Substitute anything else for "consciousness" in the above sentence and you'll realize how absurd it is. — SophistiCat

Simple question? Why would you think you could replace a word, here, without loss of meaning?

To refer to a machine as being intelligent is a blunder of intelligence. None of the definitions of "intelligence" can be satisfied by machines. Every definition (save the misnomer referring to computers) of intelligence includes terms like capacity to understand, to think, reason, make judgments; and mental capacity. These terms are precisely outside the ambit of what computers can do, so why was such a poor term chosen for computing operations and data processing of a machine — Anthony

I'm sorry but I think this is about the most pointless question to ask because the explanation is obvious if you ask nearly any regular Joe. Computers perform actions - namely complex mathematical and logical calculations - in fractiona of a second that humans take much longer to do and do so with much more proneness to error. So we call them intelligent in that respect, even though we know they find processes that aren't strictly formal much harder to implement (forget what the name of this paradox is called). Humans have a hard time doing them, if they can do them at all (some discoveries in math had to be found by computers), for instance.

Complaining that it's a 'poor term' or is a 'blunder of intelligence' is just a complete failure to understand simple reason people use certain terms.

Computers perform actions - namely complex mathematical and logical calculations — MindForged

Hardly pointless, friend. The average Joe, utterly unlike a computer, does not do calculations when he understands, thinks, make judements, and uses his mind. . Making distinctions here is necessary. Nor is there a reason to depict logic and math as something only the more intelligent people can do. Anything that can only be used sheerly through memorization and application excludes interpretation and judgement and understanding. Which is why, if anything, I'd be tempted to say math and logic are mindless pursuits in themselves. Not that a computer scientist won't have axiological orientations, but to the extent he does, it won't derive from his involvement in math or logic. AI is an unmixed psychopath, right. There are reasons this may be true you'll never arrive at through logic and math.

There appears to be a lot of programmer/computer scientists on here, so I'm probably backing myself into a corner taking that into account. For me, wisdom/philosophy begins with the totality of known and unknowns...it's never as though what humans know is all there is to know. Not sure why science and computer science seem to be replacing natural philosophy. It isn't with me. Nor can I imagine how AI can ever be programmed to handle or calculate with the input of an infinite cosmos the way we humans with our minds have to, inasmuch as a mind has nonlocal information to it unlike an algorithm. A computer simulation is the opposite of a human mind. My mind is abstract in a way that can't be reified by AI.

Another thing, is it acceptable that machine learning (interconnected algorithms) spits out information that can't even be checked by a human mind? This doesn't seem wise or smart or intelligent by any means. It may even be stupid. Sorry if I do not admire how fast computers can process information if it's collateral to this kind of stupidity. Slow down and settle on the furniture of wisdom.

Take mass surveillance, which I'd hope we could all agree is decisively immoral. But this is something that fits into the wheelhouse of computer scientists, as they produce programs that are fed such unscrupulous panopticon spying data. The point is, it seems possible the unimpeachable immorality of mass surveillance would be lost on people who believe AI is really intelligent. Yet an android like Zuckerberg (he even resembles an android) calls for more and more AI to handle more and more private information. Not lucidly understanding that mass surveillance is deeply wrong is only possible when understanding fails to see that logic doesn't always precede the right answers, or that AI isn't intelligent. Very bad choice of diction...AI can be extremely stupid. Just because it can execute something, it will.

Also, the danger of AI doesn't lie in machines or robots taking over humans by force (though neurons that fire together wire together, and too much screen time no doubt changes the structure of the brain). It's in humans becoming like golems to the beck and call of their AI and losing wisdom, intelligence, and philosophy therein. In this sense, it's already begun.

@wayfarer It is Pygmalion's situation: Pygmalion was a sculptor and king of Cyprus who carved an ivory statue of a maiden and fell in love with it.

It is no wonder that we fall in love with computers: they appear to perform autonomously; they are fast and we like speed; they appear to interact with us; they perform useful tasks; and more! So we assign traits to them such as "intelligent" because they can be made to appear "intelligent" and "engaging". Of course they are no such thing. They are containers and processors of data and programming.

