Xref: utzoo comp.ai:3113 talk.philosophy.misc:1848 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ncis.llnl.gov!ncis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!agate!bionet!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!nic.MR.NET!xanth!ukma!gatech!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw From: throopw@xyzzy.UUCP (Wayne A. Throop) Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence Message-ID: <2894@xyzzy.UUCP> Date: 17 Jan 89 20:34:00 GMT References: <552@soleil.UUCP> <687@htsa.uucp> <244@verdix.verdix.com> Organization: Data General, RTP NC. Lines: 35 > mark@verdix.com (Mark Lundquist) > [...] one might respond to my tic-tac-toe suggestion as follows: > "You're quite right. Your tic-tac-toe program _is_ intelligent. Of course, > it's far less intelligent than a baboon. Humans, in turn, exhibit > intelligence on a grander scale yet. But in principle, it's the same." > This response would also be question-begging. How is it that humans and > baboons apply this principle, to be able to exhibit their respective degrees > of intelligence? This response does not beg the question at all. Or rather, it has a simple and straightforward answer for the question Mark claims it begs. The tic-tac-toe program models a game. The human models the game, the world, the human's self, the relationship among these entities, and on and on. The baboon (presumably) has fewer models of less accuracy than does the human. Or to put it another way, the answer to the question Mark poses is, humans and baboons apply the same principles as does the tic-tac-toe program, but they apply them to more things, more richly, and more accurately. Before anybody thinks I'm saying that AI is a SMOP, (to add lots of models and make them rich and accurate) let me assure you all that I *don't* minimize the difficulties or the unknowns in this way. After all, it is not known how one goes about building rich and accurate models of things, and tying these to perceptions. All I'm saying is that the position of "understanding is modeling" is not an obviously flawed position to take, nor does the position lack something as obvious as a distinguishing factor between levels of understanding. -- God made integers, all else is the work of man. --- Leopold Kronecker -- Wayne Throop !mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw