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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fido 1:221/162 -- 1:221/0 280 Phillip St., UUCP: !watmath!isishq!doug Unit B-3-11 Waterloo, Ontario Bitnet: fido@water Canada N2L 3X1 Internet: doug@isishq.math.waterloo.edu (519) 746-5022 ------------------------------------------------------------------------