1) What is artificial intelligence?
A. It is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable.
2). Yes, but what is intelligence?
A. Intelligence is the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world. Varying kinds and degrees of intelligence occur in people, many animals and some machines.
3) What about other comparisons between human and computer intelligence?
Arthur R. Jensen [Jen98], a leading researcher in human intelligence, suggests ``as a heuristic hypothesis'' that all normal humans have the same intellectual mechanisms and that differences in intelligence are related to ``quantitative biochemical and physiological conditions''. I see them as speed, short term memory, and the ability to form accurate and retrievable long term memories.
Whether or not Jensen is right about human intelligence, the situation in AI today is the reverse.
Computer programs have plenty of speed and memory but their abilities correspond to the intellectual mechanisms that program designers understand well enough to put in programs. Some abilities that children normally don't develop till they are teenagers may be in, and some abilities possessed by two year olds are still out. The matter is further complicated by the fact that the cognitive sciences still have not succeeded in determining exactly what the human abilities are. Very likely the organization of the intellectual mechanisms for AI can usefully be different from that in people.
Whenever people do better than computers on some task or computers use a lot of computation to do as well as people, this demonstrates that the program designers lack understanding of the intellectual mechanisms required to do the task efficiently.
4) Does AI aim to put the human mind into the computer?
A. Some researchers say they have that objective, but maybe they are using the phrase metaphorically. The human mind has a lot of peculiarities, and I'm not sure anyone is serious about imitating all of them.
5). Does AI aim at human-level intelligence?
A. Yes. The ultimate effort is to make computer programs that can solve problems and achieve goals in the world as well as humans. However, many people involved in particular research areas are much less ambitious.
6). How far is AI from reaching human-level intelligence? When will it happen?
A. A few people think that human-level intelligence can be achieved by writing large numbers of programs of the kind people are now writing and assembling vast knowledge bases of facts in the languages now used for expressing knowledge.
However, most AI researchers believe that new fundamental ideas are required, and therefore it cannot be predicted when human-level intelligence will be achieved.
7). Are computers the right kind of machine to be made intelligent?
A. Computers can be programmed to simulate any kind of machine.
Many researchers invented non-computer machines, hoping that they would be intelligent in different ways than the computer programs could be. However, they usually simulate their invented machines on a computer and come to doubt that the new machine is worth building. Because many billions of dollars that have been spent in making computers faster and faster, another kind of machine would have to be very fast to perform better than a program on a computer simulating the machine.
8). Are computers fast enough to be intelligent?
A. Some people think much faster computers are required as well as new ideas. My own opinion is that the computers of 30 years ago were fast enough if only we knew how to program them. Of course, quite apart from the ambitions of AI researchers, computers will keep getting faster.
9). What about parallel machines?
A. Machines with many processors are much faster than single processors can be. Parallelism itself presents no advantages, and parallel machines are somewhat awkward to program. When extreme speed is required, it is necessary to face this awkwardness.
10). What about making a ``child machine'' that could improve by reading and by learning from experience?
A. This idea has been proposed many times, starting in the 1940s. Eventually, it will be made to work. However, AI programs haven't yet reached the level of being able to learn much of what a child learns from physical experience. Nor do present programs understand language well enough to learn much by reading.
11). Might an AI system be able to bootstrap itself to higher and higher level intelligence by thinking about AI?
A. I think yes, but we aren't yet at a level of AI at which this process can begin.
12). Don't some people say that AI is a bad idea?
A. The philosopher John Searle says that the idea of a non-biological machine being intelligent is incoherent. He proposes the Chinese room argument www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/chinese.html The philosopher Hubert Dreyfus says that AI is impossible. The computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum says the idea is obscene, anti-human and immoral. Various people have said that since artificial intelligence hasn't reached human level by now, it must be impossible. Still other people are disappointed that companies they invested in went bankrupt.
Source author:- John McCarthy
A. It is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable.
2). Yes, but what is intelligence?
A. Intelligence is the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world. Varying kinds and degrees of intelligence occur in people, many animals and some machines.
3) What about other comparisons between human and computer intelligence?
Arthur R. Jensen [Jen98], a leading researcher in human intelligence, suggests ``as a heuristic hypothesis'' that all normal humans have the same intellectual mechanisms and that differences in intelligence are related to ``quantitative biochemical and physiological conditions''. I see them as speed, short term memory, and the ability to form accurate and retrievable long term memories.
Whether or not Jensen is right about human intelligence, the situation in AI today is the reverse.
Computer programs have plenty of speed and memory but their abilities correspond to the intellectual mechanisms that program designers understand well enough to put in programs. Some abilities that children normally don't develop till they are teenagers may be in, and some abilities possessed by two year olds are still out. The matter is further complicated by the fact that the cognitive sciences still have not succeeded in determining exactly what the human abilities are. Very likely the organization of the intellectual mechanisms for AI can usefully be different from that in people.
Whenever people do better than computers on some task or computers use a lot of computation to do as well as people, this demonstrates that the program designers lack understanding of the intellectual mechanisms required to do the task efficiently.
4) Does AI aim to put the human mind into the computer?
A. Some researchers say they have that objective, but maybe they are using the phrase metaphorically. The human mind has a lot of peculiarities, and I'm not sure anyone is serious about imitating all of them.
5). Does AI aim at human-level intelligence?
A. Yes. The ultimate effort is to make computer programs that can solve problems and achieve goals in the world as well as humans. However, many people involved in particular research areas are much less ambitious.
6). How far is AI from reaching human-level intelligence? When will it happen?
A. A few people think that human-level intelligence can be achieved by writing large numbers of programs of the kind people are now writing and assembling vast knowledge bases of facts in the languages now used for expressing knowledge.
However, most AI researchers believe that new fundamental ideas are required, and therefore it cannot be predicted when human-level intelligence will be achieved.
7). Are computers the right kind of machine to be made intelligent?
A. Computers can be programmed to simulate any kind of machine.
Many researchers invented non-computer machines, hoping that they would be intelligent in different ways than the computer programs could be. However, they usually simulate their invented machines on a computer and come to doubt that the new machine is worth building. Because many billions of dollars that have been spent in making computers faster and faster, another kind of machine would have to be very fast to perform better than a program on a computer simulating the machine.
8). Are computers fast enough to be intelligent?
A. Some people think much faster computers are required as well as new ideas. My own opinion is that the computers of 30 years ago were fast enough if only we knew how to program them. Of course, quite apart from the ambitions of AI researchers, computers will keep getting faster.
9). What about parallel machines?
A. Machines with many processors are much faster than single processors can be. Parallelism itself presents no advantages, and parallel machines are somewhat awkward to program. When extreme speed is required, it is necessary to face this awkwardness.
10). What about making a ``child machine'' that could improve by reading and by learning from experience?
A. This idea has been proposed many times, starting in the 1940s. Eventually, it will be made to work. However, AI programs haven't yet reached the level of being able to learn much of what a child learns from physical experience. Nor do present programs understand language well enough to learn much by reading.
11). Might an AI system be able to bootstrap itself to higher and higher level intelligence by thinking about AI?
A. I think yes, but we aren't yet at a level of AI at which this process can begin.
12). Don't some people say that AI is a bad idea?
A. The philosopher John Searle says that the idea of a non-biological machine being intelligent is incoherent. He proposes the Chinese room argument www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/chinese.html The philosopher Hubert Dreyfus says that AI is impossible. The computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum says the idea is obscene, anti-human and immoral. Various people have said that since artificial intelligence hasn't reached human level by now, it must be impossible. Still other people are disappointed that companies they invested in went bankrupt.
Source author:- John McCarthy
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