xsharp.eu

Your computer is a Machine.

Concorde was a (Flying) Machine.

Birds were seen flying - over the years man learned from this and created Concorde.

If Concorde had existed before Birds, could man have learned the opposite way in order to create them?

Just a thought.

And here's another:

I have a car with manual transmission. When approaching a road junction I (intelligently) change gear and put foot on brake.

If I were to change to an automatic, I'd no longer have to change gear. Does that mean intelligence has been transferred to the car?

Terry

Hi Terry,

Yep! - this is my gripe - the vast over-use of the term 'AI'. Real 'AI' is a rare thing indeed, the rest is some sort of machine learning, at best. And machine learning often just means keeping previous data from 'outcomes' and therefore searching more data next time.

Getting a machine to write an algorithm and then update and improve it as time goes by, is a whole different ballgame.

One area in which I would like to see some machine learning is for my spellchecker to learn as I go, and notice the words/vocabulary I use and then offer me different (and more intelligent) choices as time goes by - the dumbness of any spell checker I use in the .NET / Windows platform annoys me intensely ;-0)

If birds and come after Concorde then they would be flying faster - or have I misunderstood your analogy ?

Cheers,
Phil.

Hi Phil

Faster Birds is a next step, yes. But my real point is that (forgetting about some weird physical Bird-like structure built around Concorde) it is impossible to produce a real bird, or devise a way of doing such a thing.

That says to me that what you refer to as "Real AI" is not just rare, it is impossible to achieve.

Machine Learning, too, is nonsense, although I can just about accept its use. But "Learning" is something a machine just cannot do.

Following very complicated algorithms, provided you can think of them in the first place, say your desired spell-checker, are things a computer can do very well and at high speed.

Terry

Guys,
while usually i'm all with you, i found an article in the latest c't journal about AlphaZero rather disconcerting - a programm without cleverly written alghorythm (talk about spellcheckers <g>), which "learns" by teaching itself.

Karl

Terry Bourne wrote: Following very complicated algorithms, provided you can think of them in the first place, say your desired spell-checker, are things a computer can do very well and at high speed.

OK, I'll bite
So what does "real" intelligence do differently?

Chris

Hi Chris / guys,

'Real' intelligence sees from the outset, that there is a 'need' to have a better spell checker, and how it should operator from the users point of view !

Probably 'real' intelligence is what we call 'thinking outside of the box' !?

Leonardo had 'real' intelligence - would like to see someone put him "in a bottle"!

My 2 cents worth,
Phil.

Hi Chris

What does "real" intelligence do differently?

The simple answer is everything.

Basically intelligence is something that belongs in the animal kingdom. It is a function of the brain which allows us to think of things in an unlimited number of ways and quickly "see things" clearly. Things which would otherwise be so complex that even the most intelligent person on earth would not see them (ever).

Look at it this way: our brains and their functioning are integral to each and everyone of us as individuals. They enable us to function in the real world. They enable us to "look" forward and predict things.

Look at the exchanges here to see what I mean. My original "Birds" story was extended by Phil to the idea of a "fast" bird. Absolutely a logical extension. But when I wrote it I was thinking of the impossibility of it all, bypassing any thought of "fast birds". No doubt "impossibility" also crossed Phil's mind.

Many, many routes to the same conclusion.

And, of course, on the downside, potential routes to misunderstanding.

Computer logic has no room for misunderstanding, so some how we have to transform the ease of "conceptual" understanding to certainty if we are to "computerise" thinking into algorithms. Algorithms may be extremely complex, but they understand nothing.

Hope that makes some sense.

Terry

Perhaps we should avoid using the word "Intelligence". Instead we have already since over 20 years many machines that "learn" and adapt themselves and in the future we will have many more.

The best example is the motor electronic of fuel motors of cars. In contrast to old motors with working points defined by simple controllers or screws adjusted by repair mans the modern motors learn to run in optimized work points that always are reoptimized - this works so good that we do not even notice this or worry about. The times where we needed a choke to regulate work points for a cold machine have finished and nobody worried if the car would learn starting the motor.

Arne

Hi Arne

Yes I agree.

But do your machines learn?

Or is it the intelligence of the Engineers who have designed those machines such that they have no option other than to work the way they do?

If you hadn't explained things intelligently, as you did, but instead posted the specifications for your machines, I for one would have had no idea of what you were talking about.

A computer program, on the other hand, could not have understood your post, but could have been written to interpret machine specifications.

Terry

"Do your machines learn?"
Why not: Learning means analyzing information received in the near past and then changing (adapting) decision making instead of using fix rule based decisions. The new decisions will generate new data. Together with new information arriving from external this gives input to a new loop of adapting the decision making. In this sense living beings or machines can adapt a new behavior in a certain range of possible behaviors. And this can be called "learning".

Arne