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This argument would have merit if we were anywhere near biological intelligence in our "AI". We don't even understand how most of the brain works, what it does
by nyrulez 12y ago
This argument would have merit if we were anywhere near biological intelligence in our "AI". We don't even understand how most of the brain works, what it does or how it does it. In fact if it was so simple even to re-create some aspect of the brain, we would have created the super-brain with the amount of resources we have at our disposal and time we have spent in the field of AI. It is like saying calculus is unnecessarily complex because all I can do is simple arithmetic.
- tensor 12y agoWhy is the brain the benchmark for "intelligence"? We already have machines that can run circles around the brain on very complex reasoning tasks. True, we don't have a talking robot that simulates humans, but in many other tasks we've met or exceeded what humans can do. I would argue that we already have intelligent machines. What we don't have is a human simulator.
- bejuizb123 12y agoIt is not a benchmark but a target to be reached. Once we have models of human simulation, we can treat the human brain as a benchmark.
- nyrulez 12y agoYou raise a valid point but for an orthogonal question. When I first saw a calculator, as a 5 year old, I thought it was the most amazing and intelligent thing ever. The original point discussed above was about how unnecessarily complex the brain is if its function/intelligence is so simple. We may or may not want to treat it as a benchmark, but the fact remains nobody understands it or can mimic its function even after trying for a very long time. (though believe me you, that's what most of AI is trying to do, even if in a simplistic way)
- baddox 12y agoHaven't you heard? At the moment a computer exists which can outperform a human mind at a certain task, that task can no longer be considered a criterion for intelligence. Multiplying large numbers doesn't require intelligence. Chess doesn't require intelligence. Facial recognition doesn't require intelligence. Proving mathematical theorems doesn't require intelligence.
- brianberns 12y agoThere's a widely-accepted standard for judging intelligence called the Turing Test. Computers are still a long way from passing that test.
- nl 12y agoThey aren't that far from passing it actually. One kinda sorta passed it earlier this year, by pretending to be a 13 yo boy. It was at the annual Turing Test event though[1]. Even if we ignore that, given the recent interest in using RNNs to generate natural language I'd say we are 18 months from being able to pass it reliably. [1]http://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR583836.aspx http://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR583836.a...
- baddox 12y agoThe Turing test is a method for judging whether a computer has intelligence comparable to that of a human, or what's often called "strong AI." Strong AI is obviously a special case of AI, but most AI research isn't even particularly interested in developing a strong AI.
- waps 12y agoAh come on. AI algorithms 1) have passed the turing test, then, indeed, we make the turing test more difficult. (I would argue that if you give an accurate definition of a Turing test, namely "convince, on occasion, a human that you're human", that Eliza passed it in the 1960s) 2) several industries depend on their programs passing some sort of turing test every single day (ie. outsmarting humans directly, or outsmarting "are you a human" tests, automated or no). Examples : HFT (and HFT-like industries, like loan appraisal, credit validation, insurance brokering, ...), Spamming, police chatbots ("Lolita", a US version and "Sweetie", a British equivalent), Anti-spam, anti-HFT companies (who, for example, execute share buybacks for large companies), important parts of police work, ... 3) Some things are so AI-driven that nobody in their right mind still does it manually, or at least it is globally agreed that doing things manually results in a large competitive disadvantage (e.g. shipping). 4) There are places where the replacement of humans with AI has enabled new modes of operation that can not exist without AI. UAV's being the big obvious example, but I would argue there's a better one. AI has enabled bigger ships. Most of the 50000 ton + container ships have a turn radius of 50+ kilometers. If you don't have clear vision 20 kilometers out, you cannot control these ships safely (just look for the yearly demonstration disaster of that fact in the Channel between Britain and France/Belgium). Then we started building 650000 ton ships. When it comes to planes, it's not just UAVs that cannot be controlled by humans, but several kinds of fundamentally unstable planes have started flying, the big example being flying wing aircraft. But there's plenty of others : UAVs, dynamic wing aircraft (like a bird or insect would be a good description), aircraft too light to have a human control them, ... Let's be fair here : this war was lost, a few years ago. Nobody seems interested in giving an AI a datacenter's worth of resources just to have it figure out how to benefit itself/improve itself. If someone did this, for a few years an algorithm could learn to quite literally be a human.
- jostmey 12y agoLook, if Evolution can give rise to intelligence, which is nothing more than a drawn out process of trial and error, then perhaps creating intelligence is easy. The major roadblock standing in our way is a lack of computing power. The Human mind still vastly outstrips our fastest computers. Of course, there will be technical challenges in creating machines with human level intelligence, but once we have super fast computers I think it will be possible.
- nyrulez 12y agoYou assume a-priori how the brain was formed. Perhaps the burden of proof could be in the reverse direction. Ever considered that ? If it was just a drawn out process of trial and error, surely hundreds of top AI researchers with 10,000s of cores/petabytes of RAM at their disposal could have would have made massive strides with their non hit and trial, deliberate process. Surely copying something that is in front of you is easier than designing something like it from scratch ? I hope you agree. But we haven't been able to. And I don't imply that we will never be able to, at least hopefully copy or even enhance some of the interesting aspects. I find AI very exciting. But I would stop calling something we don't even understand "simple and generated from hit and trial".
- nyrulez 12y agoEdit: Look I didn't want to challenge your optimism. It is refreshing to believe that. But I have dealt with enough AI to know that most people have no idea what AI is. There is not much collaboration happening between the neuroscientists, philosophers and AI researchers. Unless a single organization brings them together under one roof, we are very far away from what most people would call biological intelligence.
- nl 12y agoActually, we have made dramatic strides in AI. 2 years ago we couldn't classify multiple objects in a photo properly. Now we can, and within 2 years I would bet we will be approaching human performance on that task. Watson can do medical diagnosis better than most humans. We understand some parts of intelligence quite well, and others less so.