What is obscene about our use of the terms we apply to computers is that we then take those terms and apply them to ourselves. We become data processors programmed to perform particular tasks, responding to inputs with output. It is Pygmalion describing himself as an exquisitely carved ivory statue.

If human beings are outcomes of natural processes, then it only makes sense to say that the things we've created are are natural as well. Separating human beings from nature would be an "anthropocentric activity".

So we assign traits to them such as "intelligent" because they can be made to appear "intelligent" and "engaging". Of course they are no such thing. They are containers and processors of data and programming. — Bitter Crank

You are a "container" and processor of sensory data based on your genetic and learned programming.

If human beings are outcomes of natural processes, then it only makes sense to say that the things we've created are are natural as well. Separating human beings from nature would be an "anthropocentric activity". — Harry Hindu

Your meaning is clear; it isn't possible to escape the natural tempero-spatial order. There's always some displacement or other when technics are so dominant a part of human relations, usually into diminished mental health. However, is it not apparent our species is doing everything it can to supplant time and space with its own technological version of time and space? Mechanical clocks to transportation tech have subconsciously insinuated a belief that human order is indeed separate from the natural order.

Everyone must obey the technics, not time and space, when they scramble home for the holidays, experiencing immense stress of gridlock and the tightest schedule possible(never relaxing the moment). The speed of telecom creates a counterfeit sense of communion, which can be imagined as homologous to a seance (provided one puts zero value in face to face relations), and so on. Anyway, the convenience and speed of doing things doesn't really result in calmer, clearer, more peaceful, self-organized lives when we all are subject to the heteronomous, other-organization of technological determinism.

Simple question? Why would you think you could replace a word, here, without loss of meaning? — Anthony

Because I mistook what you wrote for an argument. I have since realized my mistake. Carry on.

Hardly pointless, friend. The average Joe, utterly unlike a computer, does not do calculations when he understands, thinks, make judements, and uses his mind. . Making distinctions here is necessary. Nor is there a reason to depict logic and math as something only the more intelligent people can do. — Anthony

You're really misunderstanding my point. Yes, I'm in grad school for CS but that's not coloring my view here at all. If anything, I'm far more pessimistic about the over (bear with me) programmatification of language and metaphor but for what I regard as legitimate reasons beyond what words are used to refer to things. But when computers are called "intelligent" all people mean is they do things that are both very difficult for humans to do (formal calculations) and which humans regard as signs of great intelligence when done by people. You can complain and say we shouldn't do that - I don't see what the problem is there, formal math and logic are cognitively difficult operations and require intense training - but that's what people mean. Next to no one actually thinks computers have literal intelligence (maybe kids, but even they treat such things as mere tools). They're regarded as basically a really complicated but useful abacus, not things capable of true thought.

....but even they treat such things as mere tools — MindForged

Good statement. Technological determinism runs far deeper than just a "tool" as some would suppose.

If human beings are outcomes of natural processes, then it only makes sense to say that the things we've created are are natural as well. Separating human beings from nature would be an "anthropocentric activity". — Harry Hindu

Your meaning is clear; it isn't possible to escape the natural tempero-spatial order. There's always some displacement or other when technics are so dominant a part of human relations, usually into diminished mental health. However, is it not apparent our species is doing everything it can to supplant time and space with its own technological version of time and space? Mechanical clocks to transportation tech have subconsciously insinuated a belief that human order is indeed separate from the natural order.

Everyone must obey the technics, not time and space, when they scramble home for the holidays, experiencing immense stress of gridlock and the tightest schedule possible(never relaxing the moment). The speed of telecom creates a counterfeit sense of communion, which can be imagined as homologous to a seance (provided one puts zero value in face to face relations), and so on. Anyway, the convenience and speed of doing things doesn't really result in calmer, clearer, more peaceful, self-organized lives when we all are subject to the heteronomous, other-organization of technological determinism. — Anthony

Go back to what I said. Your reply is like a bee complaining about how the bee hive influences their perception of reality.

Go back to what I said. Your reply is like a bee complaining about how the bee hive influences their perception of reality. — Harry Hindu

Fair characterization. The AI obsession does make humans into the Borg or bees, what have you, a major cause of concern for awareness human-style. I can try to better incorporate your ideas, although the way in which our species is trying to create its own truth separate from the one truth has already addressed your last quoted post. We can't recreate nature, in other words, we can only be an extension of it.

