That's a wonderful expression of it. The quest for what 'intelligence' is, as an ideal independent of either the present human or computational models is nicely vague and inspiring. Perhaps the growing number of known profound disconnects from reality displayed by human 'intelligence', such as the global consensus that doubling the size and complexity of economic activity every 20 years forever is a good idea, does make it best we place 'intelligence' somewhere beyond our present reach! I like comparing humans and computers as 'symbol processors' too, which both certainly are. How both also rely on a core framework of ideas to accomplish their confined abilities in that area, and how all results are therefore direct images of that core framework, is maybe something to look at.
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/> -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Pamela McCorduck Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2006 12:41 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The what is AI question On Dec 24, 2006, at 4:24 PM, phil henshaw wrote: I'm a little confused. If AI is the art of replicating the mechanisms of human intelligence with machines, doesn't that assume that brain function is digital? As I understand it (from nearly three decades of hanging around the AI people) AI has one major purpose, to understand intelligent behavior. Whether that behavior is instantiated in humans (one instance of symbol-processors) or computers (a second instance) is not the point--the point is to understand what intelligence really is, or to put it another way, what the two instances of intelligence have in common so that a general scientific theory of intelligence--any and all intelligence--can be known. >From the beginning, human intelligence has been used as an example of intelligent behavior, and therefore well worth understanding. But human cognitive psychology and AI aren't identical, though they share many assumptions and techniques. In early AI efforts, "imitating" human thought ("simulating" the scientists prefer to say) was a reasonable way to begin. In fifty years, some aspects of human thought have been surpassed by computers. However, when computers think, we generally tie them to human intelligence in some way (mathematical proofs or other means of verification) because we humans need to understand what they're doing. The dance is intricate. Pamela "My idea of good company, Mr. Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company." "You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company, that is the best." Jane Austen, Persuasion
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