Xref: utzoo alt.cyberpunk:4847 comp.ai:7939 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!jarthur!nntp-server.caltech.edu!nntp-server.caltech.edu!erich From: erich@near.cs.caltech.edu (Erich Schneider) Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk,comp.ai Subject: Re: The AI Breakthough -- What It Will Be Like !!! Message-ID: Date: 1 Nov 90 03:19:51 GMT References: <35244@cup.portal.com> <25207@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> Sender: news@nntp-server.caltech.edu Distribution: na Organization: California Institute of Technology Lines: 35 In-Reply-To: rlp@beach.cis.ufl.edu's message of 31 Oct 90 17:23:10 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: near.cs.caltech.edu >>>>> On 31 Oct 90 17:23:10 GMT, rlp@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Trouble) said: +> Maybe it's a trivial example, but I'll call a computer "intelligent" when +> I can dial randomly across the radio, drop in on a song, and have it +> identify the type of music, artist, and song, and do it as quickly as +> a human being. Let's see how much processor power it takes to pull +> that trick. This is a trivial example, but I get your point. One point I would like to make is that "processor power" would be the only thing to needed to solve this problem. Given a list of all of the types of music/groups/songs a human knows, along with their characteristics, it's just an algorithmic process (i.e. a Turing machine, by Church's thesis) to perform the ID. If, however, one could dial randomly across the radio and have the computer do the identification, and then _without a human manually changing the program_ have the computer do something radically different (e.g. solve a complicated differential equation or physics problem) just by showing it the problem; I would say that program is possibly "intelligent". Followups to comp.ai. While AI's are part of the cyberpunk literature, this discussion has moved into a more AI-centered region. -- erich@tybalt.caltech.edu or try erich@through.cs.caltech.edu "Why the hell anybody plug the likes of you into a deck like that? Thing ought to be in a museum, _you_ ought to be in grade school." -William Gibson, _Count Zero_