--- Jim Bromer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > But, "Understanding=compression." That is really pretty far out there. > This conclusion is based on an argument > like: One would be able to predict everything if he was able to > understand everything (or at least everything predictable). This > argument, however, is clearly a fantasy. So we come up with a weaker > version. If someone was able to predict > a number of events accurately this would be a sign that he must > understand something about those events. This argument > might work when talking about people, but it does not quite work the way > you seem to want it to. You cannot just paste a term > of intelligence like 'prediction' onto a mechanical process and reason > that the > mechanical process may then be seen as equivalent to a mental process. > Suppose someone wrote a computer program > with 10000 questions and the program was able to 'predict' the correct > answer > for every single one of those questions. Does the machine understand > the questions? Of course not. The person who wrote the program > understands the subject of those > questions, but you cannot conclude that the program understood the > subject matter.
Your question answering machine is algorithmically complex. A smaller program could describe a procedure for answering the questions, and in that case it could answer questions not in the original set of 10000. Here is another example: 3 => 9 7 => 49 8 => 64 12 => 144 2 => 4 6 => ? You could write a program that stores the first 5 training examples in a table, or you could find a smaller program that computes the output as a mathematical function of the input. When you test your programs with "6 => ?" which program would give you the answer you expect? Which would you say "understands" the training set? You can take the position that a machine can never "understand" anything the way that a human could. I don't care. Call it something else if you want, like "AI". -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=103754539-40ed26 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
