Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!isishq!doug
From: doug@isishq.UUCP (Doug Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: The future of AI
Message-ID: <53.22AB6402@isishq.UUCP>
Date: 7 Jun 88 00:51:40 GMT
Organization: FidoNet node 221/162 - ISIS International, Waterloo ON
Lines: 403


 >From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) 
 > 
 >Humans APPEAR to be unpredictable. However, psychiatrists today can to large 
 >extent predict how a certain person will react to certain situations, 
 >if they have a large enough base of knowledge about that person. E.G. 
 >the "stress tests" given to certain persons in critical positions to ascertain 
 >whether they will react correctly when an emergency situation arises. 
 
I'm not meaning to dispute that human behaviour displays a large degree 
of predictability. I am meaning to state that it also displays a large 
degree of *unpredictability*. I would also state that it is in the area 
of the unpredictability that most of the most interesting human 
behaviour occurs; for this is the province of creativity and genius. 
More on that in a moment. 
 
 >To generalize, there are a couple of basic assumptions needed to make 
 >AI a science instead of a religion: 
 > 
 >1) The human mind consists of mechanism (program) and data (memories), 
 >2) All human action is detirmined by the operation of the mind's 
 >mechanisms upon the mind's memories, 
 >3) The computer can model the above. 
 
Agreed entirely. *IF* the human mind really is nothing more than a 
complex computer (mechanism) processing definable data, there is no 
reason to suppose that we cannot eventually build a machine that cannot 
do roughly the same sort of thing. 
 
 >In particular,  
 >   1) neurologists have identified some of the mechanism by which 
 >the brain controls the body and stores memory (although they 
 >have not come anywhere close to understanding enough to help AI researchers 
 >much), 
 
That's not saying much. Few would argue that some human behaviour 
appears to be quite mechanical; i.e. a particiular stiumulus usually 
gets you a predictable result. That it hasn't helped AI much probably 
relates to the fact that what neurologists have discovered has next to 
nothing to do with thought and intelligence. 
 
 > and  
 >   2) Psychologists, via a rough understanding of some of the 
 >common basic mechanisms (e.g.  the "pleasure principle"), and with a few of 
 >the patient's memories to apply those mechanisms to, have been fairly successful 
 >in uncovering some of the mechanism/memory juxtapositions underlying 
 >a particular action by a particular patient. 
 
Yep, I'm familiar with some very good work on this topic. Again though, 
you do not demonstrate that you can answer all the questions just by 
answering one or two of them. I can see where you might derive 
encouragement from this work, but it really doesn't *prove* that all 
thought, especially creative or compassionate thought, is merely 
mechanical. Do you really believe that you and I are nothing more than 
potent computers? 
 
 >So I have little doubt that the human mind IS succeptable to 
 >scientific analysis. As to whether it can be modelled (part 3), however, 
 
And therein I think you have expressed the problem clearly. You have 
little doubt. It was Descartes who said that the only thing really 
certain to him was his own capacity to doubt. It is critical to knowing 
anything. I'd refer you to the history of scientific revolutions, in 
which we find *doubt* is the primary engine of creativity and new discovery. 
 
 >is still in doubt. For example, if we accept that a Z-80 is about as powerful 
 >as a neuron, it would still take over a million of them to approach the complexity 
 >of the human brain. Clearly, we are still quite a few years away from 
 >having the hardware horsepower necessary. 
 
Ah! Classic, but it doesn't wash. Yeah, we don't have the CPU cycles to 
replicate everything that my brain does, but surely we have enough 
horsepower in super-computers to take just one highly intelligent 
process that I can accomplish in seconds and get the computer to do it 
in a year. We have the computing power for that. But we cannot do it. We 
can teach computers to play an excellent game of chess, but we know that 
the computer's approach and my approach to the chess board are totally 
different.  
 
 >Under the above model, your choice is dictated by your past experiences 
 >(memories) and by various mechanisms operating upon those memories 
 >(e.g. mechanism: pleasure/security. Memories: Political discussions, 
 >which policies  were best, who was the better speaker, smarter, etc.). 
 > 
 >That is, your choice consists of neurons firing in a particular 
 >pattern. And, if somehow, microseconds before the vote, we had the sum total 
 >of your knowledge and experience available to us, we could predict exactly 
 >how you would vote. You could have voted in no other way besides that 
 >dictated to you by your knowledge and experience and the underlying  
 >mechanisms. 
 
Which reminds me of a story. When I was about seven, I was wrestling 
with the problem of determinism. (It was in a theological context at the 
time) I stood at the head of the stairs and said to myself, "If God 
*really* knows everything, past present and future, God knows whether I 
will go down the stairs now, or later . . . but I don't know." 
 
