NATS 1700 6.0 COMPUTERS,  INFORMATION  AND  SOCIETY Lecture 11: Computers and Intelligence | Previous | Next | Syllabus | Selected References | Home | | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |          Introduction If computers can solve problems and, more generally, automate at least some of the computing tasks we perform, the question naturally arises as to what are the limits of computers' capabilities. Turing and von Neumann were among the first to investigate this question. A fundamental paper is Alan Turing's    Computing Machinery and Intelligence, which appeared in Mind, 59, 433-560 (1950). In his 1956 Silliman Lectures, The Computer and the Brain (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1958), John von Neumann addressed head-on the question of the relationships between computers and the human central nervous system. Incidentally, this book offers a very good introduction to the architecture of computers. Of great interest is a package of articles by one of the principal forces behind the development of the Internet, J C R Licklider. One of the articles is entitled "Man-Computer Symbiosis," and, although published in 1960, is full of incredibly accurate predictions about the future of computers and of artificial intelligence. But we can not discuss computers' intelligence unless we know something about human intelligence--in fact intelligence in general. A nice overview of the concept of intelligence  is presented by Bill Huitt. It seems clear that there are many facets to intelligence: read    Who Owns Intelligence?  by Howard Gardner. Read also The Search for Intelligence by Carl Zimmer, which appeared in the September 2008 issue of Scientific American. "Developed by two professors of education at Indiana University, the  History of Influences in the Development of Intelligence Theory and Testing  website gives a comprehensive overview of the field of intelligence theory and testing from Plato to the present day. Using an 'interactive map,' the site offers a timeline of the major figures in the field and their affiliations with one another. Users can click on names, time periods, or schools to access more in-depth information. The site's 'Hot Topics' section is particularly interesting, giving substantial material relating to some of the most controversial issues in intelligence theory, including an extensive section-by-section summary of the bestseller The Bell Curve and article-length rebuttals by scholars, including one by anthropologist Stephen Jay Gould."   Topics As Alan Ross Anderson writes, "The development of electronic computers in recent years has given a new twist to questions about the relations between 'mental' and 'mechanical' events, and stimulated an extraordinary amount of discussion. Since 1950 more than 1000 papers have been published on the question as to whether 'machines' can 'think'." [ Alan Ross Anderson, ed., Minds and Machines, Prentice-Hall, 1964, p. 1 ] There is no agreed-upon definition of intelligence. In fact, the history of this concept is as varied and controversial as it can be. Howard Gardner's article (see the introductory notes above) offers a glimpse of such tortuous history. Add the relatively recent and abundant literature on 'animal intelligence,' and the even more recent serious speculations on 'alien intelligence,' and you will have a sense of the difficulties we face. Perhaps all we can say at this moment is that "intelligence is the cognitive ability of an individual to learn from experience, to reason well, to remember important information, and to cope with the demands of daily living." (R Sternberg, as quoted in Bill Huitt's on-line article (see the introductory notes above)). In other words, intelligence is not one thing, but a cluster of related, but distinct, abilities of the brain. Binet's belief that intelligence is what the IQ Test measures has been conclusively discredited. Since, however, we are interested here in the possibility of artificially emulating or simulating intelligence by means of computers, let's get back to Turing's 1950 classic article. He proposes to replace the question of whether machine can one day 'think,' and therefore the related question of what it may mean 'to think,' with another question, "which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words." Turing proposes what he calls the 'imitation game' and we now call 'Turing's test.' Instead of asking what is intelligence, and whether computers are or can become intelligent, Turing suggested that any machine whose behavior is indistinguishable from that of an intelligent creature is, for all intents and purposes, intelligent. Although this approach avoids the problem of 'defining' intelligence, it has the advantage that we are all very familiar with it. Each one of us takes his own intelligence for granted, and when he experiences a similar behavior in others, he assumes that they are intelligent too. This of course is not as unproblematic as it sounds. Philosophers have been debating for a very long time the more general problem of 'other minds.' How do I know that my mental states and operations are essentially the same in other people? Turing was aware that his proposal would meet with several "contrary views," and he anticipated and tried to respond to them in his article. From the point of view of this course we are especially interested in what Turing calls "mathematical objections," in particular those raised by Gödel's theorem (see Lecture 09). While Gödel's theorem implies that there are indeed questions that a digital computer can not answer, Turing points out that "it has only been stated, without any sort of proof, that no such limitations apply to the human intellect." Another argument against Turing's proposal is the so called 'argument from consciousness.'  "Not until a machine can write a sonnet or compose a concerto because of thoughts and emotions felt, and not by the chance fall of symbols, could we agree that machine equals brain--that is, not only write it but know that it had written it." This is a common objection against the possibility of artificial intelligence, and we will try to answer it in this and the following lectures. A related argument is 'Lady Lovelace's objection.' In a 1842 memoir concerning Babbage's machine, she had written: "The Analytic Engine has no pretensions to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform." While it is perhaps true that today's computers don't yet exhibit creative behavior, the question raised by Ada Lovelace should be considered in a broader context: are computers intrinsically unable to be creative? The answers given to this and related questions are very different, and span the whole spectrum from 'yes' to 'no.' For recent musings on Turing's Test, read    Hello, Are You Human?,  at the end of which you will also find a few interesting links. You may also wish to take part in the Turing Game, a research project at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "The goal of the Turing Game is to better understand the nature of online interaction." Of even greater interest, malware sites have started using much more sophisticated and effective programs. "A Russian website called CyberLover.ru is advertising a software tool that, it says, can simulate flirtatious chatroom exchanges. It boasts that it can chat up as many as 10 women at the same time and persuade them to hand over phone numbers ... A spokesman for PC Tools said the program had a 'terrifyingly well-organized' interaction that could fool users into giving up personal details and could easily be converted to work in other languages.." [ from 'CyberLover' Bot Seduces Data from Women ]. In any case, the new research field of artificial intelligence (AI) has made its appearance. What is artificial intelligence? Here is a nice Introduction to the Science of Artificial Intelligence . Consider now the following definitions: "AI is the boundary between what people can do and what computers can't (yet),"  "Weak AI: machines can be made to act as if they were intelligent," and "Strong AI: machines can be made to act intelligently and to be aware." In the next lectures we will review several technologies that may constitute an answer to the the above claims, although the jury is likely to be out for a some time on such issues. A reasonable approach to artificial intelligence is that expressed by one of the great scholars in the field--Herbert Simon : "AI can have two purposes. One is to use the power of computers to augment human thinking, just as we use motors to augment human or horse power. robotics and expert systems are major branches of that. The other is to use a computer's artificial intelligence to understand how humans think. In a humanoid way. If you test your programs not merely by what they can accomplish, but how they accomplish it, they you're really doing cognitive science; you're using AI to understand the human mind." [ from  Cognitive Science ] Here are a few fundamental questions that any student of artificial intelligence needs to ask, and hopefully try to answer: How did brains and minds evolve? how do they learn and develop? How can we build a mind, or something analogous to the human mind? How do humans or intelligent systems share their knowledge? Artificial intelligence is not simply an abstract, academic field. Cognitive science is also an applied inter-discipline, with interests in a whole range of industrial, economic and commercial problems from human-computer interaction to expert systems, from the the design of decision support and cooperative work systems to robotics, from computer-aided instruction and learning to communication systems. In his books The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics (Oxford University Press 1989), and Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness (Oxford University Press 1994), Roger Penrose argues that many questions concerning artificial intelligence, physics, and the philosophy of mind are deeply related, and he offers a long argument that human thought cannot be computed. Psyche, an interdisciplinary journal of research on consciousness, held a  Symposium on Roger Penrose's Shadows of the Mind. You may want to read some of the contributions. You may also be interested in John Maynard Smith's review of Penrose's first book in  What Can't the Computer Do?  in the New York Review of Books. A different approach is taken by MIT's Steven Pinker.    Organs Of Computation: A Talk With Steven Pinker  appeared in EDGE. An interesting and original angle on artificial intelligence is proposed by Erik Baard in  Intelligence in the Cosmos: Flesh or Machine?.  He quotes Seth Shostak, spokesman of the SETI Institute : "The reasonable probability is that any extraterrestrial intelligence we will detect will be machine intelligence, not biological intelligence like us." ['SETI' stands for 'Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence.']. Along these lines, we earthlings are busy devising robots that may help us in our exploration of space. Read, for example,    When Humans and Robots Team Up,  where Leonard David discusses the "increasing need for humans and robots fulfilling assignments in space together."   Questions and Exercises Read  Engineering Intelligence: Computers and the Cognitive Revolution in Psychology,  and perhaps the book reviewed in this article: Steven Pinker’s How the Mind Works (New York, Norton, 1997). Pay a visit to    Eliza - A friend you could never have before .  Would she pass Turing's Test? A marvelous account of the history of artificial intelligence is Pamela McCorduck's Machines Who Think. A Personal Inquiry into the History and Prospects of Artificial Intelligence (A K Peters Ltd, Natick, MA, 2004). A more recent and equally comprehensive survey is Nils J Nilsson's The Quest for Artificial Intelligence. A History of Ideas and Achievements (Cambridge U Press, Cambridge, New York,...,2010). See also John McCarthy's Defending AI Research. A Collection of Essays and Reviews (CSLI Publications, Stanford, CA, 1996). Finally, you will find Herbert A Simon's Models of My Life (Basic Books, 1991) a "remarkable autobiography of the Nobel Prize winning social scientist and father of artificial intelligence." You may want to visit Honda's site devoted to their latest robot, ASIMO. "ASIMO is designed to operate in our world, where we need to reach for things, pick things up and navigate along floors, sidewalks—even climb stairs. That's why ASIMO has two arms and two legs and is what is called a humanoid robot. In fact, ASIMO is the world's only humanoid robot that can walk independently and climb stairs. This is important, because in a world full of high curbs, uneven surfaces, obstacles and stairways, this ability is absolutely necessary for ASIMO—or any robot— to be able to easily function and truly assist humans." For a dystopian view of what computers may have in store for us, visit Ray Kurzweil website and read what he has to say about what he calls the Singularity. In this regard, read also Bill Joy's Why the future doesn't need us. Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species.   Picture Credits: Wolgang Kreutzer's AI Page · Skull Collection. Last Modification Date: 10 March 2010