On 10/14/2012 10:36 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 Roger Clough <rclo...@verizon.net
<mailto:rclo...@verizon.net>> wrote:
> But if a computer beats you at an intelligent task, it would have to be
programmed
to do so.
And you would have to be educated to do so.
> which means that its intelligence would be that of the programmer.
Then how can the computer beat that very same programer?
I think this illustrates a problem with defining 'intelligent task'. Is multiplying to
numbers together an intelligent task? It is to 2nd graders, but not to the programmer.
Why? Because the programmer knows an algorithm for doing it that is simple enough to keep
in his head. But to the programmer winning a chess game is an intelligent task - because
he doesn't know exactly how to do it; he doesn't know an algorithm for doing it. He knows
that he looks ahead and evaluates a few moves and countermoves and the further ahead he
looks the more likely he is to win. So he can program a computer to do the same kind of
thing, but look further ahead and apply the same evaluations, and then it can beat him.
But it can't beat a really good chess player because the really good chess player has a
better set of evaluation rules. Then the programmer can arrange for the the computer to
look through and enormous number of chess games and infer its own rules which may then be
so good as to beat even a really good chess player. But now neither the programmer nor
anyone else know what rules the computer uses. They could look at a printout of the
program and see what they are, but neither they nor anyone else, including the computer,
would know why those particular rules were the good rules. To know that they would have
to retrace the whole learning process the computer used to derive the rules. So NOW the
computer is intelligent, just like the programmer, because it can win chess games but
doesn't know exactly how.
Is the computer conscious? I'd say it was a little bit conscious (of chess).
Brent
> Computers cannot make free choices
Computers can do things for a reason or they can do things for no reason (if they have a
simple hardware random number generator), and that makes them absolutely no different
than you.
> they have no intelligence.
I don't think you really want to say that because they just beat you at a intellectual
task, so if they have zero intelligence then the only logical conclusion to make is that
your intelligence is less than zero.
>>> free will
>> What a odd sequence of ASCII characters, perhaps your keyboard had a
malfunction.
> ?
!
> I already asked you how you would determine the intelligence of a
computer but
your answer made no sense.
I replied to your question with "I detect consciousness in computers the exact same way
I determine it in my fellow human beings, I guess. I guess that if they're behaving
intelligently then they're conscious". What word didn't you understand?
John K Clark
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