Hopefully we are nothing like the mantid men, reptilians, or the Greys (archonic influence alert!). That said, my stance is against the mind numbing effects of AI and technological determinism in general (there have been a surprising few thinkers in history willing to take a full look at this ever increasing dependence: McCluhan, Mumford, Carr, Postman, et al.) Even automobiles can be thought of as AI (they are extensions of the mobility of feet, extensions of man), which tends to degrade the ability to stop and smell the roses or slow down and see them to begin with, ultimately which changes sense ratios and ratiocination (or if he does stop for the flowers, he can't resist the impulsive pic with his smartphone instead of simply drinking them in with his native and ephemeral aesthetic sense of seeing). Obviously technics define the human species, a Promethean mould, but the question silly not to ask, which is the same for every other venture of men: how much is enough? Fundamentalisms always runaway...people who say you can never have enough money are in the same category as those who believe more and more AI will have the right answer (tech and economics being fundamentalism). Adding to ever increasing complexity leads to instability (imbalances are created and structures fall): we're already acutely complex in our primal state. At what point do natural systems precede the mania of human ego ideal projected into technics (when does the cybernetic system actually include what includes it)? Never it would seem. It truly concerns me. This isn't complaining, it's an emergency (drama excluded); hark! (or maybe not lol), please see that awareness isn't the same as complaining. Bateson acknowledged this unending ignorance of the "supreme systemic network" (his locution).

Paul Stamets (an arch genius) has had the idea of being able to tap into the feedbacks-forwards of mycelium in the soil of forests creating a bio-computer interface. Until humans incorporate the supreme systemic network into their AI, biomimetically (solar panels copying photosynthesis, e.g.), it all seems a little too human centered for me (not grounded or sound). Tech. determinism, with AI in the van, is getting to be a little as water to the fish: the fish doesn't know what water is. Instead of enhancing the environment, by conforming to the mental processing of ecosystems (which we can thank for our lives, btw), we'll see folks getting BCI enhancements for the internet through retinal implants. There is a question of vitalism (or exuberance for life) vs tech determinism; after so much comfort and convenience, might one not ask whether unending need for more of it is a signal people don't want to be alive? Is it a necromanic enterprise ruled by death instinct (wishing for a return to inorganic matter) or desire for obliviion? What's up with video game addiction? Or that some would rather apply electric shocks to themselves than have a relationship with their own minds for 15 minutes (assuming most of you have heard of this experiment, if not I could post a link). Sometimes it can be up to 80 times a day smartphone users check their phone.

There's plenty of mystery to me why far more people aren't protesting against the status quo. No explanation how we are swimming in telecom and cool with giving over our privacy (or having it stolen), and then having it sold (is this a good example to follow?)... How is this possible? Archonic influence? mass hypnosis?... No idea. You tell me. This is a topic fertile and in need of original philosophy.

— Happenstance

Watched your link. Interesting how physiognomy made it our of the realm of pseudoscience after facial recognition computer applications came on the scene :chin: . Still not sure I believe in it, actually.

So now your complaint is that you are a bee when you want to be a god-bee.

Won't being a god-bee influence how you perceive the world, too?

Not complaining. If my tone is one of ill-humor, in my mind it is simply one of trying to raise awareness. There's nothing wrong with gravitas, which is not the same as complaining.

Surely you've seen the Disney movie Fantasia, with Mickey Mouse. Should we let the brooms lose the proper measure of things and flood us with disorder (all the while thinking we would have more and more order?; honestly we're already getting the wrong answer from AI, since people are somehow ignorant of the noxious effects of surveillance state-capitalism: this isn't a complaint, it's just a call for awareness).

To say I'm wanting to be a god-bee when I'm suggesting using nature as a biomimetic example for AI is to mistake me. It's the other way around. This planet, not us, is the measure of things. Not to begin with its example is lunacy. Should we not care about these things? We're an organism-environment, and the environment is partly made up of other people and their agendas.

