--- On Wed, 6/25/08, Abram Demski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 10:12 PM, Matt Mahoney > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I find the absence of such models troubling. One > problem is that there are no provably hard problems. > Problems like tic-tac-toe and chess are known to be easy, > in the sense that they can be fully analyzed with > sufficient computing power. (Perfect chess is O(1) using a > giant lookup table). At that point, the next generation > would have to switch to a harder problem that was not > considered in the original design. Thus, the design is not > friendly. > > Would the halting problem qualify?
No, many programs can be easily proven to halt or not halt. The parent has to choose from the small subset of problems that are hard to solve, and we don't know how to provably do that. As each generation makes advances, the set of hard problems get smaller. Cryptographers have a great interest in finding problems that are hard to solve, but the best we can do to test any cryptosystem is to let lots of people try to break it, and if nobody succeeds for a long time, pronounce it secure. But breaks still happen. It seems to be a general problem. Knowing that a problem is hard requires as much intelligence as solving the problems. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=106510220-47b225 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
