Steve: MT:My general point is that the proper business of AGI is problematic, open, ill-structured problems (real world problems) for which ANY predetermined method or structure of problem-solving is wrong, (or since there is no "right" or "wrong" with such problems, "superineffective") - and which usually demand (unstructured) investigation of the relevant environment to find fresh options and evidence.
Steve:I hear you, but I don't believe these to actually exist, except in some (unstructured) people's minds. Can you exhibit one such problem for dissection and discussion? Steve: -Write me a program that will make producing a multimedia essay - video/graphics/text/sound/etc. - easy and fast for almost everyone. -Talk to me about your father.for three minutes. -Write an essay on "the meaning of life." -Tidy up your room -Have sex with your partner. -Have a daydream about having sex with Madonna or some celebrity. -Outline a political strategy to improve McCain's chances. -Compose a story about an AGI going berserk in a totally new way. -Surf on the web for the next 10 mins. ANY formal creative problem - -how is memory laid down in the brain? -invent an electric battery that will be half the price of the cheapest one available -find the solution for the "theory of everything" in physics -devise an additional branch of "metacognition" to go beyond logic COMMENT: All of these problems you can deal with, and start to think about. But you do not have complete structures - conscious or intuitive - for thinking about any of them. It will be extraordinary if you don't grope about quite a bit and get stuck for a while in trying to solve them - as I'm sure you're aware if you cast your mind back to any creative or programming or essaywriting thinking you've ever done - or the last minute you spent on any reflective thinking. The reason you don't have structures is that it would be wrong/superineffective to have structures for these types of problems..Ideally, normatively, wrong. All of these problems call for you to create a structure of problemsolving and a structure of final solution ad hoc. There is no right way to start thinking about how to write that computer program - no right place to start, no right set of options, no right length for the program, no right programming language, and ultimately no right, optimal program. And the same is true for every other problem listed. The problems are open - how you define them is open, what constitutes a solution is open, the options are open and often largely unknown, the criteria that should be applied to judging them are open. (And indeed with some of these problems, if you don't produce something new, unpredictable and surprisingly different from any known structure, you've automatically failed, and you're fired). The reason you have this supergeneral, superadaptive intelligence that can certainly begin to cope with all these - open problems that are continually being thrown at you in real life, (and indeed a potentially infinite diversity of them), is precisely that it isn't programmed to deal with them. It can associate freely with these problems and throw ideas together, as you throw clothes together to form an outfit, or foods to make a potpourri. And it only acquires structures and automatic routines for dealing with problems, as for all skills, secondarily, rather than primarily. That's' v. messy and revolts every rationalist, but far from being "kluge" pace Gary Marcus' latest book, it's beautiful mechanical, computational design, and the secret of AGI. . ------------------------------------------- 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=106510220-47b225 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
