hakanson@orstcs.UUCP (09/24/83)
#N:orstcs:2600001:000:2497
orstcs!hakanson Sep 23 09:10:00 1983
I was reading a novel recently, and ran across the following passage re-
lating to "intelligent" machines, robots, etc. In case anyone is interested,
the book is Satan's World, by Poul Anderson, Doubleday 1969 (p. 132).
(I hope this article doesn't seem more appropriate to sf-lovers than to ai.)
... They had electronic speed and precision, yes, but not
full decision-making capacity. ... This is not for lack
of mystic vital forces. Rather, the biological creature
has available to him so much more physical organization.
Besides sensor-computer-effector systems comparable to
those of the machine, he has feed-in from glands, fluids,
chemistry reaching down to the molecular level -- the
integrated ultracomplexity, the entire battery of
*instincts* -- that a billion-odd years of ruthlessly
selective evolution have brought forth. He perceives and
thinks with a wholeness transcending any possible symbolism;
his purposes arise from within, and therefore are infinitely
flexible. The robot can only do what it was designed to
do. Self-programming has [can] extended these limits, to the
point where actual consciousness may occur if desired. But
they remain narrower than the limits of those who made
the machines.
Later in the book, the author describes a view that if a robot "were so
highly developed as to be equivalent to a biological organism, there
would be no point in building it." This is explained as being true
because "nature has already provided us means for making new biological
organisms, a lot cheaper and more fun than producing robots."
I won't go on with the discussion in the book, as it degenerates into the
usual debate about the theoretical, fully motivated computer that is
superior in any way..., and how such a computer would rule the world, etc.
My point in posting the above passage was to ask the experts of netland
to give their opinions of the aforementioned views.
More specifically, how do we feel about the possibilities of building
machines that are "equivalent" to intelligent biological organisms?
Or even non-intelligent ones? Is it possible? And if so, why bother?
It's probably obvious that we don't need to disagree with the views given
by the author in order to want to continue with our studies in Artificial
Intelligence. But how many of us do agree? Disagree?
Marion Hakanson {hp-pcd,teklabs}!orstcs!hakanson (Usenet)
hakanson.oregon-state@rand-relay (CSnet)
hakanson@{oregon-state,orstcs} (also CSnet)