Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!pacbell.com!ucsd!sdcc6!beowulf!schraudo From: schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: AI - the real problem Message-ID: Date: 6 Feb 91 04:11:05 GMT References: <1416@ucl-cs.uucp> Sender: news@sdcc6.ucsd.edu Lines: 39 Nntp-Posting-Host: beowulf.ucsd.edu G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) writes: >I see a discontinuity in the development intelligence, at the point of >the emergence of homo sapiens. > ``There must be something unique about man because otherwise, > evidently, the ducks would be lecturing about Konrad Lorenz and > the rats would be writing papers about B. F. Skinner.'' > >The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski, BBC Publications, 1978. It is interesting to note that this perceived discontinuity between human and animal intelligence - that seems so obvious when looking at the achievements of our species and its impact on this planet - all but evaporates at the neurobiological and even psychophysical level. In other words: since (to the best of our knowledge) we're not built very different from other animals, how come we're so smart? One hypothesis is that the "extra intelligence" resides not so much in the individual human brain, but rather in the countless cognitive artifacts and social structure we have created for ourselves. (*) Thus although we still essentially have animal brains, over the generations we collectively managed to create an environment in which slightly modified animal brains can pull all sorts of amazing stunts (such as discussing their own epistemology :-). From this point of view, the bottom-up approach to AI will not culminate in an intelligent machine per se but rather in a population of machines capable of structuring their environment so as to eventually become intelligent. Might take a while though... (*) I owe this perspective to Ed Hutchins, although he is in no way kesponsible for my ramblings. -- Nicol N. Schraudolph, C-014 | "And long cars in long lines University of California, San Diego | And great big signs, and they all say: La Jolla, CA 92093-0114 | Hallelujah. Every man for himself." nici%cs@ucsd.{edu,bitnet,uucp} | - Laurie Anderson, "Big Science".