It's a similar problem to the one you present, except the "determinism" 
in your position is mechanistic rather than theological. Still, it comes 
out to the same thing, that certain knowledge of exactly what I will do 
next does exist, the only difference is that you admit you can't 
actually attain that knowledge (yet). 
 
My difficulty with religious determinism and mechanistic determinism is 
pretty much the same. Subjectively I experience myself as a 
decision-makaing entity in possession of free will. I can choose. You 
and the Calvinists would both argue that there is really no choice at 
all, that the action I will choose tomorrow is completely knowable now. 
The Calvinists more simply assert that it is knowable (at least by an 
all-knowing God). You are asserting that it is theoretically knowable by 
an all-knowing computer. You are saying (correct me if I'm wrong) that 
if the computer had access to all my memories, infinite computing power, 
and all the I/O channels, the computer could predict (and/or replicate) 
with 100% accuracy, every decision I make. 
 
Either way, my subjective experience of being a  creative, 
decision-making entity, capable of choice and responsible for my 
choices, is obliterated. At best it is a tragic delusion, at worst it is 
an act of disloyalty to science. If I get sufficently annoyed with you, for 
instance, to punch you in the nose, what court would convict me? With 
you as my defence attorney, I'd argue that it wasn't my *fault*, since I 
*had* to do it, it was all in the programming of the computer in my 
head. Blame one of the programmers maybe, but not the computer. 
 
Responsibility and choice vanish.  
 
That is one of the things that makes me very skeptical of the 
mechanistic theory of human thought. It makes social existence as we 
have known it for all of recorded history impossible. Of course, this 
doesn't prove you are wrong, it just suggests quite strongly that you 
may have overlooked something important. 
 
 >> 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. 
 >>It is hinged to something else, human values (variable), passion 
 >>(wholly subjective), emotions (volatile) and sympathies (unpredictable). 
 > 
 >Science asserts the exact opposite: That everything can be explained, 
 
Hold on a sec mate! Science asserts no such thing. Popular culture 
asserts that, but few respectable scientists claim anything beyond the 
capacity to offer some explanations for some things, notably those that 
can be observed. Popular culture has come to believe that science can 
tell us how things are, and furthermore, how they must necessarily be. 
That, sir, is a "religious" enterprise and not a scientific one. A 
scientist seeks the truth in any way it can be found, and does not 
presume to know the results before the evidence is in. Science does not 
assert that "everything can be explained", it merely proceeds to try to 
explain everything it can see, quantify, and reliably identify. You will 
note that the history of science is one of revising explanations. The 
only thing really certain about *every* scientific expalanation is that 
it is at best incomplete and certain to be modified greatly in time. 
 
 >that everything can be modelled, and that the way to gain knowledge 
 >is to seek these explanations and models. 
 
Nope. Modelling presumes a lot of information, and that presumes an 
observable phenomenon. Neither modelling nor science presume that 
"everything" is sufficiently observable to be modelled. You simply 
dismiss all those things that are not sufficiently observable to be 
studied scientifically as not existing. That is a very religious 
assertion, and not at all scientific.  
 
 >Religion, on the other hand, is completely the opposite. Religion 
 >asserts that there are things that cannot be explained, that some things are 
 >beyond comprehension, and to seek explanation is to lose the faith. 
 
Part 1 of that is true. Most theistic religions recognize that there are 
some things which cannot be explained. Both you and "Science" recognize 
that too. The search for an explanation is not an anti-religious act. It 
may be anti-authoritatarian, but most great religious leaders are 
notable for the fact that they sought, and claimed to have found, higher 
levels of explanations. Both religion and science seek to know, to 
explain, and to make experience meaningful. 
 
 >In other words, your statements imply that you are a member, 
 >unwittingly or no, of a religion whose basic tenate is that there is at least 
 >one thing in the universe (the human mind) which cannot be explained. Just 
 >as other religions have as their basic tenate that the one unexplainable 
 >thing is "God."  
 
Hmm. Odd what my statements might imply. Actually I came to computer 
science late in life. My formal training is in theology, history and 
psychology. Biblical studies was my major. The basic tenet is not at all 
that God is unexplainable, but rather that God is knowable. 
 
 >> created and not instrinsically creative. 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 would be interested in hearing the reasoning behind your "hunch". 
 >If you have any evidence or experience that may be relevant to the AI 
 >community, perhaps we should hear of it? 
 
