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From: markv@pixar.com (Mark VandeWettering)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: a naive idea
Keywords: intelligence, human, artificial
Message-ID: <1991Jun12.194454.19379@pixar.com>
Date: 12 Jun 91 19:44:54 GMT
References: <1991May16.134123.6335@cdc835.cdc.polimi.it>
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>It may be a naive idea, but my assertion is that artificial intelligence 
>is not worth for any economical results it may produce. In fact, it will
>always be less expensive to train a human being to do a certain intel-
>lectual job than to devise an artificial system to do the same thing.
>This because the machine has first to be imbued with "artificial" intel-
>ligence; and this task has yet to prove itself easy. I doubt that it ever
>will, though this is only a personal opinion.

Similar thinking would be along the lines of: we never need cars, horses
can carry us and anything we need.  We don't need medicine, because there
will always be other people to take the place of people who die.  Sure, 
they are true, but there is a "quality of life" argument to be used here.
If we can improve the lives of people through the development of machine
intelligence, I have no doubt that we will (if only because of market 
forces). 

I recall an interview with Kasparov (World Chess Champion) where he said
that he didn't know how human beings could go on after being defeated
at an intellectual endeavor (chess) by a soul-less machine.  The answer 
should be obvious, we have been beaten by machines for years.  They are 
stronger and more efficient than we are.  They haven't been smarter than us
(and indeed I don't believe chess is a good indicator of intelligence) but
there is no reason to believe that this will not change.

>My point is that, even if we reach the point where we can "make" intellig-
>ence out of silicon (or gallium arsenide), it will always be more costly
>than to have intelligence produced to old way, that is, to make babies.

Actually producing a human being is quite difficult, and we know of no 
engineering shortcuts to speed it up, and no real way of ensuring the 
quality of the result.  As far as commodities, human beings are quite
unreliable.  

>Than why all this fuss about AI? I think this is a just and good effort,
>because of the enormous consequences it has already had and it'll have 
>in the future on the way we understand ourselves. 

For me, the evolution of machine intelligence is the next step in OUR OWN
HUMAN evolution.  Language was developed so that knowledge could be quickly
and completely transferred from generation to generation, but for machines
knowledge could be transferred WITHOUT learning.  Once a computer becomes
"intelligent" it should be able to utilize learning mechanisms which are
manyfold more efficient than our own minds.

It is, indeed, stuff to dream about.

Mark