Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!ames!elroy!orion.cf.uci.edu!uci-ics!venera.isi.edu!smoliar From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Where might CR understanding come from (if it exists) Summary: evolution Message-ID: <7909@venera.isi.edu> Date: 31 Mar 89 14:57:07 GMT References: <2691@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <813@htsa.uucp> Sender: news@venera.isi.edu Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar) Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute Lines: 36 In article <813@htsa.uucp> fransvo@htsa.uucp (Frans van Otten) writes: > >My personal opinion on this is as follows. In the evolutionary process, >with "survival of the fittest", you have to behave in such a way that you >will survive long enough to raise a new generation. As the level of >complexity of the organism increases, it will have to do more "information >processing": to find food, to protect against enemies, etc. My point: >intelligence etc. developed out of a need to determine how to behave in >order to survive. So the behaviourist approach is justified: "when the >system seems to act intelligently, it *is* intelligent". > >Then we invented the computer. We start wondering: can we make this >machine intelligent ? Before we can write a program for this, we must >understand the algorithm humans use. This proves to be very difficult. >Research is hindered by people claiming that understanding requires very >mysterious causal powers which computers, due to their design, can never >have. Gilbert Cockton even claims that because human minds are not >artifacts, while computer systems always will be, there will always be >performance differences. Apart from the fact that this statement is >nonsense, it is not of any importance to AI-research. I find myself basically sympathetic to this approach. However, because recently our Public Television Network has begun a series of programs about current problems in American education, I have been toying with a darker side of this evolutionary model. Let us accept Frans' premise that intelligent behavior emerges because it is necessary for survival (i.e., if you lack physical virtues like strength or speed, you need brains). Then the computer comes along, sort of like the cherry on top of this monstrous technological sundae. At each step in the history of technology, machines have made intelligent behavior less and less necessary for survival Is there a danger that, as machines increase their potential for "intelligent behavior," that they will "meet" the corresponding human potential which is in a decline? Hopefully, this will not be the case. Hopefully, we, as humans, will have to become MORE intelligent in order to interact with the very intelligent machines we build. I just wonder whether or not the technological entrepreneurs who wish to fashion the world in their image will see it that way.