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Originally Posted by Crowbob
Seems like there's allot of confused human behavior perceived by people as mimicking intelligence, too. But as far as the definition of intelligence goes, has anyone determined that intelligence isn't following a set of algorithms? Couldn't learning be described as following a set of algorithms with increasing efficiency?
I also wonder at what point mimicry becomes authentically-learned behavior. Seems like at some point it becomes a semantics issue. Some machine winning at Jeopardy sure looks like intelligence and acts like intelligence to me. At one point memory was considered to be integral to human intelligence. Now with a capacity for gazilliobits of memory in machines, the definition of human intelligence had to change.
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Memory (ie the capacity to store data) is only the starting point of intelligence. What actions are done based on the data is the next step, and the step after that is improving the actions. The first two - a computer can do. The third one -- improving the action (ie: cognitive learning) is where computers are inefficient in many respects.
Memory is a very interesting concept, and there are two main schools of thought on it -- take a simple object like a chair. In your mind, you can easily picture what a chair is. But what is stored in your mind? Is it a collection of all types of chairs that you have seen? Or is it more of a relational memory - you understand a chair to be something with 3-4 legs, a platform to sit on, and an optional backrest and armrests. Computers can be programmed to store memory in both ways: the former takes up more memory (storage), but the latter requires more computations to arrive at some conclusion.
So - let's say an AI robot is able to recognize a chair. Fine. And he is programmed to sit in a chair once he finds one. That is the total extent of his knowledge -- once he sees a chair, he sits in the chair. Great - this can be easily accomplished even today. However - it would be very difficult for this robot to learn other things: what if the chair is on its side? How does the robot sit in the chair then? If he is programmed to maneuver his body to the chair's location, then he will likely lay down and align his body to the chair, rather than stand the chair upright and then sit on the chair. What if the chair is in pieces? Unless programmed to recognize the pieces and assemble the chair, the robot would not be able to construct a chair. What if there is no chair? How would the robot learn to sit instead on a ledge, table, or stoop? These are types of simple intelligence that are not trivial to solve.
-Z-man.