Michael> On 10 Nov 2006 at 13:48, Eric Baum wrote: >> I am arguing that if you find a code that solves a range of >> naturally presented problems, that is so constrained (for example >> by being extremely concise) that the only way it could have existed >> is if it is based on an ingenious abstraction hierarchy with >> modules exploiting real structure in the world and reused in >> different contexts to solve different problems, then it will >> continue to solve most new problems,
Michael> Ok, that seems pretty obvious, at least for anyone who Michael> accepts the basic premise that the real world is highly Michael> ordered. I don't think you're saying anything controversial Michael> there, though people who don't like the idea of AIs being Michael> based on serial-looking code will probably nitpick 'range of Michael> naturally presented problems' in the hope of demonstrating Michael> that only fuzzy/connectionist/massively parallel code can Michael> solve nontrivial challenges (I'm not one of those people). Michael> Generalising to this level isn't really saying anything Michael> useful though, as you've pushed all of the challenge into Michael> finding that code/module set/abstraction hierarchy in the Michael> first place. That's a reasonable worry, but I think you get a fair amount out of it. It tells you that much of the guts of cognition is in the genome, you shouldn't expect a tabula rasa algorithm or any other weak method to solve the problem. It suggests that neither hand-coding nor simple learning will produce intelligence-- you will have to find a way to guide computers to produce the code. It says quite a bit about what the code should look like. It gives a different picture on what language is, and on why humans are cognitively so different from chimps. etc etc. ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303
