don@trsvax.UUCP (11/30/88)
> Intelligence is the capacity to do actions, make statements, > exercise judgement, believe knowledge, and pay attention. >--JoSH Let's see now, my computer can do actions (such as print a file), make statements (it tells me when some command is illegal), exercise judgment (isn't that what a conditional jump means?), believe knowledge (I've got several files of "knowledge" on my hard disk), and pay attention (it waits at the command line for an infinite amount of time until I'm ready to tell it something). I've never thought of my MS-DOS machine as intelligent until now :-) I think your definition is not a good working definition for intelligence, at least not in the AI domain. Don Subt The opinions expressed above are Tandy Corp. strictly mine, not my employer's. 817-390-3068 ...!killer!ninja!sys1!trsvax!don
josh@klaatu.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) (12/01/88)
> Intelligence is the capacity to do actions, make statements, > exercise judgement, believe knowledge, and pay attention. >--JoSH Let's see now, my computer can do actions (such as print a file), make statements (it tells me when some command is illegal), exercise judgment (isn't that what a conditional jump means?), believe knowledge (I've got several files of "knowledge" on my hard disk), and pay attention (it waits at the command line for an infinite amount of time until I'm ready to tell it something). I've never thought of my MS-DOS machine as intelligent until now :-) I think your definition is not a good working definition for intelligence, at least not in the AI domain. Don Subt I claim that when you say your pc is making statements or believing knowledge you are using metaphor rather than actually using the words in the basic senses I (and Webster) meant them. I had a reason to say "make statements" rather than "display character strings" and "believe knowledge" rather than "store information". If you hear that a person paid attention to X, and, believing Y, exercised his judgement and stated Z, you understand a considerably more complex relationship between those activities than happens in MS-DOS (or even in unix :^). However, it is interesting to reflect on the readiness with which you (in common with most people) anthropomorphize the simple actions which your pc does perform. This leads me to believe that when computers/programs are capable of such activities even in very rudimentary form, people will be quite willing to call them intelligent. In fact, I'd be more than ready to call my computer intelligent if it understood the single word "No!" --JoSH
pluto@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Mark E. P. Plutowski) (12/02/88)
In article <Nov.30.21.04.13.1988.9038@klaatu.rutgers.edu> josh@klaatu.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) writes: > Intelligence is the capacity to do actions, make statements, > exercise judgement, believe knowledge, and pay attention. >--JoSH To which Don Subt replies, " ...my computer can do [such] actions... " To which Josh replies, >I claim that when you say your pc is making statements or >believing knowledge you are using metaphor rather than actually >using the words in the basic senses I (and Webster) meant them. This is just the point Don was making. *You* are using words erroneously, while Don (et.al.) was using them precisely within the context in which we discuss these matters on this net. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Plutowski INTERNET: pluto%cs@ucsd.edu Department of Computer Science, C-014 pluto@beowulf.ucsd.edu University of California, San Diego BITNET: pluto@ucsd.bitnet La Jolla, California 92093 UNIX:{...}!sdcsvax!beowulf!pluto
josh@klaatu.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) (12/02/88)
> Intelligence is the capacity to do actions, make statements, > exercise judgement, believe knowledge, and pay attention. >--JoSH To which Don Subt replies, " ...my computer can do [such] actions... " To which Josh replies, >I claim that when you say your pc is making statements or >believing knowledge you are using metaphor rather than actually >using the words in the basic senses I (and Webster) meant them. ...To which Mark Plutowski replies: This is just the point Don was making. *You* are using words erroneously, while Don (et.al.) was using them precisely within the context in which we discuss these matters on this net. If my claim was just the point Don was making, and I used the words erroneously, then Don must have used them erroneously. In fact, Don was not making a great point, but a joke, complete with ":-)". Of course, we were actually making opposite points, which is what you meant to say. If you were more concerned with "discussing these matters" and less with mindless repartee, you might have observed that there is an element of truth on both sides. You might have seen that the difference between the two interpretations has a lot to say about the nature of what we call "intelligence". Is it the degree of interconnectedness between the simple mechanical operations that distinguishes knowledge from data storage, judgement from "if (i>3)"? I suggest you spend your time considering these questions. You'll learn a lot more about intelligence that way, than you will from introspection. --JoSH
pluto@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Mark E. P. Plutowski) (12/03/88)
