4 ms·

I like Dijkstra's quote: "The question of whether machines can think is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim."

litenboll 3y ago
Maybe I'm stupid, but does he mean that as long as the task at hand is solved it doesn't matter how we categorize it. In the submarine case it would be "move through water", for example. Or is it deeper than that?
- Uehreka 3y ago
  > does he mean that as long as the task at hand is solved it doesn't matter how we categorize it. Yes
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- chongli 3y ago
  Yes. He was interested in problem-solving, not philosophizing. The debates about AI going on right now are the kind he’d prefer to avoid.
  - deltaburnt 3y ago
    To be fair, 10+ years ago this conversation definitely would have been pretty silly. Maybe about as interesting as asking "is there other life in the universe". No one knows the answer, it's an incredibly over discussed topic, and we won't know for sure for many years. I think those points still apply to AI intelligence today. However, the power of today's AI greatly outstrips anything Djikstra would have seen in his day.
    - DrScientist 3y ago
      The point isn't about whether it is unknowable or not - rather does having the answer have any practical value - ie does the attribution of 'thinking' add any value to understanding a program?
    - bmoxb 3y ago
      The improvement of AI lately doesn't invalidate his point though. I'm sure submarine technology has similarly improved but it's still irrelevant whether or not a submarine can be said to 'swim' not.
    - eli 3y ago
      He's objecting to the question. How well you feel you can answer it doesn't matter.
- meiraleal 3y ago
  I think it is about the relevance of anthropomorphizing machines, submarines don't swim.
- ThomasBHickey 3y ago
  I think he meant it depends on how you define 'swim'
- cmiles74 3y ago
  Is there something here about the terms being sloppy and unscientific, making the answer somewhat useless? Whatever "swimming" or "thinking" might be, it's not something clearly defined.
amelius 3y ago
Relevant to what exactly?
- namaria 3y ago
  The quote claims it's irrelevant, not relevant (to something).
  - amelius 3y ago
    Well, it is relevant to the current discussion.
    - Jtsummers 3y ago
      https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD867.html https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/E... Here's the context since it's been quoted without providing it.
- rstuart4133 3y ago
  He's a computer scientist speaking to other computer scientists, so I'd say he's talking about relevancy to computer science. But I think perhaps you've missed his subtle use of language. Fish swim, obviously. What submarines do in water isn't usually described a swimming. That's a bit odd in when you think about it as in both cases the objective is to get from A to B, while in the water. In fact if you look at only the outcomes, what fish and submarines do when swimming looks almost identical. They move (or perhaps be stationary in a current), they tend to be efficient about it, they try to not make a lot of noise, they even use very similar mechanisms to move vertically. Despite that it almost seems that to swim you have to be fish, or a sea snake, or a blue bottle or water bug - but not a submarine. And going by the discussions here to think you have to be a human, or a dog, or just about anything but a computer. And that's true no matter how closely a computer can emulate tasks we say require thinking in a human. A conclusion you might draw then is whether a submarine swims deciding belongs in the domain of linguistics, not computer science. And he's saying that's true for whether computers "think" too.
avgcorrection 3y ago
> There is also a different approach to the [unification] problem, which is highly influential though it seems to me not only foreign to the sciences but also close to senseless. This approach divorces the cognitive sciences from a biological setting, and seeks tests to determine whether some object “manifests intelligence” (“plays chess,” “understands Chinese,” or whatever). […] > There is a great deal of often heated debate about these matters in the literature of the cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, and philosophy of mind, but it is hard to see that any serious question has been posed. The question of whether a computer is playing chess, or doing long division, or translating Chinese, is like the question of whether robots can murder or airplanes can fly — or people; after all, the “flight” of the Olympic long jump champion is only an order of magnitude short of that of the chicken champion (so I’m told). These are questions of decision, not fact; decision as to whether to adopt a certain metaphoric extension of common usage. https://chomsky.info/prospects01/ https://chomsky.info/prospects01/

litenboll 3y ago

Maybe I'm stupid, but does he mean that as long as the task at hand is solved it doesn't matter how we categorize it. In the submarine case it would be "move through water", for example. Or is it deeper than that?

