Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!tness7!killer!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mandrill!gatech!purdue!decwrl!ucbvax!BEAVER.CS.WASHINGTON.EDU!uw-nsr!uw-warp!dennis From: uw-nsr!uw-warp!dennis@BEAVER.CS.WASHINGTON.EDU Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: (none) Message-ID: <8806030846.AA26207@beaver.cs.washington.edu> Date: 3 Jun 88 08:46:35 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 125 To: uw-nsr!uw-beaver!info-futures@bu-cs.bu.edu CC: cpac!todd Subject: Re: The future of AI Warning: This is a fairly long and pedantic reply to a common position. Doug Thompson (watmath!isishq!doug) believes it unlikely that the human mind can be modelled scientifically: First, science and mathematics presume repeatability and predictability. The ancient idea of human free will appears to be at odds with both. Humans appear to be unpredictable. Just because an idea (including the idea of human free will) is ancient, doesn't mean that it is correct. Also, just because something appears to be unpredictable does not mean that it is. To a 16th century peasant, eclipses appeared to be unpredictable. To anybody who doesn't know what random number generator created a string of digits, the next digit is unpredictable. (Human) brains are arguably the most complex structures known, so it is reasonable to think that it will be extremely difficult, but not impossible, to predict their behavior. To put things into some kind of historical perspective, I think we've done fairly well, since it's only been a few centuries since we (Western civilization) have even known that blood circulates, less since we've known about the existence of cells, and a scant 30 years of knowing about DNA. We're just now figuring out other cell mechanisms such as mitochondria and inter- and intra-cell communication. AI wants to build machines that can perform tasks or make decisions as well as humans. I think though, that human reason and decision making is not mechanical, it is a-mathematical, a-scientific and a-rational. Although AI researchers do want to build such machines, I think that may not be the most difficult part. There is another (scientific, not engineering) goal of AI; to create models of the mind, preferably at the symbolic, rather than the physical level. If Doug is right, and thinking is non-mechanical and wholly unpredictable, then AI is doomed to fail. However, I disagree with that idea. We will be able to find out for sure some time within the next hundred years, give or take 90, via the following process. One possible path to the AI goal Doug mentioned (building humanly thinking machines) will be to build functionally identical copies of a brain by replacing every individual neuron with identically functioning nanomachines. These nanomachines will be able to produce a description of their configuration, which we can then use to stamp out as many copies of that brain as we wish. In addition, the copies could be run at much higher speeds than neurons, producing machines that function just like brains, but much, much faster. [For a much better description of this (and other even wilder) possibilities, see K. Eric Drexler's "Engines of Creation." I really can't do the idea justice here. After you've read that, you might want to subscribe to the news group sci.nanotech.] Of course, if it turns out that thinking relies on something other than the physical processes in a brain (most likely electro-chemical reactions of neurons), then this approach will not work. I am optimistic about this approach, though, because I know of no scientific evidence that thinking involves anything other than physical processes, and as I mention later, there is scientific evidence that thinking does involve physical processes. One unsatisfying aspect of this approach is that it might turn out to be easier to manufacture functionally identical copies of minds via nanotechnology than to model the mind on a symbolic level. This is analagous to the ability of a photocopy machine to produce copies of a page without reading it or understanding it on any symbolic level. We certainly produced photocopy machines before we produced machines that even scan text and convert it to ASCII symbols. Can you give a machine values, passion, emotions, and sympathies?? Maybe, but whose values, whose passions? Yours? Mine? Adolph Hitler's? All are "human". I think that yes, machines such as I just described will come with values, passion, emotions, and sympathies, all built in. They could be yours or mine, or any human's, but not Adolph Hitler's (unless he's hiding out in Argentina or his brain has otherwise been preserved in an undamaged state). Unfortunately, it might be very difficult to model these things at a level that satisfies us (symbolic rather than physical) and that we can understand. Maybe the super-minds we create will be able to think up (and understand) a symbolic model. My hunch is that human thought is really dependent on dimensions of the universe which science (as we currently understand it) is not yet capable of fathoming. I have yet to see any scientific (that is, repeatable) evidence that this is the case. I know of some evidence that this is not the case, particularly the "mappability" of the brain. When electrically stimulated, certain regions of the brain reliably produce the same sensation, trigger the same thoughts, or recall the same memories. I think that science cannot begin to explain the forces which move a person to believe or have faith. We can do some statistics on some of them, but I think we shall never be able to build a computer like Martin Luther, or Jesus Christ, or Moses. On the contrary, science can begin to explain at least some of these forces. Someone could test my hypothesis (if they haven't already) that exposure to people that "believe or have faith" causes additional cases of people "believing." I suspect that living in Utah is strongly correlated with "believing" in the Church of Latter Day Saints. That seems to be a completely separate issue from whether or not we will be able to build computers like particular people. It is true that we will never be able to build copies of those particular individuals since we have lost that patterns of neural connections that were their brains. However, I think we will be able to build machines "like" them. . . . I suspect there is a part of the human being which is strongly connected to a super-natural reality which science has yet to get a grip on. I suspect otherwise. There are certainly even very basic physical and chemical things about humans that science does not yet describe, but I don't think we should despair of the possibility, at least until we can prove otherwise. Dennis. ------- arpa: uw-nsr!uw-warp!dennis@beaver.cs.washington.edu usenet: {ihnp4|decvax|...}uw-beaver!uw-nsr!uw-warp!dennis