In article <Dec.1.23.36.31.1988.9255@klaatu.rutgers.edu> josh@klaatu.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) writes: > > > Intelligence is the capacity to do actions, make statements, > > exercise judgement, believe knowledge, and pay attention. > >--JoSH > > To which Don Subt replies, > " ...my computer can do [such] actions... " > > To which Josh replies, > >I claim that ... you are using metaphor[s] rather than actually > >using the words in the basic senses I (and Webster) meant them. > >...To which I replied, > *You* are using words erroneously,... >...To which Josh replies: >... If you were more concerned with "discussing >these matters" and less with mindless repartee, you might have >observed that there is an element of truth on both sides. > >You might have seen that the difference between the two >interpretations has a lot to say about the nature of what >we call "intelligence". Is it the degree of interconnectedness >between the simple mechanical operations that distinguishes >knowledge from data storage, judgement from "if (i>3)"? To which I say, (I'll be short) Granted. You have a point. But when *you* get steamed over a humorous (but quite possibly valid) alternative interpretation of what you are trying to say, whose fault is it? You should thank us for pointing out these (other) interpretations for you!! :-( :-| :-} ;-) Back to the subject. Until these terms are better defined, one can be perfectly justified in claiming that they apply to current computers. Perhaps this is acceptable; if not, then the definition needs revision, since obviously from one perspective the application to computers is (although tongue firmly planted in cheek) not so far-fetched. I'm looking forward to any sound and complete defintions of: KNOWLEDGE, BELIEF, INTUITION, INDUCTION, IMAGINATION, INTELLIGENCE. believe me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Plutowski INTERNET: pluto%cs@ucsd.edu Department of Computer Science, C-014 pluto@beowulf.ucsd.edu University of California, San Diego BITNET: pluto@ucsd.bitnet La Jolla, California 92093 UNIX:{...}!sdcsvax!beowulf!pluto
don@trsvax.UUCP (12/05/88)
> > Intelligence is the capacity to do actions, make statements, > > exercise judgement, believe knowledge, and pay attention. > >--JoSH > > To which Don Subt replies, > " ...my computer can do [such] actions... " > > To which Josh replies, > >I claim that ... you are using metaphor[s] rather than actually > >using the words in the basic senses I (and Webster) meant them. > >...To which Mark replied, > *You* are using words erroneously,... >...To which Josh replies: >... If you were more concerned with "discussing >these matters" and less with mindless repartee, you might have >observed that there is an element of truth on both sides. > >You might have seen that the difference between the two >interpretations has a lot to say about the nature of what >we call "intelligence". Is it the degree of interconnectedness >between the simple mechanical operations that distinguishes >knowledge from data storage, judgement from "if (i>3)"? > >To which Mark replies: > >Back to the subject. Until these terms are better defined, >one can be perfectly justified in claiming that they apply to current >computers. Perhaps this is acceptable; if not, then the definition >needs revision, since obviously from one perspective the application >to computers is (although tongue firmly planted in cheek) not so >far-fetched. I'm looking forward to any sound and complete defintions >of: KNOWLEDGE, BELIEF, INTUITION, INDUCTION, > IMAGINATION, INTELLIGENCE. >believe me. Well, I think this is finally getting back to my point. Our definitions are not complete. My original response was showing that the definition given for intelligence was not reasonable and was given in terms of concepts which are understood for humans, but which are vague and open to interpretation when applied to computers. I am sorry if my original comments were too vague and led to a flaming contest. Perhaps more insight would result if we could somehow come up with new words for machine intelligence which avoided comparisons with human intelligence. Just a thought. % make me stop don't know how to make me. Stop. Don Subt The opinions expressed above are Tandy Corp. strictly mine, not my employer's. 817-390-3068 ...!killer!ninja!sys1!trsvax!don
bwk@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Barry W. Kort) (12/09/88)
In article <193600003@trsvax> don@trsvax.UUCP writes: > Perhaps more insight would result if we could somehow come up > with new words for machine intelligence which avoided comparisons > with human intelligence. Perhaps it would be constructive if we itemized some of the structural elements of human intelligence. We can start with the simpler components and work our way up to higher cognitive functions over time. First there is the issue of knowledge representation. We know from Lisp that a tree is isomorphic to a list of nested lists, and a great deal of knowledge can be represented this way. Roget's Thesaurus is one of the largest collection of ideas arranged in outline form. The Dewey Decimal system is another. More elaborate than the tree topology is the semantic network, which can have loops. We know from Hypercard that the semantic network is a useful structure for navigating through a knowledge base. And the success of Infocom's text adventure games suggests that humans enjoy wandering through Markov Processes, and visiting every node. Humans also store knowledge as metaphors, parables, and analogies, but I have yet to understand how analogical knowledge is represented. Humans also engage in deductive and inductive reasoning, and we know from rule-based expert systems that networks of cause and effect relationships can be traversed like a squirrel searching a tree for his acorn. Forward-chaining from hypothesis to conclusion is the easier path. Goal-directed backward chaining is the more interesting challenge for diagnostic expert systems. The Resolution Theorem Prover provides the algorithm for Prolog and related languages. Reasoning by analogy (model-based reasoning) will probably be the next method to succumb to the silicon thinker. I imagine the simplest way a computer can recognize an analogy is by comparing the topological structure of its knowledge bases. If two trees or two semantic networks bear a family resemblance, it may be possible to match them node for node and complete the analogy. Pattern matching of large structures may be a formidable technical challenge, but in principle there appears to be no theoretical obstacles. Beyond analogy we can look forward to inferential reasoning (discovering previously unknown cause and effect pairs), and visual reasoning (useful for ambulatory robots). I know that I can walk around without bumping into walls, but I'm not sure I can explain to a computer just how I'm doing it. Still, if MIT can have artificial insects crawling around the labs, I suppose others don't suffer my inability share such knowledge. So far, nothing I have mentioned is beyond the realm of silicon. And as far as I can tell, the human cognitive faculties which we value for their elegance are all fair game for the silicon Golem. --Barry Kort