Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!ukc!etive!hwcs!nick
From: nick@cs.hw.ac.uk (Nick Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Limits of AI
Keywords: Intelligence
Message-ID: <2025@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk>
Date: 7 Nov 88 17:23:43 GMT
References: <1651@ndsuvax.UUCP> <1666@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> <3802@cs.utexas.edu> <1822@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Reply-To: nick@uk.ac.hw.cs (Nick Taylor)
Followup-To: 2254@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk
Organization: Computer Science, Heriot-Watt U., Scotland
Lines: 38

In Article 2254 of comp.ai, Gilbert Cockton writes :
 "... intelligence is a social construct ... it is not a measure ..."

Hear, hear. I entirely agree. I suppose it was inevitable that this discussion
would boil down to the problem of defining "intelligence". Still, it was fun
watching it happen anyway.

I offer the following in an effort to clarify the framework within which we
must discuss this topic. No doubt to some people this will seem to obfuscate
the issue rather than clarify it but, either way, I am sure it will 
generate some discussion.

Like Gilbert most people treat the idea of intelligence as an intra-species
comparitor. This is all well and good so long as we remember that it is 
just a social construct which we find convenient when comparing the
apparent intellectual abilities of two people or two dogs or two nematodes, 
etc.

However, when we move outside a single species and attempt to say things
such as "humans are more intelligent than nematodes" we are in a very
different ball game. We are now using the concept of intelligence as an
inter-species comparator. Whilst it might seem natural to use the same
concept we really have no right to. One of the most important axioms of
any scientific method is that you cannot generalise across hierarchies.
What we know to be true of humans cannot be applied to other species 
willy-nilly.

Until we generate a concept ('label') of inter-species intelligence which
cannot be confused with intra-species intelligence we will forever be
running around in circles discussing two different ideas as if they were
one and the same. Clearly, machine intelligence is also concerned with
a different 'species' to ourselves and as such could be a very useful
concept but neither 'machine intelligence' nor 'human intelligence' are
useful in a discussion of which is, or might become, the more intelligent
(in the inter-species meaning of the word).

For more information on bogus reasoning about brains and behaviour
see Stephen Rose's "The Conscious Brain" (published by Penguin I think).