Rather than get completely away from topic... While it may be true there's nothing outside the domain of metaphor, language is inherently metaphoric, it's also true we can't just call any object or phenomenon anything we want for that can lead to symbol drain and confusion. Metaphor/poetry is a personal, non-recitable (yes, poetry can be memorized, which is close to the opposite of writing it) language engaged in akin to mystic revelation, it's close to mentalese and phantasmata, very individual and imagistic, esoteric, your truth, unsharable. The more it is a popular nomenclature (the phrase, AI), the more I tend to feel it should be less metaphoric and unmistakable meaning, exoteric, recitable, literal, prosaic, etc (also, computers communicate in a similar mimetic manner, which couldn't be less poetic and shouldn't be dignified with a metaphorical denomination, social decay may result). Popular language can have a propaganda-like, mesmerizing affect and shouldn't be irresponsibly dispatched. Plus, it's obviously too confusing when the chosen word/analog, though perhaps a metaphor (i.e., AI), isn't even a good exercise of metonymy, rather a doggerel, since, again, the definitions of intelligence are precisely the opposite of what computing machines are capable of.

But we are just machines. We have inputs and outputs, memory and a CPU. It's just we are so much more complex than current computers that we class ourselves apart when we are basically the same. — Devans99

Does a computer have a relationship to ding an sich as a human does? Can it "see" anything outside of what its preexisting programming (implicit programming) tells it to look for? What humans see is influenced by input from the organism itself (similarly), however, what the eye sees is detected based on weird quantum mechanical physics, existing in the nature of light (which is not understood in toto; to the extent it's understood it is not subject to binary, either-or logic). Information from the eye is sent to the brain and transduced into mental imagery. Does a computer enter a state of mental imagery? No, because it doesn't have a mind. Mental imagery is not seen by the physical organism itself or the eyeball per se, it is seen by the mind.

Next to no one actually thinks computers have literal intelligence (maybe kids, but even they treat such things as mere tools). They're regarded as basically a really complicated but useful abacus, not things capable of true thought. — MindForged

What do you think is the physical difference between a brain and a computer, that permits intelligence?

What's a better adjective than "intelligent" to describe machines capable of doing certain tasks (e.g. calculations) that are analogous to those carried out using human intelligence and that distinguish these machines from those that cannot carry out such tasks? — Baden

Humans aren't pinned down by logic and calculations, or especially, predictions. We aren't a state determined system. We relax and stop using logic and reason, when we do, we dream enriching dreams with utterly illogical and perfectly meaningful insights to ourselves and our environment. When we dream, I believe we experience the inexperienceable (the Noumenon), which is a mostly non-representational state of mind that may be a challenge remembering; the Noumenon itself can't be represented, as any knowledge of it becomes a phenomenon.

Computer processing isn't really comparable to a creative human intelligence, perhaps only to that of computer scientists, who for some strange reason believe logic is essential to learning, or the only kind of learning. And if this is true, I wonder if computer scientists ever relax. Relaxing and dreaming is essential to ex nihilo imagination, which occurs anterior to logical operations or memory. Human have had rich imaginations long before the computer paradigm came to the scene. It's my belief human consciousness arose from non-patterned, non-symbolic lucid dream of a Noumenal plane of existence. The computer paradigm trend (as a model for human consciousness/intelligence) as synonymous with apophenia writ large. Everything a computer "sees" would be a pareidolia to a human, nothing more. Indeed, much of what is taken for the logical part of intelligence is akin to apophenia, seeing patterns that aren't really there to some other way of looking.

Honestly, if it can be admitted that our species at one time wasn't even conscious of itself, but through some slow universal process of self-organization, not entirely of our own making, came to instill metacognition within us, what sense does it make to believe it were anything resembling a computer's operations (entirely of human making)? Machines aren't self-emergent, they required human-beings to exist before they could exist. Human-beings aren't self emergent, they required a universe/world to exist before they could exist.

What do you think is the physical difference between a brain and a computer, that permits intelligence? — Inis

This is just my off the cuff thoughts, and I'm not a cognitive scientist of any sort, but an obvious starting point is that there's a difference in structure between a (classical) computer and the brain. Current computers are based on a two-valued Boolean logic, but the brain is far more flexible in what kind of processing it allows one to do, it's not strictly linear or discrete. How do the differences give rise intelligence? No clue, that's the hard problem.

This is just my off the cuff thoughts, and I'm not a cognitive scientist of any sort, but an obvious starting point is that there's a difference in structure between a (classical) computer and the brain. Current computers are based on a two-valued Boolean logic, but the brain is far more flexible in what kind of processing it allows one to do, it's not strictly linear or discrete. How do the differences give rise intelligence? No clue, that's the hard problem. — MindForged

We know all Turing machines are equivalent, and what they are made from has no effect on this equivalence. For a brain to be capable of fundamentally different type of operations to a computer, then, peculiarly, the specific stuff it is made from matters and this stuff is capable of performing non-computable functions.

But if it is the actual physical stuff that matters, then it is impossible to build any type of machine that exhibits "intelligence", even if we can build functionally exact replicas of neurons, and systems of neurons. Seems a bit of a stretch!

We know all Turing machines are equivalent, and what they are made from has no effect on this equivalence. For a brain to be capable of fundamentally different type of operations to a computer, then, peculiarly, the specific stuff it is made from matters and this stuff is capable of performing non-computable functions. — Inis

Well, no... Lemme try to reset this bit. My point is that not all computation is Turing computation. Quantum computing (possibly, physics is unsettled), analog neural nets (theoretically, if reality is continuous and depending on a host of other concerns), protein regulation, etc., are non-Turing computation.

It's not what the structures are made of per se, but by which rules these complex systems follow. If the brain is such a non-Turing system - and there's a case to be made here, though that's well outside my wheelhouse - then that might well be the reason a (classical) computer cannot have bona fide intelligence. Of course, I'm not sure how this would settle the hard problem of consciousness. To recognize a mechanized mind I suppose we'd have to understand how mechanisms can result in a mind to begin with. And that's a helluva lot harder to figure out than any of this formal stuff!

I thought entropy was a term used in thermodynamics to dictate the lack of structure and order in a mechanical system. So Im curious how it pertains to this. Im honestly not trying to be hostile, just genuinely curious.

Well, no... Lemme try to reset this bit. My point is that not all computation is Turing computation. Quantum computing (possibly, physics is unsettled), analog neural nets (theoretically, if reality is continuous and depending on a host of other concerns), protein regulation, etc., are non-Turing computation. — MindForged

Quantum computers, and classical computers possess the same repertoire of functions. Quantum computers merely render certain algorithms tractable, somehow. Also, the brain can't operate by maintaining quantum coherence. It is too warm and wet.

Neural nets are typically implemented on an ordinary computer.

It's not what the structures are made of per se, but by which rules these complex systems follow. If the brain is such a non-Turing system - and there's a case to be made here, though that's well outside my wheelhouse - then that might well be the reason a (classical) computer cannot have bona fide intelligence. Of course, I'm not sure how this would settle the hard problem of consciousness. To recognize a mechanized mind I suppose we'd have to understand how mechanisms can result in a mind to begin with. And that's a helluva lot harder to figure out than any of this formal stuff! — MindForged

Claiming that the brain is capable of super-Turing operations is tantamount to attributing a soul to it. If the matter is not special, and other matter is capable of following the same rules, then a machine may exhibit identical properties to the brain. That sort of machine is a computer.

To refer to a machine as being intelligent is a blunder of intelligence. None of the definitions of "intelligence" can be satisfied by machines. Every definition (save the misnomer referring to computers) of intelligence includes terms like capacity to understand, to think, reason, make judgments; and mental capacity. These terms are precisely outside the ambit of what computers can do, so why was such a poor term chosen for computing operations and data processing of a machine ? — Anthony

The answer to the OP is easy.

People don't actually have a clue what defines a Computer and how Computers and data processing machines operate.

Hence "intelligent" is just as loosely defined as in a commercial selling us some improved machine (as being intelligent).

Claiming that the brain is capable of super-Turing operations is tantamount to attributing a soul to it. — Inis

This is the typical nonsense that a lot of people have when they think that the human brain functions like a computer and hence humans function like computers. It follows the idea that present scientific understanding answers everything (and not to agree with this you are anti-science!) Hence when the World view was focused on a mechanical Clock-work universe, then some believed that people were truly mechanical, worked like mechanical clocks, as simply the scientific knowledge of that day didn't have other more advanced models. Hence the mechanical man was then the model of the day. Now we have computers, hence human beings have to (for some reason) operate like computers.

