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> This isn't an engineering problem, it's a philosophical problem [...] Indeed. However we can not rule out the possibility that we engineer a system without a

> This isn't an engineering problem, it's a philosophical problem [...] Indeed. However we can not rule out the possibility that we engineer a system without a "body" (I think you are referring to the Embodied mind thesis?). It is a complicated topic and discussions about it are futile without precise definitions of loaded terms, like "intelligence", "body", etc. A rather well-defined test is the classic Turing test and I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that it can be passed by a bodyless machine/program-thing.

posterboy 10y ago
I don't find the Turing Test convincing either, because someone smart enough to build it should be smart enough to recognize it from its answers. And if that depends on the intelligence of the questioner, whose intelligence is tested then, really? IIRC the test is a binary classifier, but intelligence is a spectrum that's fuzzy and therefore inherently hard to define. IE, how low is someone willing to assume the lack of intelligence in a human is not a good definition of general intelligence, as that's circular reasoning. I would suppose that babies possess general intelligence, but they lack the knowledge about the environment.
- morgante 10y ago
  > I don't find the Turing Test convincing either, because someone smart enough to build it should be smart enough to recognize it from its answers. Why do you assume that? The creators of AlphaGo certainly couldn't beat it.
  - jackpirate 10y ago
    The Turing Test equivalent in the game of Go is not beating the computer. Instead, it is: given a history of moves, can you determine whether or not a computer was playing? Determining whether or not AlphaGo was playing seems like a relatively easy task to me for the designers. Since they have access to the AlphaGo system, they can just calculate the probability that each move corresponds to one AlphaGo would make.
    - morgante 10y ago
      > Instead, it is: given a history of moves, can you determine whether or not a computer was playing? No, it's really not. For the Turing Test, the AI is meant to be adversarial—it's objective is to convince you that it is human. AlphaGo's objective isn't to "play like a human," it is to win. If they gave it an objective of playing like a human, I'm sure AlphaGo could play in a way that would be indistinguishable from a human. > Since they have access to the AlphaGo system, they can just calculate the probability that each move corresponds to one AlphaGo would make. Peeking at the system/data is cheating. Obviously the person who sets up a Turing test knows which player is AI.
      - posterboy 10y ago
        > If they gave it an objective of playing like a human, I'm sure AlphaGo could play in a way that would be indistinguishable from a human. It could just play unbelievably bad and appear like a beginner. That wouldn't prove intelligent. > Peeking at the system/data is cheating Someone ignorant of computers would hardly ever assume a machine. Of course the omission of this rule would leave someone smarter than the computer. If you talk statistics, IE the machine has to convince only a fair share of humans, the definition of the threshold is a problem. Intelligence would depend on the development of the society. I thought this is about an intrinsic value. It's an interesting thought experiment, but hardly conclusive, just observational.
        sireat 10y ago
        I can only speak for chess, but one of the unsolved problems in computer chess is how to build a program that plays human chess of appropriate level. It is very hard to dial down a ELO 3000+ program to 1800 level of a club player and not make it computer like. What is usually done is lower the depth searched and add some random blunders but it is still obvious to a stronger player that it is a program.
        morgante 10y ago
        > It could just play unbelievably bad and appear like a beginner. That wouldn't prove intelligent. Sure, which is why it's not a very good metric. The correct metric for looking at whether computational game intelligence has exceeded human capacity is that computers can consistently beat humans. To be clear, I'm not convinced that we'll ever make a generalized intelligence which can pass the Turing Test. My point was merely that the fact that humans create the system is not a good argument for why it's impossible: in many domains, we can already create computer systems which vastly outperform ourselves.
  - posterboy 10y ago
    Good question. Someone beat it. He and his games as training sets were part of the development of AlphaGo development. I edited the post, did you read that? You are making my point, you can't bootstrap a definition for artificial intelligence by comparison to humans, when human intelligence is not well defined either.
    - morgante 10y ago
      I read your post, but it's very muddled. You might consider advancing a clearer thesis, because it seems that you are under the impression that it's impossible for humans to build systems which are smarter than themselves. The first versions of AlphaGo were certainly inferior to human players, but the current version is superior to any human.
      - posterboy 10y ago
        > because it seems that you are under the impression I made a hopeful hypothesis and I opposed immediately that human intelligence might just not be optimized for recognizing intelligence. It is optimized for other things, not to waste energy and because of that it recognizes indeed that to play go very well but nothing else is rather less intelligent. You do make a strong point there, specialized computers are stronger than humans in a specific task, but we are talking about general intelligence. I have to admit, too, that I have a hard time getting the bigger picture and get confused to easily. I didn't read any of the literature that would rather well define the problem, as the OP put it, so the discussion is likely less informative. In my opinion, the comparison is unequal, still, because the Computer used a ton more resources and memory. There aren't enough go professionals to put together and let their averaged opinion learn and play, consuming as much energy.
robotresearcher 10y ago
> It is a complicated topic and discussions about it are futile without precise definitions of loaded terms, like "intelligence", "body", etc. On the contrary, to make progress we should give up on making precise definitions of non-technical terms such as 'body' and 'intelligence'. They are folk notions that don't have relevant precise definitions talking about them in an engineering context is distracting. You don't need a definition of 'beauty' to paint. You don't need a definition of 'justice' to practice law. You don't need a definition of 'intelligence' to build clever robots.

