Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!sri-unix!DRogers%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA From: DRogers%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Newsgroups: net.ai Subject: an interesting implicit definition of intelligence Message-ID: <137@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Wed, 18-Jul-84 14:35:14 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.137 Posted: Wed Jul 18 14:35:14 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 21-Jul-84 03:48:44 EDT Lines: 27 From: David Rogers Can you spot the fallacy in this implicit definition of intelligence? "As the programs become more refined and the network of paths and boxes grow more complex, it becomes increasingly difficult to predict what a computer will decide. In one second, it can process between 10 and 100 thousand logical inferences, or syllogisms. In 1981, the Japanese government announced that it would provide almost a half a billion dollars in seed money over the next decade to produce machines that will be able to draw as many as 1 billion logical inferences per second. If that goal is achieved, a computer could make, in one second, a decision so complex that it would take a human 30 years to unravel it, assuming that he or she could think constantly at the superhuman speed of 1 syllogism per second. Given 10 seconds to ponder a problem, a computer's decision would have to be taken on faith. By human standards it would be unfathomable. When computers can have thoughts that would take more than a human lifetime to understand, it is tempting to consider them smarter than their makers." >From "The Lure of Artificial Intelligence", by George Johnson, in the APF reporter, Vol 7, No. 3. (In a box at the bottom of the page, one reads "George Johnson, a freelance writer, is reporting on the quest to build computers smarter than humans.")