From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wupost!uwm.edu!uwvax!uchinews!spssig!markrose Mon Jan  6 10:30:22 EST 1992
Article 2477 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wupost!uwm.edu!uwvax!uchinews!spssig!markrose
>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Intelligence testing
Message-ID: <1992Jan02.172433.28017@spss.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jan 1992 17:24:33 GMT
References: <1992Jan1.115429.2331@arizona.edu>
Nntp-Posting-Host: spssrs7.spss.com
Organization: SPSS, Inc.
Lines: 32

In article <1992Jan1.115429.2331@arizona.edu> bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>Let us, then, avoid the negative emotions aroused by the
>question "Can machines think?" and consider how we would
>go about answering the question "Can the creature from Zeta
>Galactase think?"

A little thought will show that there can be no definitive answer to this
question, till we know more about galactic culture.  One can think up all
sorts of peculiar aliens which break any simple definition of "intelligence."
(Are humans typical of intelligent beings, or are we some kind of
outrageous outlier?)

Will this stop me from posting some ideas anyway?  Of course not!

Surely the thing we will actually look for, rather than what we will debate
on the 28th century analogue of Usenet, will be technology-- spaceships,
cities, agriculture, metallurgy, Macintoshes.  

The problem then becomes, could creatures with no recognizable technology
at all be intelligent?  Without technology, of course, they will be unable
to resist our land developers and resource extractors; but once we've
exterminated about half of them we will begin to look at characteristics
like language use, complexity of behavior, and brain size.  

By the time you get to beings without technology, language, or sophisticated
behavior, whatever intelligence you find sure wouldn't be much like ours.

Unfortunately none of this helps much in discussions of AI.  What if the
creature from Zeta Galactase (is that a planet or a chemical substance?)
is a robot?  Maybe he has nukes and anti-matter cannons.  Creatures with
anti-matter cannons don't _like_ being told they have only simulated
intelligence.


