from the acquired knowledge of all of their ancestors. This is different from playing Chess at least. With chess you can deploy smart algorithms, but in the end it's still a raw search for good moves in the space of all possible moves, while giving up on branches with a bad score. Raw search is what computers have always been good at. That's not really possible with NLP, because at least with chess your vocabulary is very limited and for calculating good moves you don't need extensive knowledge about the world we live in. Computers will surely be able to do that in the future and that will be a major milestone towards "true AI", but for now computers cannot do it. On the Turing Test, some features considered as being unintelligent, like the tendency for lying, or being sensitive to insults are actually evolutionary traits, that have arguably helped humans to survive. So while emulating some human traits will be counter productive, a "true AI" will be concerned with survival and as a consequence will end up doing whatever it takes. So while passing the Turing Test may not be enough, not passing the Turing Test is a sign that the computer is unintelligent.
notahacker 11y ago
I'd say if anything the average person's perception of what AI can do in the opposite direction. In the mid twentieth century the idea of a near future involving computers/robots that thought and interacted much like humans but never made mistakes was pretty mainstream. People have rather dialled back their expectations of feasible computers since then, to the point the average layman thinks a hardcoded easter egg humorous response in Siri is impressive because although talking to Siri is just like a more error-prone alternative to using the keypad, the response sort of seems like how a human would handle the question. The average person isn't impressed with computers winning at Go because they vastly underestimate the complexity and open-endedness of Go and wonder why it's really all that much more complex than chasing Pac Man through a maze like their computers were doing quite happily, and even with apparent personality, in the 1980s.
- astrofinch 11y ago
  Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox

Certhas 11y ago

That's why task based notions for general intelligence are rubbish. Here is what humans can do: When presented with pretty much any task, specified however poorly, they can design hardware and algorithms that can beat themselve at that task. That's a decent measure of intelligence. A decent measure of creativity is coming up with tasks that make the intelligence part as interesting as possible.

irascible 11y ago
Optimizing compilers do this already and they aren't 'intelligent'. Iirc alpha go is an extension of the same algo that could beat all atari games sight unseen..
irascible 11y ago
Optimizing compilers do this already and they aren't 'intelligent'. Iirc alpha go is based on the same algo that could beat all atari games sight unseen.. satisfying the 'novel situation' requirement you set forth..
irascible 11y ago
Optimizing compilers do this already and they aren't 'intelligent'. Iirc alpha go is based on the same algo that could beat all atari games sight unseen.. satisfying the 'novel situation' requirement you set forth..

fahadkhan 11y ago

Lovelace Test is pretty old though.

eru 11y ago

We still have the Turing test.

avar 11y ago
The Turing test is a really narrow "can you act like a human" test of intelligence, not a general intelligence test.
- bad_user 11y ago
  That's a point of concern for using the Turing Test to assess the intelligence of a computer, but that's only because the computer has to also be trained to expose human-like features that are considered to be unintelligent. But on one hand, in order to have a shot at passing the Turing Test, a computer has to first be able to understand and speak human language. And that's pretty damn hard actually. Yes we can deploy statistical methods, deep learning or what have you for classification, feature extraction and so on, but natural language is context rich and ambiguous. NLP isn't a conscious process for us either, but our brains are capable to disambiguate effortlessly. And a big part of that is also the rich (human) experience we gain while growing up. Being able to speak natural language is the one big trait that separates us from animals. It's why we can cheat death, because our children can learn from the acquired knowledge of all of their ancestors. This is different from playing Chess at least. With chess you can deploy smart algorithms, but in the end it's still a raw search for good moves in the space of all possible moves, while giving up on branches with a bad score. Raw search is what computers have always been good at. That's not really possible with NLP, because at least with chess your vocabulary is very limited and for calculating good moves you don't need extensive knowledge about the world we live in. Computers will surely be able to do that in the future and that will be a major milestone towards "true AI", but for now computers cannot do it. On the Turing Test, some features considered as being unintelligent, like the tendency for lying, or being sensitive to insults are actually evolutionary traits, that have arguably helped humans to survive. So while emulating some human traits will be counter productive, a "true AI" will be concerned with survival and as a consequence will end up doing whatever it takes. So while passing the Turing Test may not be enough, not passing the Turing Test is a sign that the computer is unintelligent.

notahacker 11y ago

I'd say if anything the average person's perception of what AI can do in the opposite direction. In the mid twentieth century the idea of a near future involving computers/robots that thought and interacted much like humans but never made mistakes was pretty mainstream. People have rather dialled back their expectations of feasible computers since then, to the point the average layman thinks a hardcoded easter egg humorous response in Siri is impressive because although talking to Siri is just like a more error-prone alternative to using the keypad, the response sort of seems like how a human would handle the question. The average person isn't impressed with computers winning at Go because they vastly underestimate the complexity and open-endedness of Go and wonder why it's really all that much more complex than chasing Pac Man through a maze like their computers were doing quite happily, and even with apparent personality, in the 1980s.

astrofinch 11y ago
Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox