> 2008/7/22 Mike Archbold <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: >> It looks to me to be borrowed from Aristotle's ethics. Back in my >> college >> days, I was trying to explain my project and the professor kept >> interrupting me to ask: What does it do? Tell me what it does. I >> don't >> understand what your system does. What he wanted was >> input-function-output. >> He didn't care about my fancy data structure or architecture goals, he >> just wanted to know what it DID. >> > > I have come across this a lot. And while it is a very useful heuristic > for sniffing out bad ideas that don't do anything I also think it is > harmful to certain other endeavours. Imagine this hypothetical > conversation between Turing and someone else (please ignore all > historical inaccuracies). > > Sceptic: Hey Turing, how is it going. Hmm, what are you working on at > the moment? > Turing: A general purpose computing machine. > Sceptic: I'm not really sure what you mean by computing. Can you give > me an example of something it does? > Turing: Well you can use it calculate differential equations.... > Sceptic: So it is a calculator, we already have machines that can do that. > Turing: Well it can also be a chess player. > Sceptic: Wait, what? How can something be a chess player and a calculator? > Turing: Well it isn't both at the same time, but you can reconfigure > it to do one then the other. > Sceptic: If you can reconfigure something, that means it doesn't > intrinsically do one or the other. So what does the machine do itself? > Turing: Well, err, nothing. > > I think the quest for general intelligence (if we are to keep any > meaning in the word general), will have be hindered by trying to pin > down what candidate systems do, in the same way general computing > would be. > > I think the requisite question in AGI to fill the gap formed by not > allowing this question, is, "How does it change?" > > Will > >
Will, I see what you mean that trying to pin down input-function-output too early in the AGI game would be a hinderance, since by the general nature it kind of assumes these in an ideal way, but it seems to me that if the poster is at the patent stage he should have this specified, otherwise it sounds like patenting an idea that needs a lot more work to me. Mike Archbold > ------------------------------------------- > agi > Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now > RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ > Modify Your Subscription: > https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com > ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=108809214-a0d121 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
