AI: Did Man Create Computers in his IMAGE? Can we recreate a HUMAN?

[Brinnie]

AI

a few years ago, my boss asked me a question:

Originally Posted by Brinnie's Boss

Wow, I just can't believe how far computers have come! Just imagine what it will be like in the future! Hey, you know a lot about computers, do you think they will ever be able to make a man?

my first thought was that this guy watched too many sci-fi movies and responded accordingly:

Originally Posted by Brinnie

I'll never happen. Computers simply do not feel emotion.

and then he went on to talk about putting a human brain inside a robotic body ,etc. i dismissed his stupid idea, but 2 years later i started thinking...

RELATIVITY

• FACT: the mind operates on logic. It takes stored data from the past, computes it in the present to generate a calculated outcome for the future. shortcuts.
• FACT: computers operate on logic. they process data off the information they are given. shortcuts, again.
  

THE MACHINE:

the more and more i thought about it, the more and more i started seeing the big picture, which is that man is trying to recreate a man. He does this subconsciously in everything he does. because man desires to survive, he attempts to shorten his workload, so he can have more free time. The computer he built was intended to be a shortcut, AND IT WORKED! Think of all the day to day chores you take for granted. Email vs postal. paying your bills online, etc... Man created countless shortcuts with the computer.

TEH GODZ, LOLZ!!1

it is said that God molded man in his image, but who would have thought that we inherited his same desire to recreate ourselves? ADDITIONALLY, even though it is in very primitive states- computers are being build to learn... I seriously wonder: WHEN WILL WE CREATE A COMPUTER MORE ADVANCED THAN THE BRAIN?

[InfiniteNow]

Fact: Trolls are annoying losers who need to get a life.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Brinnie

WHEN WILL WE CREATE A COMPUTER MORE ADVANCED THAN THE BRAIN?

This isn’t, IMHO, a meaningful question without a definition of “advanced” appropriate to a computer science thread.

“Advanced”, when applied to an objective manner to computer hardware and software, usually refers to numerically quantifiable attributes such as compute cycle speed, arithmatic and addressing word size, memory and storage capacity and access speed, etc. In these senses, computers have been more advanced than human and other animal brains for as long as a couple of decades.

In more general terms, the major quantifiable computational task of biological nervous systems is commonly considered to be visual and other sensory and spatial processing. A seminal paper comparing human and computer capability in these areas is 1997’s “When will computer hardware match the human brain?”, in which Hans Moravec predicts that computers will match humans around 2020.

It should be noted that Moravec’s estimate of an computing speed practically equivalent to the human brain as 1 billion instructions/sec (1,000 MIPS) refers to general (or “universal”) computing speed involving practical memory/storage access, so while commonplace CPUs exceeded 1,000 MIPS computing speed around 1999, the best “universal” speed is still only about 1/10th of the required value. Also, Moravec assumes that programming techniques will be available to effectively utilize available hardware, a considerable leap of faith involving significant technical and scientific challenges. In the not unreasonable event that such techniques are not available in the next decade or two, hardware requirements may be several powers of ten greater than Moravec’s estimates.

[Brinnie]

Originally Posted by CraigD

This isn’t, IMHO, a meaningful question without a definition of “advanced” appropriate to a computer science thread.

go ahead and define it craig, no ones stopping you. but first, i've got just one question: why would you say something like that? what did you hope to gain in saying my question was meaningless? while you've got dictionary.com open, can i get the meaning of meaningless? what i mean to say, is that it's meaningless to state the obvious.

cheers for demonstrating how computers are more advanced than humans

9th ward

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by Brinnie

go ahead and define it craig, no ones stopping you. but first, i've got just one question: why would you say something like that? what did you hope to gain in saying my question was meaningless?

CraigD is explaining why the question is meaningless, he is not attacking you. Please understand that we discuss the *topic* and not your person.

[Brinnie]

ok, tormod

InfiniteNow to called me a retard and i was in defense mode. im very sensitive 2 mean ppl but ill not take it personal

[Zythryn]

Brinnie, I understand your defensiveness.
Since you asked the question, to answer you we need to know YOUR definition of advanced.
For example, one person may say a computer would be more advanced than a human brain when the computer can do advanced mathematics more quickly than a person can (which would mean the answer to your question is now).
Or, one could consider a computer more advanced when it can perform more operations per second than a human brain (I believe that is estimated to happen in the next decade or so).
Or, one could consider a computer only more advanced once it is self aware, able to interact with its enviornment and feel emotion. For that one, I don't know if we will ever get there. It really goes into the realm of speculation.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by CraigD

This isn’t, IMHO, a meaningful question without a definition of “advanced” appropriate to a computer science thread.

Originally Posted by Brinnie

go ahead and define it craig, no ones stopping you. but first, i've got just one question: why would you say something like that?

Brinnie, I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. Hurting people’s feelings evokes an unhappy hurt in my own psyche. I try to avoid doing it.

I made this statement because I believe that the term “advanced”, as defined by the context of your post, was too vague to be discussed in an objective, scientific manner. I did offer several more precise definitions, and invite you to do the same.

A definition that I didn’t offer, which I think is central to this discussion, was offered by Zythryn.

Originally Posted by Zythryn

Or, one could consider a computer only more advanced once it is self aware, able to interact with its enviornment and feel emotion.

This is a venerable and important question, perhaps the most widely discussed single topic in computer science. It has established a pair of opposed philosophical camps, “Strong AI” and “New Mysterianism”, which are, IMHO, well defined in Roger Penrose’s influential (and, IMHO, dazzlingly brilliant) 1990 book “The Emperor's New Mind”. I consider this book, and Douglas Hofstadter’s 1978 “Gödel, Escher, Bach”, essential background for non-technical computer science enthusiasts.

One of the earliest problems recognized with the “self awareness” comparison of humans and computers is the terrible difficulty of objectively defining “self aware”. A famous and very well known resolution to this problem is Allen Turing’s self-named test, which cuts the Gordian knot by objectively defining “a computer equivalent to a human” as something indistinguishable by a human from a human.

So, the most meaningful restatement of “Can we recreate a human?” might be “Can a computer program pass** an unlimited* Turing test?” At present, the answer to this question is “no”, prompting the question “When, if ever, will a computer program pass an unlimited Turing test?”
________________
* By unlimited, I mean that the humans conducting the test may send any text to their chat partners, and continue the test for as long as desired, but not use “outside” data, such as using a human investigator, credit check, to verify a chat partner’s identity, or requiring a physical meeting with him/her/it.
** By pass, I mean, with proper blinding, and a large number of human and computer participants with an equal likelihood of chatting with a human or computer, the humans are able to distinguish computer from human no more than chance expectation.

[Thunderbird]

Many consider Ray Kurzweil the leading expert on this subject. I do not agree with some of his prophitic predictions, but the web site is top notch.

KurzweilAI.net

Sander Olson Interviews Ray Kurzweil
by Sander Olson
Ray Kurzweil



Nonbiological intelligence is multiplying by over 1,000 per decade. Once we can achieve the software of intelligence, which we will achieve through reverse-engineering the human brain, non-biological intelligence will soar past biological intelligence. By the 2040s, nonbiological intelligence will be a billion times more powerful than the 10^26 computations per second that all biological humanity represents.

[alexander]

Brinnie, no disrespect, can i ask you NOT to SCREAM OUT STUFF, it really hurts my eyes, and i'd rather not have to fix it. Do understand, not an attack on your person, but please do have a sense of politeness and please maintain some sort of a netiquette. Not issuing this as a warning, simply asking to "feel me" on this one.

*"feel me" is a term used to see if someone understands what you are talking about.