posterboy 10y ago

I don't find the Turing Test convincing either, because someone smart enough to build it should be smart enough to recognize it from its answers. And if that depends on the intelligence of the questioner, whose intelligence is tested then, really? IIRC the test is a binary classifier, but intelligence is a spectrum that's fuzzy and therefore inherently hard to define. IE, how low is someone willing to assume the lack of intelligence in a human is not a good definition of general intelligence, as that's circular reasoning. I would suppose that babies possess general intelligence, but they lack the knowledge about the environment.

morgante 10y ago
> I don't find the Turing Test convincing either, because someone smart enough to build it should be smart enough to recognize it from its answers. Why do you assume that? The creators of AlphaGo certainly couldn't beat it.
- jackpirate 10y ago
  The Turing Test equivalent in the game of Go is not beating the computer. Instead, it is: given a history of moves, can you determine whether or not a computer was playing? Determining whether or not AlphaGo was playing seems like a relatively easy task to me for the designers. Since they have access to the AlphaGo system, they can just calculate the probability that each move corresponds to one AlphaGo would make.
  - morgante 10y ago
    > Instead, it is: given a history of moves, can you determine whether or not a computer was playing? No, it's really not. For the Turing Test, the AI is meant to be adversarial—it's objective is to convince you that it is human. AlphaGo's objective isn't to "play like a human," it is to win. If they gave it an objective of playing like a human, I'm sure AlphaGo could play in a way that would be indistinguishable from a human. > Since they have access to the AlphaGo system, they can just calculate the probability that each move corresponds to one AlphaGo would make. Peeking at the system/data is cheating. Obviously the person who sets up a Turing test knows which player is AI.
    - posterboy 10y ago
      > If they gave it an objective of playing like a human, I'm sure AlphaGo could play in a way that would be indistinguishable from a human. It could just play unbelievably bad and appear like a beginner. That wouldn't prove intelligent. > Peeking at the system/data is cheating Someone ignorant of computers would hardly ever assume a machine. Of course the omission of this rule would leave someone smarter than the computer. If you talk statistics, IE the machine has to convince only a fair share of humans, the definition of the threshold is a problem. Intelligence would depend on the development of the society. I thought this is about an intrinsic value. It's an interesting thought experiment, but hardly conclusive, just observational.
      - sireat 10y ago
        I can only speak for chess, but one of the unsolved problems in computer chess is how to build a program that plays human chess of appropriate level. It is very hard to dial down a ELO 3000+ program to 1800 level of a club player and not make it computer like. What is usually done is lower the depth searched and add some random blunders but it is still obvious to a stronger player that it is a program.
      - morgante 10y ago
        > It could just play unbelievably bad and appear like a beginner. That wouldn't prove intelligent. Sure, which is why it's not a very good metric. The correct metric for looking at whether computational game intelligence has exceeded human capacity is that computers can consistently beat humans. To be clear, I'm not convinced that we'll ever make a generalized intelligence which can pass the Turing Test. My point was merely that the fact that humans create the system is not a good argument for why it's impossible: in many domains, we can already create computer systems which vastly outperform ourselves.
- posterboy 10y ago
  Good question. Someone beat it. He and his games as training sets were part of the development of AlphaGo development. I edited the post, did you read that? You are making my point, you can't bootstrap a definition for artificial intelligence by comparison to humans, when human intelligence is not well defined either.
  - morgante 10y ago
    I read your post, but it's very muddled. You might consider advancing a clearer thesis, because it seems that you are under the impression that it's impossible for humans to build systems which are smarter than themselves. The first versions of AlphaGo were certainly inferior to human players, but the current version is superior to any human.
    - posterboy 10y ago
      > because it seems that you are under the impression I made a hopeful hypothesis and I opposed immediately that human intelligence might just not be optimized for recognizing intelligence. It is optimized for other things, not to waste energy and because of that it recognizes indeed that to play go very well but nothing else is rather less intelligent. You do make a strong point there, specialized computers are stronger than humans in a specific task, but we are talking about general intelligence. I have to admit, too, that I have a hard time getting the bigger picture and get confused to easily. I didn't read any of the literature that would rather well define the problem, as the OP put it, so the discussion is likely less informative. In my opinion, the comparison is unequal, still, because the Computer used a ton more resources and memory. There aren't enough go professionals to put together and let their averaged opinion learn and play, consuming as much energy.

robotresearcher 10y ago

> It is a complicated topic and discussions about it are futile without precise definitions of loaded terms, like "intelligence", "body", etc. On the contrary, to make progress we should give up on making precise definitions of non-technical terms such as 'body' and 'intelligence'. They are folk notions that don't have relevant precise definitions talking about them in an engineering context is distracting. You don't need a definition of 'beauty' to paint. You don't need a definition of 'justice' to practice law. You don't need a definition of 'intelligence' to build clever robots.