> On 31 Aug 2014, at 10:51 am, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 31 August 2014 12:29, Kim Jones <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> > On 31 Aug 2014, at 9:04 am, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> > To be absolutely clear - the "Artificial" in AI refers to the machine >> > which hosts the intelligence, not to the intelligence itself. >> >> How can anything be "artificial"??????? >> >> What in fact does this word mean? The loose way in which we use this word >> suggests that whatever is deemed "artificial" is somehow an order of "real" >> that is less than real, or, in some sense "missing some ingredient X which >> takes it from vaguely unreal -> real. >> >> "Artifice" = clever or cunning devices and expedients. Nature does that all >> the time. >> >> Nothing is artificial, nothing. And I mean that substantively.
> You can remove or distort the meaning of most words if you try hard enough, > nevertheless this is a useful distinction. Artificial in this context means > "created by humans". OK. But some finches use twigs as tools and that surely comes under the same umbrella. Creativity is a large part of "artificial", not just "we bipedal wonders did it." Artifice is the practice of distorting meanings and layering meanings. It's ART. I'm sure someone like Jacob Brunowski (The Ascent of Man) would agree with me. Are we going to call Chartres Cathedral "artificial"? Of course it is. How about Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"? He's as artificial and intelligent as they come. No zombie, that guy. So for me, the distinction is useful in the way you mean but continues not to capture the real distinction which is more about intelligence doing what it always does most usefully; create newness. There is no way the search to build an AI is the same as intelligence pouring itself from one bottle into another. What we create will be something that will almost certainly surprise us, just as I am still surprised by certain ancient works of man's "artifice" that can now include something that may even converse and reason with us in a way that strikes us as vaguely reminiscent of ourselves. It makes me smile to think that now we have (an?) intelligence hosted by a machine declaring the machine hosting (another) intelligence "artificial". Assuming comp of course, this doesn't seem like a very meaningful distinction to want to make. Kim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
