Mechanical Hearts? (Post #11)

How would I write this paper? o_o

“We so often think of intelligence, of AI, in terms of sophistication, or complexity of behavior. But in so many cases, it’s impossible to say much with certainty about the program itself, because any number of different pieces of software—of wildly varying levels of “intelligence”—could have produced that behavior.”

I would have argued something along the lines of “While the evaluation of artificial intelligence based on the complexity of behavior can display data recollection, it fails to accurately assess the extent to which machines can imitate human beings. Rather than measuring a machine’s capability to be human, it merely shows how well a machine is able to regurgitate facts and phrases in accordance to the dialogue given. “

As Christian puts it “Sophisticated behavior doesn’t necessarily indicate a mind. It might indicate just a memory.”

Therefore a machine is not displaying nor utilizing cognitive activity in order to have a coherent conversation with its partner. Simply put, it is using pre-assembled answer sheets created by humans and coordinates its responses accordingly. Christian goes on to quote Dalí to solidify his point.

“The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.”

Thus, the repetition or regurgitation of a human-like answer does not necessarily mean the one repeating is human. It only proves that it can mimic sounds and match inquiry A with response B.

Therefore I must agree with Christian’s opinion that “I think sophistication, complexity of behavior, is not it at all. For instance, you can’t judge the intelligence of an orator by the eloquence of his prepared remarks.”

In order to further complicate the issue, the article provides evidence that computers are unable to grasp basic human functions that characterize our species. By highlighting the actions computers fail to do, we simultaneously emphasize the traits that make us so awesome.

“As computers have mastered rarefied domains once thought to be uniquely human, they simultaneously have failed to master the ground-floor basics of the human experience—spatial orientation, object recognition, natural language, adaptive goal-setting—and in so doing, have shown us how impressive, computationally and otherwise, such minute-to-minute fundamentals truly are.”