From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!pindor Mon Dec  9 10:47:28 EST 1991
Article 1803 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!pindor
>From: pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: AI as the Next Stage in Evolution
Message-ID: <1991Dec2.201212.15941@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCS Public Access
References: <YAMAUCHI.91Nov27024148@indigo.cs.rochester.edu> <2621@richsun.cpg.trs.reuter.com>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1991 20:12:12 GMT

In article <YAMAUCHI.91Nov27024148@indigo.cs.rochester.edu> yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) writes:
>For those who are starting to tire of the "Can machines *really*
>think?" thread, here's a new topic:
>
>What do you think of the idea of intelligent machines as the next
>stage in evolution?  It seems that if we ever succeed in building
>machines with human-level intelligence, it will only be a matter of
>time before their capabilities exceed those of humans -- in speed,
>accuracy, and memory capacity at least, and possibly in other ways.
>

I fail to see this as inevitable. Considering all features of a human machine -
both physical and mental _and_ its ability to reproduce itself without
outside help - it is not certain that it does not represent a solution close to
optimum. Note an ability of a body to heal a lot of damage to it's structure
and an ability to reproduce it's most complicated part - the brain - within
a very confined space. Things like these require most likely structural solu-
tions at molecular level and these in turn may impose strong limits on, for 
instance, a speed of processing. STNG Data, even if he could have all his
superior abilities as presented there, cannot possibly reproduce itself.
It seems to me that, within a reasonable (?) extrapolation of present technology
and science, "machine" intelligence would be inferior to humans in its survival
capabilities on several counts, so I do not see reasons to worry (:-)) in 
advance.

Andrzej Pindor
University of Toronto
Computing Services
-- 
Andrzej Pindor
University of Toronto
Computing Services
pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca


