The biggest problem I think for ai is going to be the learning. We learned thru theories/experiments/failures. How you''re going to duplicate this in a computer is a tough question. If the ai can''t validate its theories then it won''t learn and build upon existing knowledge. Unless there is another learning process I''m unaware of. I think the ai needs a context in which it lives and interacts with as I don''t think it can live in a vacuum. For us, the environment is the context and survival is the goal.

Fox: I would say that learning or, more generally, adaptation, is the decisive metric for defining real intelligence. It''s the difference between an autonomous agent and an automoton. If you do not adapt due to your environment you are merely an automoton following a predefined set of rules (however your brain might work), if you adapt to the environment (even if it is maladaption to some degree) then you are autonomous and you dynamically adjust your rule set based on your structural coupling to that environment (your structural coupling defining the domain of perturbations you and your environment can undergo due to interactions with each other). I''m using somewhat esoteric language here, so anyone can ask what the Hell I mean by it
By adaptation I mean everything that changes in you by interaction with your environment, even gaining memories, changing gut instincts and other low level intelligence stuff.

I think adaptation is the essential difference that denotes an important step up in the kind of intelligence an agent has. Consider it the difference between being able to regurgitate facts to get a high IQ (expressing a rules set) vs. being able to learn it in the first place and supply solutions to novel problems.

All IMHO of course

Mike

Hello
I have read this thread with interest. It is a field I have dealt with in my degree for four years. Last year I wrote some of my thoughts no the matter down in an essay. It can be found at

http://www.richardjones.info/home/interests_ac_intel.html

I hope that it is constructive in some of what it says

Richard

The moment an AI technique is mastered, it''s no longer AI, but just another algorithm. But, Yumi, you''re displaying a lack of knowledge: Modern AI game players are more ''intelligent'' than just being more accurate with their weapons. Halo bots will take effective cover, Unreal bots will predict where you''re going to be and intercept you (it''s a little freaky). These techniques take CPU time and research, and both are continually increasing.

In fact, a lot of games pare down the accuracy of bots to make them seem more human, and use better learning and prediction to be more difficult.

AI isn''t just about acting like a human, which is only one model of intellect. It''s about responding with prediction and learning. It''s getting better, not staying the same.

I like pie.

Fox: I would say that learning or, more generally, adaptation, is the decisive metric for defining real intelligence.

i agree here.

and render target, they are not intelligent. they just are told to find the way you have gone. they are not actually changing

____________________________________________________________

as you can see i ramble, but at least i have my own opinion
have a nice day

IMHO, the brain is entirely mechanical. I really don''t see any way that it could be anything but. I''m not going to delve into controversial topics such as religion, but my previous statement seems to be the truth.

Actually darkawakenings, it''s electrobiochemical, but if you meant it''s deterministic and suffers under the laws of physics like everything else, then, yes, it does. If then you mean to say that it is possible to create AI as it has been created in the past and evolution is not a unique mechanism with which to create intelligence I would say I generally agree (though I can''t say for certain and have some pragmatic and theoretical reservations). If you were going to say that we (i.e. humans) could create AI (and by this I mean real AI with understanding, not just intelligent behaviour, which we''ve already created), by default, just because it''s possible, I would say that is no certainty and I would like to hear your reasons.

Mike

> Is a chess computer smart or intelligent?
No, as it cannot learn how to play chess, or how to improve itself.

> But, Yumi, you''re displaying a lack of knowledge: Modern AI game players are
> more ''intelligent'' than just being more accurate with their weapons.
> Halo bots will take effective cover, Unreal bots will predict where
> you''re going to be and intercept you (it''s a little freaky)

Actually there is one game where some kind of AI learned how to improve itself and how to beat you.
It was a RTS called Conflict Zone.
Well, it wasn''t intelligent, it was just using weights to know what should be done next, ie: if it seems like the human player likes doing armies of tanks, then increase the weight of planes and helicopters, and so on.
Still, that was the best ai ever seen in a rts game I think - but other points - rendering, user interface, etc...- sucked too much and the game was a flop

Whenever the AI community solves a problem, the solution ceases to be AI in the public imagination; it''s just another computer program. So AI researchers who succeed are never really credited with furthering AI researchers; they just invented another algorithm. That doesn''t mean that, in reality, it''s not AI of a sort. We just don''t see it that way.

As for strong AI, who cares? That''ll happen around the same time we invent personal teleporters, drive around flying cars, and vacation on the moon. Let ''em try though. It''s always healthy to have someone working for the impossible; they figure out useful stuff in the process.

The reason AI becomes just a computer algoirthm once it''s developed is that we all have the same vague idea of what intelligence is, and it''s a lot more than a computer vision algorithm, although that''s likely part of it.

If you grow an eyeball from a human stem cell, you wouldn''t say that you cloned a human, would you?