Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!klaatu.rutgers.edu!josh
From: josh@klaatu.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Sound and complete definitions of intelligence.
Message-ID: 
Date: 9 Dec 88 20:13:45 GMT
References:  <2788@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 24

Starting in the middle:

    " And we can theorize and conjecture.
    " Our estimates may be wrong, but they are not frivolous.

    I'm all for theory and conjecture.  And so far as maximum capacity goes,
    maybe the estimates make sense.  I should have qualified my charge of
    frivolity more carefully.  Putting it better:  the conclusion that
    computers cannot in principle match human intellectual abilities on the
    grounds that human have much more computational capacity available
    involves a frivolous interpretation of an estimate perhaps meaningful in
    other applications.

Aha.  On the contrary, I claim that a human-equivalent computer is
buildable now, would be a million-dollar supercomputer in the
mid-90's, and a personal computer by 2010.  

Let me put that another way.  It is the consensus of people I have
read and heard on the subject (respected in their fields) that the
state of the technology will produce a one-rack, $100K, human-
processing-power-equivalent machine around the year 2000.  *It is
much less likely that the appropriate software will be available*.

--JoSH