Artificial Intelligence and the year 2047

[ciphergoth]

Clarification: By "smart" I mean general smarts: the sort of smarts that allow you to do things like pass a Turing test or solve open problems in nanotechnology. Obviously computers are ahead of humans in narrow domains like playing chess.

NB: your guess as to what will happen should also be one of your guesses about what might happen - thanks! This applies to wriggler, ablueskyboy, thekumquat, redcountess, thehalibutkid, henry_the_cow and cillygirl. If you tick only one option (which is not the last) in the first poll, it means you think it's the only possible outcome.

[Poll #1103617]

And of course, I'm fascinated to know why you make those guesses. In particular - I'm surprised how many people think it's likely that machines as smart as humans might emerge while nothing smarter comes of it, and I'd love to hear more about that position.

Comments

Re: IMHO

[just-becky.livejournal.com]

Ooh good point! Is intelligence simpley faster processing, more parallel processes or greater data storage? Sure a machine will one day be able to beat us on all those criteria but can they ever have spontaneous thought?

I have no doubt that given a vast repository of potential solutions and amazing processing speed a computer could identify a potential requirement for something and come up with a very efficient solution to the issue using modified versions of existing items. But actual invention, innovation or inspiration could it ever do those?

Now I am no neuro scientist, mathematician or computer programmer, Art is more my thing, and in this field at least I know that faster/bigger/brighter is not neccesarily better, so I will draw an example from there. Could a computer when faced with a sunrise over a landscape which fulfils all its established criteria for "Beauty", ever think:
"You know what, instead of striving to represent this image as accurately as I can, like every other visual representation that has been done for the last 50 years or so, I am going to render it in simple swathes of colour instead! Giving a mere 'impression' of the scene if you will!"

Re: IMHO

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Can a machine have a spontaneous thought? Yes, we are such machines.

Re: IMHO

[just-becky.livejournal.com]

Ah, well said sir!

I should have added something to my previous post about "Is there actually such a thing as true spontaneous thought, or truley random number to use a mathematical parallel, or is the process by which it is derived simply to complex to currently be predicted?" So my guess is that it would logically possible at some point to replicate the process once we understand the complexity.

What I find amusing about human spontenaity though is the very human ability to pursue a very stupid idea through to a successfull conclusion. I understand that it is possible to create systems that can generate less "focused" and, for want of a better term, more random solutions, then evaluate and refine these to potentially create a better final design than the more linear development processes could.

But to go back to my Art analogy, the impressionists were widely criticised and regarded as incompetant until the way in which their paintings were evaluated had changed. Will computers ever put forward ideas knowing full well they fail by all current criteria, and continue to support and develop those ideas even though all around them say the ideas are worthless?

I am not saying it is not possible, I am just waiting for computers to have "Sheer bloody mindedness" and "Bollocks to you I am doing it anyway" subroutines, before I start to worry about their creativity rivaling that of humans.