Jorgen
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    Identifying the Differences Between Human vs. Computer Intelligence
    Project: The Total Library
    September through December 2010 was my first semester of education since I left high school in 2007. In one of my courses, Contemporary Issues, I wrote a paper (a very short one) entitled "Why Computers Do Not," which was meant as a counter to the hopelessly superior article by Marvin Minsky of MIT "Why People Think Computers Can't."

    When it came down to writing out my argument, I consistently ran in to the problem of being able to think through how in fact a computer program could be written to breach any limitation I tried to put on computer intelligence. It turned in to a very painful exercise as the logic of my arguments, which attempted to put a definitive limitation on computer intelligence, came back upon me. It occurs to me now that logic is itself very mechanical, and that no argument to prove my point could ever arise from such a domain.

    Since that first semester, I've been reading, in parts, Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter. I have just finished reading one part in particular which has given me a new perspective on the point that I was trying to make in my paper one semester ago. In it, Hofstadter has written about a computer's ability to be made entirely unobservant, whereas for a human this is impossible, and also the ability of human intelligence to remove it's self from a system. An example of the latter, from Godel, Escher Bach:

    "For example, a human being who is reading a book may grow sleepy. Instead of continuing to read until the book is finished, he is just as likely to put the book aside and turn of the light. He has "stepped out of the system" and yet it seems the most natural thing in the world to us."

    This example made me think that the reason I had so much trouble distinguishing human-specific intelligence traits from computer AI was that these distinguishing traits seemed so natural to me, even to the point where stating them in my paper would have seemed ridiculous. For example, another excerpt from Godel, Escher, Bach:

    "...a car will never pick up the idea, no matter how much or how well it is driven, that it is supposed to avoid other cars and obstacles on the road; and it will never learn even the most frequently traveled routes of its owner."

    I found these two examples to be, for the moment, helpful distinctions.

    Sat, Mar 26, 2011  Permanent link
    Categories: AI, Intelligence
    Sent to project: The Total Library
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    BenRayfield     Sun, Apr 3, 2011  Permanent link
    "a car will never pick up the idea, no matter how much or how well it is driven, that it is supposed to avoid other cars and obstacles on the road"

    The first thing you'd need is a car with cameras and an AI designed to learn things in general. The other thing you'd need would be to crash it enough times to learn that crashing is bad, which you're not going to do. My friend has a small dog that likes to run in front of cars. No AI is nearly as smart as a dog, and the dog can't learn it. Every time the dog runs in front of a car, the car stops or turns and does not hit the dog. Therefore the dog has a reason to think cars are not dangerous. To know a car is supposed to avoid hitting other cars, you need more information. It helps to have driven a car so you know how hard it is for them to slow down or change direction, but only if you know that you are driving the same kind of thing you are seeing on the road. It also helps to know it hurts when something fast hits you.

    There is no reason a car can't learn not to hit other cars, but to learn why in general, instead of being programmed specificly to avoid crashing, it needs experience in a lot of other things. It can't be limited to experience driving.
    Jorgen     Sun, Apr 3, 2011  Permanent link
    Respectfully, I'm not really sure what your point is Ben. The point of that quote is that cars are completely unobservant, whereas humans cannot be made so.
    BenRayfield     Sun, Apr 3, 2011  Permanent link
    If you give a car the ability to see and learn, it won't be enough to learn why it should avoid crashing. Even with those upgrades, the act of driving is unobservant of the things that you need to avoid while driving, since those things probably won't happen while driving. If you put a new Human brain in a car, your quote would still be true, since the Human would not understand anything except driving.
    gamma     Mon, Apr 4, 2011  Permanent link
    "a car will never pick up the idea, no matter how much or how well it is driven, that it is supposed to avoid other cars and obstacles on the road"


    It is a crappy quote. People already know things that appear intelligent such as the double pendulum, synchronized fireflies, robots that can jump, dogs... You can't make a PHD speech out of comparison between nothing and something.
    Jorgen     Mon, Apr 4, 2011  Permanent link
    Gamma,

    If you believe that it is a crappy quote, then I believe you have missed the point that I was trying to enforce by including it. Please consider this summary:

    When attempting to make a profound distinction between human and computer "intelligence," it is useful to note that a machine (a car) can be entirely inobservant, and a human cannot. This is meaningful as a single point in a line to be drawn between human and computer intelligence.

    In fact, when trying to define a distinction, don't you think the comparison of something and nothing is quite potent?
    gamma     Tue, Apr 5, 2011  Permanent link
    My mother can feel the distinction between the car before and after I use them, because they start working better! So the car registers the change and adapts. That is only a beginning of intelligence, but its there.
     
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