Why the idea of AI is flawed
Artificial Intelligence is the Philosophers Stone of the computer world. Scientist get closer and closer to developing a computer that can think as well as a person.
The concept however, can never be satisfied. The idea that an artificial intelligence can be as good as a human is simply ridiculous.
For a start, the definition of what intelligence constitutes is murky enough. Secondly, if a computer ever could “think” it would only think within the limits of it’s programming. It would only ever be artificial, and therefore not real intelligence.
I too feel that the idea of an artificial intelligence that is as good as a human to be simply ridiculous.
With the exponential growth of technology and computer processing power it is unlikely that an intelligent machine is not created at some point in the future. Personally, I don’t believe it will be within my lifetime but compared to some I am somewhat pessimistic. There are already exists algorithms that learn in similar ways to organisms and there is much discussion and research being put into constructing algorithms that portray creativity. Step by step more and more concepts that were previously considered to be solely possible by a mind are being broken down into algorithmic expressions. Then by putting these small parts together a machine will be made that can be considered as intelligent as, let’s say, a mouse. Then, due to the exponential growth it is inevitable that a human-equal intelligence is created soon after that. And a super-human intelligence after that! If the unreliable process of natural selection can create the intelligence that humanity now bares then is it truly unfathomable that a directed and motivated effort could as well?
Some day a machine will be developed that is considered intelligent. The murkiness that you suggest that surrounds the idea of intelligence is the exact thing that I believe will make artificial intelligence possible. Why would we want to create an intelligence that only thinks how a human might think? What a constrained, unimaginative experiment that would be! To have an intelligence think exactly as a human it would need to have a similar condition to that of a human. It would need to have similar visual capabilities, similar auditory capabilities, etc so that it sees the world as a human sees the world. It would need this similar condition so that in an identical situation a human and the machine would have the same stimuli and the same reaction to the stimuli. But what is gained by having a machine that thinks exactly as a human does? A machine intelligence that experiences the world differently and thinks differently could expand and challenge humanity by having an alternative insightful view that would not have been even considered before.
It is indeed ridiculous to think that an artificial intelligence, some day, will be merely as good as a human.
