Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!mcdchg!chinet!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!pyramid!uccba!uceng!dmocsny
From: dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Limits of AI
Summary: Yes today, tomorrow maybe.
Keywords: Intelligence
Message-ID: <349@uceng.UC.EDU>
Date: 29 Oct 88 01:34:56 GMT
References: <1651@ndsuvax.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of Cincinnati, College of Engg.
Lines: 36

In article <1651@ndsuvax.UUCP>, ncthangi@ndsuvax.UUCP (sam r. thangiah ) writes:
> One of the students in my class raised a point that:
> "Man is not capable of producing a machine that is more intelligent than
> oneself".  Is this a valid statement?

Depends on who ``oneself'' is addressed to. :-)

Man can build physical mechanisms that can outperform his own physical
work capacity by orders of magnitude. We can't even define intelligence,
much less establish limits for it. I see no reason to doubt that he
will oneday build a machine that is more intelligent than himself, unless
the dualist view is correct (and physico-chemical mechanisms cannot
account for intelligence). However, if you asked me ``Can Man build a
_logic_ machine more intelligent than himself?'' I would laugh.

I can certainly program a computer to perform an algorithm faster and more
correctly than I can perform it. My programs also exhibit behavior that
I can't always predict (if I could, I wouldn't need to program). However,
logic machines require explicit programming for the most trivial tasks.
They are not self-organizing nor adaptive. They do not learn from 
everyday experience in a generally useful way. As long as that is true they
can never possess what we could reasonably call intelligence.

The connectionist approach to AI may succeed in creating machines that
correct these glaring deficiencies of logic machines. If so, then in
combination with logic machines they may create a hybrid intelligence
that exceeds anything we have yet seen. Especially if that hybrid
includes us.

In any case, discussing whether machines will exceed human intelligence
is a bit premature, rather like arguing over how tall a redwood seedling
might eventually become. Probably none of us will live to see the
question settled, and the seedling has an enormous struggle ahead of
it. Better to pay attention to nibbling away at subproblems...

Dan Mocsny