Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!att!linac!midway!msuinfo!cpsin3.cps.msu.edu!dailey
From: dailey@cpsin3.cps.msu.edu (Chris Dailey)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: AI - the real problem
Message-ID: <1991Mar14.172456.11384@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Date: 14 Mar 91 17:24:56 GMT
Sender: news@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu
Reply-To: dailey@cpsin3.cps.msu.edu (Chris Dailey)
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Michigan State University
Lines: 49
Originator: dailey@cpsin3.cps.msu.edu

Here is a quote from an article by John Nagle (nagle@well.sf.ca.us) that
passed by here a while ago.  I'm sorry that I've lost the message ID.
(I'm retyping this from hardcopy -- sorry about any mistakes.)

>     It's been thirty-two years since Samuels' checkers program, the first
>major success of AI.  And yet we still can't build something with the
>competence of an ant brain in dealing with the real world.  This is
>discouraging.

>     It's encouraging that this is now recognized as a problem.  Brooks,
>Connell, Maes, and others are working on artificial insects.  The level
>of insect competence demonstrated to date is still rather low.

>     There is a bit of hubris in trying to address human-level intelligence
>from our present level of ignorance.  We now understand that just getting an
>ant through a minute of life is hard.  Walking over rough ground is hard.
>Avoiding obstacles is hard.  Picking up things is hard.  Piling things up
>is hard.  General ant level competence is very hard.

Let's look at what ant level intelligence is.  First, think of the
spider-like robots being created at MIT, by Brooks, et al.  They seem
to be a success at navigating over rough ground, etc., etc.  So what
level of intelligence is this?  To me, this is something that most
humans would do without even thinking about it under most circumstances
(that is, unless the terrain were extremely rough).

There would seem to me to be a part of the brain that has
responsibility for this type of lower level activity.  My guess is that
it is more closely linked to the central nervous system, and we take it
for granted when thinking about intelligence.  But without it, the more
cognitive parts of our brain would not be able to function.

So what of ants and spiders?  I would guess that their brains consist
of mostly this type of lower level intelligence.  Little of their
brains would be devoted to the higher level functions, such as social
interaction.  (However, as cellular automata show, simple rules can
lead to very complex behavior.)

I would guess that we are comprised of a heirarchy of intelligence
levels.  There are probably well defined communication links between
each level, and each level responds accordingly to the communications
it receives from other levels.

Well, those are my thoughts for now ...
-- 
Chris Dailey   dailey@(frith.egr|cps).msu.edu            
    __  __  ___    | Software Engineer Wanna-be studying compiler design &
 __/  \/  \/ __:>- | implementation. Temporarily residing in Software
 \__/\__/\__/      | Engineering Lab, Engineering Bldg., MSU Campus -- cps424