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Article 6269 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: throop@aurs01.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: 5-step program to AI
Message-ID: <60831@aurs01.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jun 92 18:29:57 GMT
References: <1992Jun12.192537.32302@mp.cs.niu.edu>
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> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
>   0:	A rock.  Not much here.
>   1:	A single celled creature (a protozoan for example).  Not bad
> 	considering that it has only one cell.
>   2:	A frog.  A big jump.
>   3:	A mouse.  Many capabilities of mammals which are not seen in
> 	reptiles and amphibians.  Evidence of consciousness is
> 	rather more persuasive for mammals than for a frog.
>   4:	A chimpanzee.  Very intelligent compared with most mammals,
> 	but lacking language, and presumably well short of human
> 	intelligence.
>   5:	Human intelligence.
> Now here is where my gross over-simplification comes in.  I would
> characterize what we can currently achieve with AI as being the
> incremental intelligence to get from step 4 to step 5.  Where AI

Yes, that's a difference between us alright.  I'd say that what we can
currently achieve with AI is 0 through 2, and that there's something
missing beyond that.  Call it "grounding" or "intentionality" or
whatnot, but... something missing.

I think that the apparent facility with "higher reasoning" that
computers currently have IS essentially fiddling with "meaningless
squiggles and squoggles", and any meaning is only read in by humans
(or at least, to a very large degree).

> Once we understand rapid pattern recognition and learning, I think we
> will be ready to make dramatic advances.

I agree, with two reservations: I think the problem of pattern
recognition is starting to yield, while the problem of learning isn't
yet (or at least not flexibly and open-ended-ly enough.  And I think
there may well be something still more involved.

> I see in the frog at least the beginnings of what is missing.

I agree that frogs have the starts of recognition and learning, but
I don't see that they really do it *that* much "better" than current
computers.  But hey, I'm just talking about vague gut feel here.





Wayne Throop       ...!mcnc!aurgate!throop


