The Early Days of a Better Nation

Posted 8:50 pm by Ken

Cultural Differences

The second part of my interview with Polit.ru is now available. The interview has a rather odd structure, in that it was built around questions sent in by the site's readers. I'm sure my delightful interlocutor, Anna Sakoyan, did a fine job of translating it into Russian. One question was about artificial intelligence, and I gave Google Translate as an example of its everyday emergence.

Here's how Google Translate repaid the compliment:

They say you are interested in the subject of earlier artificial intelligence. And now?

Too, but doing it is not so hard as before. I think the reason is that in the 1990s among Internet users and geeks was the craze for artificial intelligence and its development prospects. Particularly interested in the prospect of the human mind to move neuron by neuron in the format of the software. I like this idea seemed a little unrealistic. This is discussed in my first novel "The Stone Canal» (The Stone Canal) and the "Cassini Division": The Problem of superhuman intelligence feed was the main issue. From these calculations it was fun to play. And then we were arguing about what the philosophical significance of this phenomenon.

Incidentally, I had long been convinced that artificial intelligence can not in principle have consciousness. But there is a touching detail: the reason for this belief was wrong understanding of dialectical materialism (which is probably familiar to some readers of "Polit.ru"). I draw this conclusion from the wording of that consciousness - is a highly organized form of matter in motion, that is has under a biological basis. For some reason I then decided that only the physical brain can be conscious. And I did not immediately realize that the cause of the difficulty in movement, in complexity, so to speak, of the material, rather than what it is this material. Once I finally decided to his satisfaction, that question, I stopped to think about artificial intelligence.

When I see him, I believe in him.

In an interview with "Polit.ru" Bruce Sterling said that in his opinion, "the researchers continue to lose interest in this issue" because "it refers to an outdated paradigm." What do you think?

Interesting look. I think so.

When a creation of artificial intelligence to understand reproduction of the human mind as a program - it's a waste of time because the human mind we are already there. It would be nice, of course, if we had some superhuman intelligence, but in practice, technology and science, particularly cognitive science and computer science, do not seek to recreate human intelligence, and to simulate a much more primitive processes.

For example, computer video seriously progressed after attempts to mimic the human left eye and turned his eyes to the device insect, found it much more productive model for development. Actually began the process by which things around us become more "artificially intelligent", and we, in general, not particularly concerned about this. I was surprised, for example, how fast Google-developed translator. I have the feeling that he is improving constantly, and I think that this is due to the use of algorithms, in fact dictated by the principle of natural selection. And so machines become more intelligent without being holders of artificial intelligence, which is described in science fiction.

When I see him, I believe in him.

Labels: amazing things, self-promotion, skiffy

It is indeed a fundamental question of philosophy, although the basic ideas haven't changed much since around 1936. I.e. Does consciousness occur (whatever this means) only in highly complex biological structures of some specific sorts (I'm being deliberately general), or not. If so, is it 'emergent,' or is it a functioning of the structures and nothing else? If not, then where else can it occur? In a non-biological entity of some specific design (traditionally, a digital computer)? Both horns have many sub-problems, e.g. What meaning(s) can 'emergent' have here.

By George Berger, at Thursday, July 14, 2011 9:46:00 pm

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