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From: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence
Summary: I can't predict my future decisions.  So why should a machine?
Message-ID: <43271@linus.UUCP>
Date: 28 Dec 88 00:38:36 GMT
References: <4040a289.9d8d@hi-csc.UUCP> <4639@homxc.UUCP> <1904@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> <15152@mimsy.UUCP>
Sender: news@linus.UUCP
Reply-To: bwk@mbunix (Barry Kort)
Organization: Doubtful Decisionware, Dendrite Faults, NC
Lines: 28

In article <15152@mimsy.UUCP> anderson@secd.cs.umd.edu (Gary Anderson
speculates about future generations of thinking machines:

 > As these machines become more complex and more versatile,  
 > their behavior in new and unanticipated situations will become more 
 > difficult to predict.  Even hindsight understanding of the behavior 
 > of these machines in new situations may be very difficult to achieve.
 > I wonder if even the developers of these machines will be able to 
 > distinguish free will from poorly understood programmed behavior.
 > If the machines  become so smart and so complex that we cannot 
 > easily predict their behavior in new situations, we 
 > will have no recourse but to ask "them" what they would do.

I suspect the distinction between programmed behavior and free will
will become a fuzzy boundary.  A chess playing computer, when confronted
with a novel situation may choose at random from a small set of alternatives.
The outcome (win or lose) may then become compiled knowledge about the
wisdom of the chosen line of play.  The next time around, the chess
machine won't be so naive, and may choose it's course of action with
more conviction.  The bemused observer would be hard pressed to
distinguish free will from such random decision.

So, asking them what they would do in a hypothetical situation
might generate the honest answer, "I don't know.  It depends on
whether I learn something useful by the time I have to make that
decision."

--Barry Kort