[lbo-talk] What's at stake?

John Thornton jthorn65 at mchsi.com
Wed Nov 19 17:36:24 PST 2003



>From: "Luke Weiger"
>--__--__--
>"In contrast with our intellect, computers double their performance every 18
>months," warned the genius physicist in a recent interview with the German
>newsmagazine Focus. "So the danger is real that they could develop
>intelligence and take over the world." -clip
>
>^^^^^
>CB: I know Stephen Hawking is more intelligent than I am, but can we discuss
>this ? Isn't there some qualitative difference between artificial and "real"
>intelligence still ?

After reading several, but not all, posts on this topic I haven't really seen any discussions on computational vs. non-computational actions. If I am correctly remembering what I learned several years ago on the subject of AI, humans are capable of non-computational thoughts. Thoughts that cannot be expressed algorithmically. Since an algorithm is a computational procedure, basically the action of some Turing machine, and this alone is what "drives" computers, computers could never be capable of non-computational problem solving or human "understanding". Overly simplified to be sure, as much of my writing has been of late. Is Hawking doing work on AI? If not, which I suspect, his opinions carry no more weight than anyone else's on this list on this subject. There seems to be this strange idea that being a credentialed well respected individual in one field gives that persons opinions in another field additional merit.

John Thornton



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