Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!rutgers!columbia!cs!andy From: andy@cs.columbia.edu (Andy Lowry) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence Message-ID: <50@cs.columbia.edu> Date: 15 Dec 88 14:19:39 GMT References: <484@soleil.UUCP> <1654@hp-sdd.HP.COM> <1908@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <4040a289.9d8d@hi-csc.UUCP> Reply-To: andy@cs.columbia.edu (Andy Lowry) Followup-To: comp.ai Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science Lines: 29 In article <4040a289.9d8d@hi-csc.UUCP> harper@hi-csc.UUCP (Paul L. Harper) writes: >I am continually amazed at the faith of AI "researchers" >(programmers?). I have seen nothing whatsoever from the AI >community that indicates there is any hope of producing >intelligence by running instructions on computers. > >It is an incredible leap of faith, completely unfounded >by science, to assume that computers can obtain the human >quality we call intelligence. Where is the scientific justification >for the assumption? I am continually amazed at the closed-mindedness of certain individuals. On the contrary... it is an incredible leap of faith (in my book) to assume that this goal is unattainable. That is, I cannot conceive of ANY argument that intelligence cannot be fabricated other than one based on a belief in God. And that is a belief that I do not hold any part of, and that I consider an "incredible leap of faith." That I believe "true" artificial intelligence to be attainable does not mean that I necessarily believe it will be attained. That depends on a fair amount of luck, among other things. It does mean that I consider it a worthy goal for research effort. In fact, even if I were not so convinced that the goal can, theoretically, be achieved, I would still consider it a worthy pursuit. How many programs of research are undertaken with full confidence in their eventual success? Attempting to obtain a goal is certainly one valid way to go about seeing how attainable it is. -Andy