X-Message-Number: 4297 From: (Brian Wowk) Newsgroups: sci.cryonics Subject: Definition of Strong AI Date: 25 Apr 1995 17:20:44 GMT Message-ID: <3njb1c$> I had interesting discussion with an AI researcher this weekend that may shed some light on some of the arguments here recently. Most people here seem to believe in "Strong AI" in the sense that human-level intelligence (and maybe even human consciousness) can be reduced to low-order symbolic manipulations (manipulations of binary bits, if you will). In fact this is NOT what most AI researchers mean when they say Strong AI. To them, Strong AI is the belief that human intelligence can be fully simulated by HIGH-ORDER symbolic manipulation. In other words, if you start with a sufficiently large set of abstract concepts (say, the words of the English language) and write a set of rules and relations between them in a computer program, you can eventually end up with human intelligence. This is something much more specific than the generic statement that intelligence can be simulated by computers. Strong AI is a statement about *a type of program* that is sufficient for intelligence. I write this because I notice Thomas Donaldson (an AI researcher himself) recently questioned on CryoNet whether neural nets are computers, and I want to forestall the flury of responses to his message. Even Thomas would agree that neural nets are computers in the sense that they perform *low order* symbolic manipulations. They do not, however, perform the high order symbolic manipulations that Strong AI people believe are sufficient for intelligence. In fact, I was told that one of the most ardent critics of Strong AI, Patricia Churchland, has no problem with the belief that neural nets or their derivatives may come to emulate human intelligence. The belief that intelligence cannot be simulated by ANY kind of symbolic manipulation (high or low order) appears to be quite rare. As far as I know, the only people holding such beliefs are religious theologians and Roger Penrose. ---Brian Wowk Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4297