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No, you're just projecting the modern bar for AI into the past. AI roughly means "things human brains can do that computers can't": when computing was primari

No, you're just projecting the modern bar for AI into the past. AI roughly means "things human brains can do that computers can't": when computing was primarily straightforward and analytical ("calculating"), then relatively more sophisticated algorithms that could "solve problems" like mazes absolutely were on the AI frontier. The fact that they've since retreated so far from "things computers can't do" is just a function of the fact that it was an early success in the field. Your comment is just a crystallization of what the parent comment is talking about: claiming something isn't AI because "pft that's such an easy, solved problem" _after_ it's solved defines away the possibility that AI can solve problems.

Barrin92 6y ago
If anything the opposite is true. When Minsky et al set out to define AI what they really meant was 'thinking machines'. If anything the opposite has happened. In a painful attempt to push forward notions of success in AI almost purely mechanical tasks have been claimed to be AI, while there is virtually no progress on building machines that can think. I mean sure you can claim all day that the navigation system in your car calculates you a billion routes per second and if that's intelligence my smart-toaster is probably more intelligent than everyone here together, but it completely misses the point, and the reason why people have expanded the term so much is because there has been so little progress on genuine intelligence.
- wutbrodo 6y ago
  > If anything the opposite is true. When Minsky et al set out to define AI what they really meant was 'thinking machines'. Yes, there's two word senses, the theoretical and the colloquial. You're referring to the former, and I'm referring to the latter; the latter is a lot more relevant to this thread's topic, which is public perception of AI and its value. Wikipedia actually has a pretty good concise description of these two senses: > Leading AI textbooks define the field as the study of "intelligent agents": any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of successfully achieving its goals.[1] Colloquially, the term "artificial intelligence" is often used to describe machines (or computers) that mimic "cognitive" functions that humans associate with the human mind, such as "learning" and "problem solving"[2] (The [2] citation is of Russell & Norvig's '09 edition, substantially predating the recent mass-interest in AI) > if that's intelligence my smart-toaster is probably more intelligent than everyone here together The leap from "this is reasonably described as a step on the road to intelligence" to "being really good at this step means you're _really_ intelligent" is obviously nonsense, though I suspect you know that. The fact that a cat has the ability to orient itself and navigate home and am amoeba couldn't is a sign of relative intelligence; but if your cat has a better sense of direction than you, it obviously doesn't make it smarter than you.
pathseeker 6y ago
>AI roughly means "things human brains can do that computers can't" Ok, then nothing being done today (neural nets, gan, etc) on computers is AI. What a dumb definition. >claiming something isn't AI because "pft that's such an easy, solved problem" Nope. It's not AI because instructions were directly written by a programmer of how to path-find. There was no input training where the program learned how to pathfind. It just had one method from day 1 that hasn't deviated since.

Barrin92 6y ago

If anything the opposite is true. When Minsky et al set out to define AI what they really meant was 'thinking machines'. If anything the opposite has happened. In a painful attempt to push forward notions of success in AI almost purely mechanical tasks have been claimed to be AI, while there is virtually no progress on building machines that can think. I mean sure you can claim all day that the navigation system in your car calculates you a billion routes per second and if that's intelligence my smart-toaster is probably more intelligent than everyone here together, but it completely misses the point, and the reason why people have expanded the term so much is because there has been so little progress on genuine intelligence.

wutbrodo 6y ago
> If anything the opposite is true. When Minsky et al set out to define AI what they really meant was 'thinking machines'. Yes, there's two word senses, the theoretical and the colloquial. You're referring to the former, and I'm referring to the latter; the latter is a lot more relevant to this thread's topic, which is public perception of AI and its value. Wikipedia actually has a pretty good concise description of these two senses: > Leading AI textbooks define the field as the study of "intelligent agents": any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of successfully achieving its goals.[1] Colloquially, the term "artificial intelligence" is often used to describe machines (or computers) that mimic "cognitive" functions that humans associate with the human mind, such as "learning" and "problem solving"[2] (The [2] citation is of Russell & Norvig's '09 edition, substantially predating the recent mass-interest in AI) > if that's intelligence my smart-toaster is probably more intelligent than everyone here together The leap from "this is reasonably described as a step on the road to intelligence" to "being really good at this step means you're _really_ intelligent" is obviously nonsense, though I suspect you know that. The fact that a cat has the ability to orient itself and navigate home and am amoeba couldn't is a sign of relative intelligence; but if your cat has a better sense of direction than you, it obviously doesn't make it smarter than you.

pathseeker 6y ago

>AI roughly means "things human brains can do that computers can't" Ok, then nothing being done today (neural nets, gan, etc) on computers is AI. What a dumb definition. >claiming something isn't AI because "pft that's such an easy, solved problem" Nope. It's not AI because instructions were directly written by a programmer of how to path-find. There was no input training where the program learned how to pathfind. It just had one method from day 1 that hasn't deviated since.