4 ms·

Wait isn’t any Turing complete programming language sufficient to eventually reach general AI

randcraw 5y ago
Like the notion that all of natural language can be modeled fully if you just use enough finite state machines — surely true; just a wee bit inefficient.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  If you had a custom chip it could be efficient. Determining which state machines would still be hard.
- virgilp 5y ago
  Wait no, that can't be true. Finite state machines are only as powerful as regular expressions; you need pushdown automata even for programming languages, surely you can't model natural language with finite state machines? (maybe an infinite number of them, but I'm doubtful even on that - I'd have to review the theory to be sure though)
  - frostburg 5y ago
    It is true; keep in mind that real computers are strictly speaking FSMs, not Turing machines, due to having a finite "tape". It's just vastly more useful to think of them as such when programming.
  - skybrian 5y ago
    In practice, both people and machines can only handle a finite amount of nesting, so you could do it though it would be awkward to express.
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    Perhaps the fact that some words can never follow other words would make it tractable.
ma2rten 5y ago
Maybe, but that is not helpful in the sense that it doesn't guide research in how to get there.
jensgk 5y ago
Yeah, I would even say a large amount of NAND gates should do it.
otabdeveloper4 5y ago
You're assuming that intelligence is a computational process, but the sum total of what we know about intelligence says it probably isn't. (Unless you're making a more general reductionist statement that everything in the universe is a computational process - that kind of reductionism is understandable coming from people who work with computers for their job - but this is then a philosophical stance, not scientific, and frankly a very strange one.)
- anyfoo 5y ago
  > but the sum total of what we know about intelligence says it probably isn't Source? I am not aware of any other known process in the universe that could not be simulated by a Turing machine.
  - otabdeveloper4 5y ago
    Assuming that the universe can be simulated by a Turing machine is a strong and weird claim that needs to be defended, not the other way around. We know that Turing machines are very limited things and that the computational processes they carry out also very limited in applicability. What's the evidence that the universe is more limited that a Turing machine? Just the fact that we can imagine things that can't be computed by a Turing machine should clue you in that it's probably otherwise.
    - anyfoo 5y ago
      > We know that Turing machines are very limited things and that the computational processes they carry out also very limited in applicability. Again, source? Do you know of anything that is able to perform a computation that a Turing machine cannot? > Just the fact that we can imagine things that can't be computed by a Turing machine should clue you in that it's probably otherwise. Like what? Uncomputable numbers like Chaitin's constant? We can "imagine" them by stating their definition, but we cannot compute them. Or do you have something else specific in mind?
      - 5y ago
tsimionescu 5y ago
Technically that is a conjecture known as the Church-Turing thesis, which states that any computable function can be computed by a Turing machine. Here "computable function" uses the informal definition 'any function that a human can compute', not the formal definition of the recursive functions (which are proven to be solvable by a Turing machine).

Like the notion that all of natural language can be modeled fully if you just use enough finite state machines — surely true; just a wee bit inefficient.

joe_the_user 5y ago
If you had a custom chip it could be efficient. Determining which state machines would still be hard.
virgilp 5y ago
Wait no, that can't be true. Finite state machines are only as powerful as regular expressions; you need pushdown automata even for programming languages, surely you can't model natural language with finite state machines? (maybe an infinite number of them, but I'm doubtful even on that - I'd have to review the theory to be sure though)
- frostburg 5y ago
  It is true; keep in mind that real computers are strictly speaking FSMs, not Turing machines, due to having a finite "tape". It's just vastly more useful to think of them as such when programming.
- skybrian 5y ago
  In practice, both people and machines can only handle a finite amount of nesting, so you could do it though it would be awkward to express.
- robertlagrant 5y ago
  Perhaps the fact that some words can never follow other words would make it tractable.

ma2rten 5y ago

Maybe, but that is not helpful in the sense that it doesn't guide research in how to get there.

jensgk 5y ago

Yeah, I would even say a large amount of NAND gates should do it.

otabdeveloper4 5y ago

You're assuming that intelligence is a computational process, but the sum total of what we know about intelligence says it probably isn't. (Unless you're making a more general reductionist statement that everything in the universe is a computational process - that kind of reductionism is understandable coming from people who work with computers for their job - but this is then a philosophical stance, not scientific, and frankly a very strange one.)

anyfoo 5y ago
> but the sum total of what we know about intelligence says it probably isn't Source? I am not aware of any other known process in the universe that could not be simulated by a Turing machine.
- otabdeveloper4 5y ago
  Assuming that the universe can be simulated by a Turing machine is a strong and weird claim that needs to be defended, not the other way around. We know that Turing machines are very limited things and that the computational processes they carry out also very limited in applicability. What's the evidence that the universe is more limited that a Turing machine? Just the fact that we can imagine things that can't be computed by a Turing machine should clue you in that it's probably otherwise.
  - anyfoo 5y ago
    > We know that Turing machines are very limited things and that the computational processes they carry out also very limited in applicability. Again, source? Do you know of anything that is able to perform a computation that a Turing machine cannot? > Just the fact that we can imagine things that can't be computed by a Turing machine should clue you in that it's probably otherwise. Like what? Uncomputable numbers like Chaitin's constant? We can "imagine" them by stating their definition, but we cannot compute them. Or do you have something else specific in mind?
    - 5y ago

tsimionescu 5y ago

Technically that is a conjecture known as the Church-Turing thesis, which states that any computable function can be computed by a Turing machine. Here "computable function" uses the informal definition 'any function that a human can compute', not the formal definition of the recursive functions (which are proven to be solvable by a Turing machine).