I'd point you to the "100th Monkey syndrome" for starters. It's a well 
known, well documented case of apparent cause-effect realtionships 
occuring between living creatures with no explanation. Indeed, it is 
"scientifically" impossible :-). There are lots of other human 
experiences worth looking  into, as a class of phenomena. One that 
comes vividly to mind is the case of the R.A.F pilot whose navigation 
instruments broke down over the North Sea in 1956. He attempted to get 
the attention of coastal radar operators by flying a "distress pattern". 
As he hoped, an aircraft arrived to "shepherd" him back to his base. For 
20 minutes he flew wingtip to wingtip with the "shepherd" during which 
time he had opportunity to note that aircraft's markings, and that it 
was a Mosquito fighter-bomber of WW II vintage. After his safe landing 
he sought out the pilot of the "shepherd" to thank him, only to discover 
that the R.A.F had no Mosquitos in service any longer and that the plane 
which had shepherded him to base had disappeared over the North Sea 12 
years previously. Science has trouble with things like that becuase it 
is a non-repeatable phenomenon. You can't really deal with it 
scientifically very well at all. You can't "prove" much of anything 
about it, except that a highly trained observer (the pilot) was scared 
to death and was praying energetically that the radar operators (who 
were not on duty, it was Christmas Eve) would see his distress pattern 
(which they did not) and send up an aircraft (which they did not) to 
rescue him from nearly certain death. You can't really prove that a 
Mosquito showed up, except that not only the pilot, but the controller 
at the airfield both reported having seen it. There are more scientific 
"impossibilities" in the story. The Mosquito could not have aided the 
instrument landing in the deep fog because the airstrip where the pilot 
landed did not have electronic navigation aids. The controller heard 
low-flying aircraft, thought there might be an emergency and switched 
the runway lights on. The story gets more bizarre actually. But it is 
one of many which suggest that our ordinary conscious way of 
apprehending reality might, just might, not be all there is to 
apprehend.  
 
Finally, look into Karl Jung's theory of the collective unconscious, 
which was developed after a vast amount of very scientific research 
concerning phenomenon similar to those mentioned above.  
 
All of these present challenges to a mechanistic world view. You can 
dismiss them as nonsense, as Galileo was dismissed, if you want. You can 
develop lots of hypotheses to "explain" such phenomenon, and that is all 
worth-while. But an hypothesis is not a fact, remember that. 
 
 >> How can you apply math or science to such things as Faith, 
 >Spiritual sensibility, relgious experience, love or  hatred?  
 > 
 >Oh boy. Want me to give you a long anthropological and/or sociological 
 >treatise upon the relation between faith in shamans, and survival 
 >in primitive societies? Love as an outgrowth of the nurturing instinct which 
 >assures survival of offspring? Hatred as an outgrowth of the warding 
 >instinct which protects the resources of the family group thus aiding  
 >survival? 
 
Hmmm. I will return to my first argument. In saying that "love" has 
survival value you have really said nothing at all. You have certainly 
said nothing about why I love A and do not love B. You will probably not 
be very persuaded by that, but I'd say that's because you refuse to deal 
subjectively with your own experience which is the only device by which 
you can *know* what it *means* to be a human being, as opposed to being a 
mechanistic epiphenomenon. 
 
 >There has been much scientific research into the areas that you 
 >mention. In many of them, we do have some knowledge of the evolution of 
 >various social more's from ancient times to the present. Almost invariably, 
 >the root cause is some behavior which, at that time, had some positive 
 >survival value. 
 
Again you are over-stating your case.  Establishing some association 
with evolutionary survival value does not prove a "causal relationship". 
It merely shows some relationship.  Your logic is badly flawed on that one.  
Basically, you can't get to those conclusions from the evidence at hand 
without adding a great deal of faith and extrapolation. Your hunch may 
be right, but it is only a hunch, not a proof -- nor even a theory really. 
 
 >An assertation that such behaviors cannot be scientifically explained 
 >is thus contradicted by the fact that we have sciences called History, 
 >Anthropology, Sociology, and Psychology.  
 
 Well, now we're on more familiar terrain.  Sure 
historians offer "explanations", some of which almost sound believable.  
Few of them are the stuff of which a mechanistic world-view can be 
constructed.  E.g., why did England not send Wellington's army, flush 
with vicotry over Napoleon, to the US to finish off the dispute of 
1812-14 and teach those insolent colonists a lesson once and for all? 
 
Shall I tell you or shall you tell me? The "science" of history offers 
several hundred different, and sometimes contradictory explanations of 
the event. (or lack of an event in this case). 
 
