Arguments about whether or not computers will ever match the powers of the human mind have been around for a long time. As far as I can recall the first such argument I gave serious attention to was John Searle’s Chinese Room argument. I found it unsatisfactory as it didn’t address any of the computational mechanisms in use. I still find that bothersome.
And yet I don’t believe that one day computers will match or exceed the general capacities of the human mind. Of course, in many domains, they already exceed our capacities. We’re not talking about them. We’re talking about something called “general intelligence.”
It seems to me that, in the end, the arguments against computer intelligence get much, if not in fact most, of their force from the fact that they are currently inferior to humans and there is no obvious immediate prospect of them catching up. On the other hand, the arguments in favor of computer intelligence (catching up to or exceeding human intelligence) get much of their force from the fact that we cannot know the future. We have a much deeper understanding of the requirements for sending humans to Mars than we do of creating the (mythical) artificial general intelligence (AGI).
This is not a very encouraging state of affairs.
No comments:
Post a Comment