Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (142731)	8/6/2004 5:30:09 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

>> machines may never process better than humans Some love it, some hate it, but The Emperor's New Mind, physicist Roger Penrose's 1989 treatise attacking the foundations of strong artificial intelligence, is crucial for anyone interested in the history of thinking about AI and consciousness. Part survey of modern physics, part exploration of the philosophy of mind, the book is not for casual readers--though it's not overly technical, it rarely pauses to let the reader catch a breath. The overview of relativity and quantum theory, written by a master, is priceless and uncontroversial. The exploration of consciousness and AI, though, is generally considered as resting on shakier ground. Penrose claims that there is an intimate, perhaps unknowable relation between quantum effects and our thinking, and ultimately derives his anti-AI stance from his proposition that some, if not all, of our thinking is non-algorithmic. Of course, these days we believe that there are other avenues to AI than traditional algorithmic programming; while he has been accused of setting up straw robots to knock down, this accusation is unfair. Little was then known about the power of neural networks and behavior-based robotics to simulate (and, some would say, produce) intelligent problem-solving behavior. Whether these tools will lead to strong AI is ultimately a question of belief, not proof, and The Emperor's New Mind offers powerful arguments useful to believer and nonbeliever alike. --Rob Lightner --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

To: carranza2 who wrote (142731)	8/7/2004 3:40:15 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

<nature will win over machines for the next few centuries; machines may never process better than humans> C2, that's a fine assertion, but given the history of nature, even as far as we can tell, let alone on the grand scale which we have no insight into [like what happened 'before' the Big Bang], there is a teleological aspect to proceedings which makes me think my simian Sier colleagues, wonderful though they are, are unlikely to be the end-stage of evolutionary trends. Already, in many respects, machines process a lot better than humans. Look at Google go for example in speed of recall, memory storage and associative thinking. Computers can beat me at chess any day of the week. They do a lot of things very well. Sure, they are all just acting out their instructions for now and not writing their own instructions [as far as I know]. <But that system won't also be able to drive a car, write poetry, laugh at a joke, watch a movie and then summarize it later, or do all the other kinds of things that human chess grandmasters can do in addition to playing chess.> Apart from the fact that I think It'll do a better job of nearly everything people can do, I wonder why It would bother. There's more to life than being a smart human who can play chess while driving a car and laughing at a movie, while making the movie and writing the poetry going into it. Why on Earth would It want to do that? Chimps can swing through trees flat out and we can't, but we don't seem too upset that our simian cuzzy-bros are still better than us in some regard. We've got other things to do. Given that we are only a couple of decades into the biotelecosmictechdot.com revolution, it's a bit early to declare victory for the hairy ones with the eyebrows going up in surprise on their foreheads. King George II is strutting the world stage as a War President, fighting for the "Reigning Freedom" which Ted Kaczynski tried to stop, but George II and his Al Q opponents are like the seals fighting on the edge of a beach when a killer whale surges up and grabs the one who thought the other was 'running' from him! I'm enacting a revolution which will supersede them all [Ted, George, Osama, Helengrad etc]. Things are going very well. Mqurice