John G. Rose wrote:
From: Richard Loosemore [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
My take on this is completely different.
When I say "Narrow AI" I am specifically referring to something that is
so limited that it has virtually no chance of becoming a general
intelligence. There is more to general intelligence than just throwing
a bunch of Narrow AI ideas into a pot and hoping for the best. If it
were, we would have had AGI long before now.
It's an opinion that AGI could not be built out of a conglomeration of
narrow-AI subcomponents. Also there are many things that COULD be built with
narrow-AI that we have not even scratched the surface of due to a number of
different limitations so saying that we would have achieved AGI long ago is
an exaggeration.
I don't think a General Intelligence could be built entirely out of
narrow AI components, but it might well be a relatively trivial add-on.
Just consider how much of human intelligence is demonstrably "narrow AI"
(well, not artificial, but you know what I mean). Object recognition,
e.g. Then start trying to guess how much of the part that we can't
prove a classification for is likely to be a narrow intelligence
component. In my estimation (without factual backing) less than 0.001
of our intelligence is General Intellignece, possibly much less.
Consciousness and self-awareness are things that come as part of the AGI
package. If the system is too simple to have/do these things, it will
not be general enough to equal the human mind.
I feel that general intelligence may not require consciousness and
self-awareness. I am not sure of this and may prove myself wrong. To equal
the human mind you need these things of course and to satisfy the sci-fi
fantasy world's appetite for intelligent computers you would need to
incorporate these as well.
John
I'm not sure of the distinction that you are making between
consciousness and self-awareness, but even most complex narrow-AI
applications require at least rudimentary self awareness. In fact, one
could argue that all object oriented programming with inheritance has
rudimentary self awareness (called "this" in many languages, but in
others called "self"). This may be too rudimentary, but it's my feeling
that it's an actual model(implementation?) of what the concept of self
has evolved from.
As to an AGI not being conscious.... I'd need to see a definition of
your terms, because otherwise I've *got* to presume that we have
radically different definitions. To me an AGI would not only need to be
aware of itself, but also to be aware of aspects of it's environment
that it could effect changes in, And of the difference between them,
though that might well be learned. (Zen: "Who is the master who makes
the grass green?", and a few other koans when "solved" imply that in
humans the distinction between internal and external is a learned
response.) Perhaps the diagnostic characteristic of an AGI is that it
CAN learn that kind of thing. Perhaps not, too. I can imagine a narrow
AI that was designed to plug into different bodies, and in each case
learn the distinction between itself and the environment before
proceeding with its assignment. I'm not sure it's possible, but I can
imagine it.
OTOH, if we take my arguments in the preceding paragraph too seriously,
then medical patients that are "locked in" would be considered not
intelligent. This is clearly incorrect. Effectively they aren't
intelligent, but that's because of a mechanical breakdown in the
sensory/motor area, and that clearly isn't what we mean when we talk
about intelligence. But examples of recovered/recovering patients seem
to imply that they weren't exactly either intelligent or conscious while
they were locked-in. (I'm going solely by reports in the popular
science press...so don't take this too seriously.) It appears as if
when external sensations are cut-off, that the mind estivates...at least
after awhile. Presumably different patients had different causes, and
thence at least slightly different effects, but that's my first-cut
guess at what's happening. OTOH, the sensory/motor channel doesn't need
to be particularly well functioning. Look at Stephan Hawking.
-------------------------------------------
agi
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