Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!mucs!liv-cs!ian
From: ian@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: A definition of *INTELLIGENCE*
Message-ID: <5199.26025b13@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk>
Date: 17 Mar 90 15:43:14 GMT
References: <2752@castle.ed.ac.uk> <1407@oravax.UUCP> <5177.25fa2fb6@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk> <8533@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Organization: Computer Science CSMVAX, Liverpool University
Lines: 29

In article <8533@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>, g2g@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Ranjan Muttiah) writes:
> 
> If mathematics be the most precise of sciences and its desiderata of
> numbers and sets are left undefined, then how in a more imprecise
> field such as AI can we define intelligence ?
> 
> Answer: You don't !
>
We can define intelligence any way we like, the question should be whether or
not this is a useful task.  The ultimate aim of AI is, presumeably, to produce
an artificial intelligence.  In order to know what we are shooting at, we need
to pin our quarry down a little tighter.  One way of doing this is to seek a
rigorous definition of intelligence, another is to state a task that a machine
must be able to do to satify is that it exhibits intelligence.  It is for this
reason that people seek to define intelligence.  Sometimes a rigid definition
of a well-known concept is necessary (is a ninety quid chess machine
intelligent?  To the person in the street, it is!).

Of course, most research is not interested in the ultimate aim of AI, but
rather strives for some goal in one part of AI.  For example, I am interested
in explanation systems and do not care whether or not they are intelligent (or
even whether they appear to be intelligent).  I can however indulge in similar
arguments about what constitutes explanation :-).  

By the way, I thought that numbers and sets were defined by starting from the
empty set and building sets from there.

Ian
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