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Von Neumann was a frightfully bright guy. He's also why I don't trust the predictive power of a model based on data fitting rather than an actual theory about t
by User23 8y ago
Von Neumann was a frightfully bright guy. He's also why I don't trust the predictive power of a model based on data fitting rather than an actual theory about the underlying mechanism. "With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk."
I found this book a great read, but people who are emotionally invested in the error that the Church-Turing thesis implies brains are Turing machines will probably not like it.
- tabtab 8y agoWhether brains "are" TM's may be mostly moot from a simulation/emulation/modelling standpoint. We may not need a perfect model to get a "good enough" model. Biological systems are generally designed to handle a degree of noise and damage and still function fairly well. Thus noise introduced by the imperfections of a model may similarly not sufficiently degrade its ability to act like a normal brain. On a really small scale our models may lack certain properties of biological brains, but it may not matter for most emulation. How much detail and/or actual "mirroring" is necessary to get good-enough emulation is still an unknown but key question. And, I suspect we may find that fully mirroring biological systems is not the most efficient way to design good AI similar to how flapping wings were not the best way to get powered flight.
- 0xcde4c3db 8y agoI like how Dijkstra put it: "[...] whether Machines Can Think, a question of which we now know that it is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim." [1] [1] http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD898.html http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EW...
- amitprayal 8y agoWhy is that not relevant , its pretty clear that Submarines cant swim since they don't have a will of there own, they are only propelled to where the people inside them, who can think ,want them to go.
- tabtab 8y agoDepends how one defines "swim". That'll probably turn into a meandering philosophical debate, based on my experience debating "intent" with other IT people.
- jstewartmobile 8y agoDefinitely. We're still following the first half of the book almost to the letter. Teller once noted how effortlessly he talked to small children, then wondered if he employed the same knack to talk to everyone else...