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From: fostel@eos.ncsu.edu (Gary Fostel)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Imitations of Humanity
Message-ID: <1990Nov28.165033.26351@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu>
Date: 28 Nov 90 16:50:33 GMT
References: <129155@tiger.oxy.edu>
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Reply-To: fostel@eos.ncsu.edu (Gary Fostel)
Organization: North Carolina State University
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Winebarger, at Occidental College asked (essentially) if there was a
Holy Grail:

   I'm relativity new to this net, so I'm not sure if this question will
   really be appropriate. My question is:  has the possibility of a neural 
   net hooked up to 2 cameras, connected for stereo vision, with other
attempts 
   at equivalency for the other 4 physical senses, been considered for
attempts 
   to produce intelligence?  I have been thinking that if a neural net
was given 
   the same senses (as far as we can tell, of course we can't be sure they are 
   the same as our own) as a human, and given something to make it open it's 
   eyes (a proverbial slap in the behind) then the flood of information it 
   would recieve, somewhat like a human baby would recieve, would force it to
   somehow deal with the flood, and hopefully, eventually, enable intelligence.

This is a very seductive expectation, but it founders a bit on the
oversimplification of what happens during human development.  This is likely
at the root of some people's inflated expectations of artificial neural nets.
They feel that an artificial net is the same as "brain stuff" and since there
is an existence proof for Brain stuff supporting intelligent behavior, then
artificial nets should be able to behave intelligently as well.  There are
a lot of issues that the "flood of data to the gigantic net" idea miss: 

   1) There is no "blank slate".  We are not born with a vast neural net
      devoid of all structure, ready to be programmed. Different areas of
      the brain have strikingly different connectivity, and it is becomming
      clear that this fine structure is optimized for the role that part of
      the brain is supposed to perform. 

   2) The stream of sensory information that helps create intelligent behavior
      is not arbitrary, but requires carefully structured interaction with
      other humans (usually parents).  Fortunately, those parents seem to
      know what to do; they probably learned it as children, or perhaps it
      is innate. 
 
   3) The structure of the net evolves in direct response to appropriate
      stimulation.  This is not a question of setting weights in response to
      stimulation, but rather the growth of new net-stuff.  If the stimulation
      is wrong during the critical period, the growth either does not occur
      or goes awry

   4) There are external factors that influence behavior that are not part
      of the net, e.g. glandular action and the mix of chemicals in your food.

   5) Artificial neurones are to real neurons as paper airplanes are to birds.
      There are an incredible array of things going on inside a real neurone
      that are abstracted away by the usual "neurone" in artificial net.

I'm sure there are more.  Philisophically, (this is net.ai.philosophy :-)
there are two reasons why artificial nets are never-the-less useful things
to study.  They seem to be a good way to organize the solution of certain
computational problems (usually on digital systems) and they may provide 
some insight into real mind-stuff. There is no reason, in principle, why
these issue can not be addressed in ever more sophisticated neural systems,
but the human "existence proof" for intelligence from nets is not an easy one.

----GaryFostel----                           Department of Computer Science
                                             North Carolina State University