Uehreka 3y ago
> does he mean that as long as the task at hand is solved it doesn't matter how we categorize it. Yes
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
chongli 3y ago
Yes. He was interested in problem-solving, not philosophizing. The debates about AI going on right now are the kind he’d prefer to avoid.
- deltaburnt 3y ago
  To be fair, 10+ years ago this conversation definitely would have been pretty silly. Maybe about as interesting as asking "is there other life in the universe". No one knows the answer, it's an incredibly over discussed topic, and we won't know for sure for many years. I think those points still apply to AI intelligence today. However, the power of today's AI greatly outstrips anything Djikstra would have seen in his day.
  - DrScientist 3y ago
    The point isn't about whether it is unknowable or not - rather does having the answer have any practical value - ie does the attribution of 'thinking' add any value to understanding a program?
  - bmoxb 3y ago
    The improvement of AI lately doesn't invalidate his point though. I'm sure submarine technology has similarly improved but it's still irrelevant whether or not a submarine can be said to 'swim' not.
  - eli 3y ago
    He's objecting to the question. How well you feel you can answer it doesn't matter.
meiraleal 3y ago
I think it is about the relevance of anthropomorphizing machines, submarines don't swim.
ThomasBHickey 3y ago
I think he meant it depends on how you define 'swim'
cmiles74 3y ago
Is there something here about the terms being sloppy and unscientific, making the answer somewhat useless? Whatever "swimming" or "thinking" might be, it's not something clearly defined.

amelius 3y ago

Relevant to what exactly?

namaria 3y ago
The quote claims it's irrelevant, not relevant (to something).
- amelius 3y ago
  Well, it is relevant to the current discussion.
  - Jtsummers 3y ago
    https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD867.html https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/E... Here's the context since it's been quoted without providing it.
rstuart4133 3y ago
He's a computer scientist speaking to other computer scientists, so I'd say he's talking about relevancy to computer science. But I think perhaps you've missed his subtle use of language. Fish swim, obviously. What submarines do in water isn't usually described a swimming. That's a bit odd in when you think about it as in both cases the objective is to get from A to B, while in the water. In fact if you look at only the outcomes, what fish and submarines do when swimming looks almost identical. They move (or perhaps be stationary in a current), they tend to be efficient about it, they try to not make a lot of noise, they even use very similar mechanisms to move vertically. Despite that it almost seems that to swim you have to be fish, or a sea snake, or a blue bottle or water bug - but not a submarine. And going by the discussions here to think you have to be a human, or a dog, or just about anything but a computer. And that's true no matter how closely a computer can emulate tasks we say require thinking in a human. A conclusion you might draw then is whether a submarine swims deciding belongs in the domain of linguistics, not computer science. And he's saying that's true for whether computers "think" too.

avgcorrection 3y ago

> There is also a different approach to the [unification] problem, which is highly influential though it seems to me not only foreign to the sciences but also close to senseless. This approach divorces the cognitive sciences from a biological setting, and seeks tests to determine whether some object “manifests intelligence” (“plays chess,” “understands Chinese,” or whatever). […] > There is a great deal of often heated debate about these matters in the literature of the cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, and philosophy of mind, but it is hard to see that any serious question has been posed. The question of whether a computer is playing chess, or doing long division, or translating Chinese, is like the question of whether robots can murder or airplanes can fly — or people; after all, the “flight” of the Olympic long jump champion is only an order of magnitude short of that of the chicken champion (so I’m told). These are questions of decision, not fact; decision as to whether to adopt a certain metaphoric extension of common usage. https://chomsky.info/prospects01/ https://chomsky.info/prospects01/