So tell me, what is *the* scientific explanation of the failure of the 
UK to prosecute the war of 1812 with more vigour? Why, after burning the 
White House (which was then red brick) did the British/Canadian armies 
withdraw? 
 
Would you accept the Duke of Wellington's own personal account of the 
matter? Would you accept it as "scientific" that the war with Napolean had 
turned the man into a pacifist who never wanted to see another gun fired 
as long as he lived?  
 
Anyway, there are a thousand explanations, and the ones people tend to 
look at are the ones they like. The typical explanation in US history 
books is that American armies had given the British a hard enough time 
they lost their taste for war. The typical Canadian history book 
recounts "betrayal" of Canadian interests by the Colonial Office. 
Official British histories tend to look at "exhaustion" after the 
expensive conflict with Napolean. So which one is "scientific"? 
 
 >> Science can do very well with the natural world, but 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.  
 > 
 >Here is where I become certain that you are advocating a certain 
 >set of religious beliefs (commonly called "New Age", I believe).  
 
Sorry, simply good old fashioned Christian :-) 
 
 >As I said before, the whole underpinning of science is that the world can 
 >be explained. 
 
And as I've said before that reveals a very superficial understanding of 
what science really is, and has been through the ages. Science deals 
with that which can be explained and has nothing at all to say about 
anything else. 
 
 >That approach has yielded every scientific advance in the world today, 
 >from the wheat upon your table (a scientifically-bread hybrid, high yield), 
 >to the car you drive to work. There is no reason to expect that paridigm 
 >of reality to stop yielding results any time soon.  
 
 
Again you are firing off non-sequiturs. Of course Science has done much 
to help mankind gain power over the natural world. Such things 
(especially in recent centuries) have been pretty noticable and 
spectacular. But you betray a serious ignorance of history when you fail 
to realize the immense contribution to civilized social organization 
made by the Judeo-Christian tradition. You probably do realize that 
without a somewhat stable, somewhat decent and somewhat just society, 
you do not have an enviroment which is conducive to the detached 
intellectual inquiry upon which modern science (and civilization 
generally) depends. 
 
 >On the other hand, the 
 >opposite paridigm (that there are things that cannot be explained, and to 
 >search is to lose your faith), has yielded no results at all besides  
 >innumerable books full of moral advice that everybody seems to ignore. 
 
Everyone does not ignore it sir. Quite the contrary, everyone obeys it. 
If they did not, life would be nasty, brutish and short and we'd still 
be living in mud huts.  
 
Thous shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal . . . 
 
Far from teaching that the cosmos was unexplainable, Christianity and 
Judaism have taught that the cosmos is reasonable, purposive, and 
committed to the well-being of mankind.  They have taught that to be 
human is to be important and to be meaningful.  Without the 
philosophical foundation of those ideas and the social forms which grew 
out of them, such as justice and reason, I'd argue that science would 
never have been invented.  
 
I do not think we are dealing with "opposite paradigms" at all. I think 
(excuse my arrogance) that my paradigm includes and accommodates yours 
quite handily, while yours can't fit mine in at all. My paradigm 
suggests that this is because yours is not big enough. 
 
What makes me most pessimistic about the evangelists of AI is the 
pathetic lack of understanding of what intelligence and the cultures 
which produce intelligence really consist of. At this point I realize 
that when I use the word "intelligence" and when you use it, we may not 
be talking about exactly the same thing. Indeed, we may not have 
experienced it as the same thing. To hazard a  guess, I'd suggest that 
intelligence is something like the manifestation of wisdom based on a 
humble appreciation of the lessons of history and culture with 
recognition of the limits of human life in the natural world. The basic 
limit there is the grave. We are mortal. We gaze beyond our known limits 
to the future on the other side of the grave, the unknowable. 
 
My guess would be that you see intelligence more as something manifested 
wherever an individual's behaviour can be show to augment his marginal 
utility over against the rest of the natural world. You would dismiss 
afterlife as something about which nothing can be known and therefore 
nothing can be thought. 
 
So I end up having to ask you a question. Would you consider Jesus to be 
a manifestation of intelligent life? Would you consider me to be a 
manifestation of intelligent life? (not that I'm trying to put myself in 
the same league as Jesus). 
 
If, as you seem to suggest, the only intelligent way to look at things 
is wholly mechanistic, then indeed I agree, that kind of intelligence 
can be mechanized, at least potentially. It is the other kind of 
intelligence which the machines cannot be taught. 
 
Anyway, thanks for your thoughful response. I've enjoyed your 
thought-provoking challenge. 
 
Best regards, 
 
Doug Thompson 
 
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