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comment by mk
mk  ·  3977 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: If this doesn't terrify you... Google's computers OUTWIT their humans • The Register

    When you start a system in an environment utterly devoid of biology, the structures and means that will appear have no reason to resemble our own.

I agree with that. However, many animals express an intelligence we can at least relate to. I expect that the same might go for non-biological AI, at least to the degree in which we operate in the same environment, but maybe not.

    He saw "intelligence" as an impossible thing to judge; he argued that "imitating intelligence" was easy. I think the processes you're talking about are going to lead to "intelligence" - I'd argue that in many ways, they already have.

For sure. I don't think there's a difference between intelligence and the perfect imitation of it. It's in the eye of the beholder. It's telling that we can't even agree upon the fundamentals of our own intelligence. We just know it when we see it.

I'll add the book. I am starting an actual doc now. I'm not sure if you've read Godel, Escher, Bach, but it's fantastic. The rest of what I've read from Hofstadter are variations on themes outlined in GEB.





kleinbl00  ·  3977 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I agree with that. However, many animals express an intelligence we can at least relate to.

Right: We grew up in the same environment. We breathe the same air, we drink the same water, we bask in the same sun, we experience the same weather, our predators and prey are drawn from the same grab bag. That was my point: we have a long legacy of parallel development with animals. Machine intelligence? We're going to have absolutely nothing in common with it.

    It's telling that we can't even agree upon the fundamentals of our own intelligence. We just know it when we see it.

And I'm not sure we will. When the inception parameters are so wildly different, what we see is not very likely to strike us as "intelligence."

My dad has been trying to get me to read Godel Escher Bach for about 30 years now. Maybe one of these days.

thundara  ·  3977 days ago  ·  link  ·  

There's one dialogue particular in it that's revolves around the ideas of your two's discussion: Ant Fugue

The fundamental idea being that from a physical point of view, there's nothing unique about neurons firing in a certain pattern.

A population of macroscopic organisms / actors in a computer could interact and produce the same patterns, given enough moving parts and the ability to reorganize itself in response to input.