Ben:OK, then any AI that is implemented in computer software is by your
definition a "programmed" AI. Whether it is based on GA's, neural nets,
logical theorem-proving or whatever. So, is your argument that digital
computer programs can never be creative,
since you have asserted that programmed AI's can never be creative?
Er, that's a huge question which is really separate from the one my test is
addressing. I presume you're talking about the hardest form of creativity -
e.g discovery, invention, innovation.
The short answer is that I don't believe that computer *programs* can be
creative in the hard sense, because they presuppose a line of enquiry, a
predetermined approach to a problem - and the whole point of a hard creative
problem is that you don't know where to start, or how to proceed! And you
also don't know what are the elements to investigate. (See the comonplace
definitions of any "wicked" or "ill-structured" problem).
Let's say the problem is to find the engram - how info is encoded in the
brain. Well, you might have some ideas about this, but they could all be
wrong. And you don't know all the elements or channels in the brain that
could be used to encode information. And your whole initial approach and
assumptions could be wrong. You could be looking for how info. is
"stored/imprinted" and it may not be anything of the kind, but rather
"recreated" (see Ledoux on latest Edge) or some other weird principle. A
computer *program* that has a predetermined approach will be simply buggered
by all this. A structured approach to an ill-structured problem is a
non-starter.
That's why - I think it's pretty generally agreed - computer programs
haven't been truly creative. They have shown a "hack" creativity, a la
Laird-Johnson's jazz improvisation program. But that, I think it's agreed,
is only variations on an existing genre - much as I understand GA's to be -
rather than creating a whole new genre. They aren't capable of true,
surprising bisociation of different domains, pace Koestler - which is also
basically essential to general intelligence and independently learning new
domain activities.
But I see no reason why computers couldn't be "briefed" rather than
programmed, and freely associate across domains rather than working along
predetermined lines.
I don't however believe that purely *digital* computers are capable of all
the literally imaginative powers (as already discussed elsewhere) that are
also necessary for true creativity and general intelligence.
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