"I feel that when it comes to making AI, a better definition is something along the lines of "intelligence is the ability to make good choices when faced with a

"I feel that when it comes to making AI, a better definition is something along the lines of "intelligence is the ability to make good choices when faced with a decision" I love it. Mine is even more constructivist (and Wittgensteinian). Something like "intelligence is the ability to detect patterns and act accordingly." The problem, as many philosophers have noted, is that such definitions -- in fact, most definitions -- make it hard to argue that the thermostat is not intelligent (or conscious, or sentient). And that, of course, is at the heart of Turing's most famous argument. I, myself, find it hard to argue my way around what is essentially a "walks like a duck, talks like a duck" argument when it comes to these matters -- which is to say, defining something in terms of its activities, behaviors, likenesses. That perhaps tilts practical AI toward the statistical, though, and it's hard for me to believe that that's the whole story. I have never presented the arguments back-and-forth on this issue without watching my students collapse into confusion and desperation.