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I don't mean to be snarky, but it can be illuminating to change your statement just a little bit: >>Why wouldn't there be any possibility of making artificial

I don't mean to be snarky, but it can be illuminating to change your statement just a little bit: >>Why wouldn't there be any possibility of making artificial humans? We are just a manifestation of a physical system of bonds between organic molecules that follow the laws of physics. There's nothing inherently preventing us from recreating that. Obviously, such a summary vastly oversimplifies the problem. It is easy to look at how far we've come and think that we must be close to the goal, but it's a bit presumptuous to think that we are near to making a strong general AI.

dghf 12y ago
> but it's a bit presumptuous to think that we are near to making a strong general AI But I don't think they're presuming that. They're simply saying that it's possible in principle. How long it takes, and whether indeed we ever manage it all, are separate questions.
- maratd 12y ago
  > They're simply saying that it's possible in principle. In principle, everything is possible, but some things are so unlikely, that it is reasonable to label them as impossible. The computer technology we have developed over the last 75 years is so fundamentally different from how our minds work that to think we will develop anything resembling our own intelligence in any reasonable time-frame is insane. That doesn't mean we can't develop a machine that is able to reason for itself and solve discrete problems. We can. That's not what AI is. AI is Artificial Intelligence. An artificial intelligence defined by us.
  - dghf 12y ago
    > In principle, everything is possible There are some things which I think it's reasonable to consider impossible in principle: e.g., FTL travel, time-travel into the past. (That's not to say it would be necessarily unreasonable to hold the opposite view).
wavefunction 12y ago
I don't see how changing the statement at all changes anything? It's certainly not impossible to create artificial humans, if not within our current technological capability.
- cgearhart 12y ago
  I was trying to illustrate that trivializing the complexity of human-level intelligence in AI is like saying humans are "just" a collection of molecules. It's not that it's impossible, it's just hilariously more complicated than the description makes it sound, and it may well be firmly beyond the reach of existing technology.

dghf 12y ago

> but it's a bit presumptuous to think that we are near to making a strong general AI But I don't think they're presuming that. They're simply saying that it's possible in principle. How long it takes, and whether indeed we ever manage it all, are separate questions.

maratd 12y ago
> They're simply saying that it's possible in principle. In principle, everything is possible, but some things are so unlikely, that it is reasonable to label them as impossible. The computer technology we have developed over the last 75 years is so fundamentally different from how our minds work that to think we will develop anything resembling our own intelligence in any reasonable time-frame is insane. That doesn't mean we can't develop a machine that is able to reason for itself and solve discrete problems. We can. That's not what AI is. AI is Artificial Intelligence. An artificial intelligence defined by us.
- dghf 12y ago
  > In principle, everything is possible There are some things which I think it's reasonable to consider impossible in principle: e.g., FTL travel, time-travel into the past. (That's not to say it would be necessarily unreasonable to hold the opposite view).

wavefunction 12y ago

I don't see how changing the statement at all changes anything? It's certainly not impossible to create artificial humans, if not within our current technological capability.

cgearhart 12y ago
I was trying to illustrate that trivializing the complexity of human-level intelligence in AI is like saying humans are "just" a collection of molecules. It's not that it's impossible, it's just hilariously more complicated than the description makes it sound, and it may well be firmly beyond the reach of existing technology.