Re: Uploading with current technology

From: John Robb (jrobb@userland.com)
Date: Tue Dec 10 2002 - 19:37:58 MST


Ben,

Good argument. Unfortunately, nobody is aiming their AIs at the full range
of the attributes you have defined. Also, there would be a significant
dispute as to whether your defined attributes are meaningful.

Augment you or me with technology, and there is no dispute. We each go our
own way. A marketplace of ability.

Sincerely,

John

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Goertzel" <ben@goertzel.org>
To: <sl4@sl4.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2002 8:17 PM
Subject: RE: Uploading with current technology

>
>
> > Basically, this is an intro into why I think it is very difficult (nigh
> > impossible) to build an AI that is superior than a human (across
> > the board).
> > There isn't a clear target to aim at, or a meaningful measure of
success.
>
> This strikes me as a rather silly argument. The fact that "superiority"
is
> subjective is no reason that we can't build AI's that have vastly superior
> intelligence to humans in many meaningful senses.
>
> Are cars and trains "better" than horse-drawn carriages? Are planes
> "better" than birds?
>
> Is human intelligence superior to dog intelligence? Perhaps dog
> intelligence is superior in some senses. It may be superior at finding
> other dogs to mate with, for example....
>
> The vagueness of the word "superior" should be dealt with by proposing
> particular, contextually-meaningful measures of superiority.
>
> I can define a lot of meaningful measures of "superior intelligence."
>
> For example, if I can create a program that can:
>
> 1) Prove any mathematical theorem from the math research literature
(without
> being shown the proof)
>
> 2) Figure out how to modify humans (via genetics and/or pharmacology
and/or
> nanotech) so that humans don't age.
>
> 3) Create a molecular assembler a la Dreyfus
>
> 4) Create original music that the majority of humans find extremely
> emotionally moving
>
> 5) Effectively manage a team of people working on a project via e-mail and
> chat communication
>
> 6) Interact with humans in a way that makes many humans feel positively
> spiritually touched
>
> 7) Formulate a unified theory of the four known physical forces
>
> 8) Defeat any human in all games of mental skill
>
> 9) Perform surgical operations on humans with more skill than any human
>
> 10) Operate mobile robots that drive cars, fly airplanes and spaceships,
and
> climb mountains
>
>
> then I will rate this program as having "superior general intelligence" to
a
> human. Perhaps you don't agree with this list of goals [of course, the
> details could be modified], but it's certainly clear and meaningful....
>
> If you don't agree that this constitutes "superior intelligence", it
doesn't
> really matter to me. You can go along [choosing to have your life
extended
> by this program's inventions, perhaps!] thinking that your intelligence is
> superior or equal to its. I'll bet it won't be too concerned with your
> interpretation of the human concept of "superiority" either ;)
>
> -- Ben G
>
>
>



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