Humans simply operate differently than the rule following machines as humans are conscious, can understand the "Program" they act on and they can innovate. A Turing Machine simply cannot follow an order of "do something else" that isn't defined in the Program it's running. It's as simple as that.

Quantum computers, and classical computers possess the same repertoire of functions. Quantum computers merely render certain algorithms tractable, somehow. Also, the brain can't operate by maintaining quantum coherence. It is too warm and wet. — Inis

I definitely didn't say the brain was a quantum computer (it's a macroscopic object, any such effects would have decohered). If anything I expect it to be akin to an analogue neural net. I was giving examples of non-Turing computation, although upon looking into it I find myself more confused. A lot of people saying quantum computing could be simulated on a Turing machines, if inefficiently. So the complexity is different, not the computational model (I think that's what you were telling me).

Neural nets are typically implemented on an ordinary computer. — Inis

As far as I know the best current computers can do with *analogue* neural nets is to give an approximation of them, but they cannot truly simulate them in a strong sense because using floating point numbers will not allow one to precisely represent infinite numbers on a finite Turing machine. It's analogous to how my calculator can approximate infinities when I'm doing calculus but it's just that: an approximation, certain case logic holds for a large class of integrals. It's sufficient for most normal applications but strictly speaking only mathematical induction let's me really handle the actual thing. The brain appears to be analogue - it's certainly not digital, the weights are not discrete - so that might make it a candidate example of some type of non-Turing computation.

Claiming that the brain is capable of super-Turing operations is tantamount to attributing a soul to it. If the matter is not special, and other matter is capable of following the same rules, then a machine may exhibit identical properties to the brain. That sort of machine is a computer. — Inis

That doesn't require a soul. If it operates according to a different models of computation that might be how you get consciousness out of it as opposed to an ontologically distinct type of substance. I didn't say it couldn't be replicated, just that it probably cannot be done on current computers based on the turing machine.

From an article in the December 26th issue of The New York Times about Alpha Zero:

… a machine-learning algorithm that had mastered not only chess but shogi, or Japanese chess, and Go. The algorithm started with no knowledge of the games beyond their basic rules. It then played against itself millions of times and learned from its mistakes. In a matter of hours, the algorithm became the best player, human or computer, the world has ever seen ...

By playing against itself and updating its neural network as it learned from experience, AlphaZero discovered the principles of chess on its own and quickly became the best player ever …

Most unnerving was that AlphaZero seemed to express insight. It played like no computer ever has, intuitively and beautifully, with a romantic, attacking style. It played gambits and took risks …

Grandmasters had never seen anything like it. AlphaZero had the finesse of a virtuoso and the power of a machine. It was humankind’s first glimpse of an awesome new kind of intelligence …

By discovering the principles of chess on its own, AlphaZero developed a style of play that “reflects the truth” about the game rather than “the priorities and prejudices of programmers,” Mr. Kasparov wrote …
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/science/chess-artificial-intelligence.html

It was humankind’s first glimpse of an awesome new kind of intelligence … — Fooloso4

But perhaps not the first glimpse by a computer who would see it as simple natural evolution ?
And yes that's anthropomorphic. What else would it be, coming from a human...?
Imagine we input the philosophical game of theories and definitions of intelligence, what neologism would the computer churn out describing this 'awesome new kind' ?

I do wonder about the poetic description of chess as having some kind of 'truth'...
Thought provoking article, thanks.

I do wonder about the poetic description of chess as having some kind of 'truth'... — Amity

That was my first reaction as well, but after doing a search for “truth in chess” I found several articles, many of which also discuss beauty. The truth is the search for the best move or position, the one that proves superior to all possible countermoves. The player who can do this in every game knows the truth of the game.

I use the term ‘know’ deliberately because it challenges the assumption that to know entails some kind of subjective state. Alpha Zero has not been programmed to win, it has been programmed to learn, to teach itself how to win.