Quote: Original post by Kylotan
One very simple definition might be: Attempting to modify behaviour appropriately according to its environment.

By that token,every living organism is intelligent.Even the most simple ones,like viruses.

"application of analogy, especially in reference to self"

Would be the less than 20 word definition I would go for - mainly because of ideas spread by Minsky and programs being created by Hofstadter.

I think the most exciting AI programs are coming from Hofstadter and the Fluid Analogies Research Group (FARG). Everyone interested in strong AI (or copmuter science for that matter) should have read Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.

The book Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies, consists of a number of papers on the early programs and the general architecture and approach being employed. This isn't high level intelligence that is being created (though maybe it is a blueprint for the future) instead most of the programs work in microdomains - but the results are creative and interesting. For a understanding of how these programs are different and interesting I recommend getting this book (Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies) out - should be available in most Uni libraries.

Program include Jumbo, Copycat (which play with letter sequences) then recently Letterspirit (create a uniform style of font for the alphabet) and Metacat (which is able to analyse itself to some extent, and continues playing games with letters)

This guy is currently working on extending metacat.

The dissertation written about metacat has a great intro and background information that will explain how everything works if you want to learn more.

(If you expect HAL this might all be a litte dissapointing, but I think this is the basic seed from which creative AI will grow. Knowledge bases and stuff like Cyc, I feel, are dead ends for intelligent, self-modifying AIs)

Quote: Original post by mikeman

Quote: Original post by Kylotan
One very simple definition might be: Attempting to modify behaviour appropriately according to its environment.

By that token,every living organism is intelligent.Even the most simple ones,like viruses.

i dont think viruses are defined as living organisms

some say that intellignece == simulation

i agree

Quote: Original post by johnnyBravo

Quote: Original post by mikeman

Quote: Original post by Kylotan
One very simple definition might be: Attempting to modify behaviour appropriately according to its environment.

By that token,every living organism is intelligent.Even the most simple ones,like viruses.

i dont think viruses are defined as living organisms

Are you talking about the same viruses (deseases and such) or one is talking about deseases and the other about computer viruses?
Because i think viruses (the desease ones) are indeed living organisms.
About the other ones (computer viruses), quoting Stephen Hawking:
"I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image."

We must also not forget that intelligence is not a human-only property. It's also present in animals. I once saw a documentary about intelligence in animals and parrots (just to name one of them) revealed a good dose of intelligence. We humans, just have it in greater degree (well, i'm the exception to this rule).
How about: "the abillity to solve new problems"

viruses are not living organisms.

they solely contain of a hull and their DNA inside, nothing more. they do nothing a living organism does. they don't reproduce themselves on their own, a virus puts its DNA into other cells that then breed new copies of that virus.
they don't even eat :D (bacteries do "eat")

Quote: Original post by mikeman

Quote: Original post by Kylotan
One very simple definition might be: Attempting to modify behaviour appropriately according to its environment.

By that token,every living organism is intelligent.Even the most simple ones,like viruses.

You're right. And in some situations, that's a useful classification, depending on what sort of 'intelligence' you're after. This whole exercise is largely futile in isolation, hence my deliberately wide-scoping definition.

The ability to use past experiences and current instinct to determine choice more effectively.

I agree with gryfang,

I think intelligence is using past experiences, and logic (hopefully not looking for another def) to solve new, previously unseen problems.

I consider logic to be a more advanced form of instinct.

edit: i stumbled on this a minute ago
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."
albert einstein :)

[Edited by - Infuscare on July 6, 2004 1:23:10 PM]

I think that the problem with defining "intelligence" is that it isn't black and white. It's a matter of degree. "How intelligent is something?" is a much more appropriate question. Is X more or less intelligent than the average human. Of course, that implies that intelligence is a one-dimensional measurement. But intelligence could be defined to be multi-dimensional. Some people have math related intelligence. Some people have artistic intelligence. Some have every-day-practical intelligence. And in each of these categories, you aren't either intelligent or not intelligent. You have a degree of intelligence of each type.

If I were to assume just one single category of intelligence, then I would say that pretty much anything and everything that does something according to some ruleset is intelligent, to some degree or another. More specifically, the degree of intelligence is determined by the complexity of the rules which an entity follows. Under this definition, even a hydrogen atom has a very very limited level of knowledge. Relative to that, a virus is much more intelligent. And relative to a virus, humans are incredibly more intelligent still. And if you wanna call the entire earth an "entity", then I'd say that it is unbelievably intelligent. Maybe the definition is too broad, but I kinda like it (although I do have my reservations regarding it).