There are many definitions of intelligence and the usage largely depends on the context in which one wishes to apply it. As a student of Cognitive Science I would argue that information processing effiiciency and computational capacity is a criteria that can be universally applied to any intelligent system. This I include animal, human, and artificial intelligence (AI). The American Futurist Ray Kurzweil even goes as far as to say that matter down to the atomic level may be regarded as intelligent in the future once we have the technology to harness its computational and IP capabilities through mechanisms such as quantum computing.
There has been a debate for many years amongst the Cognitive Science community as to whether an AI program in an un-embodied context can be regarded as intelligent. Many strong AI theorists argue that computation alone is sufficient for intelligence. However more recently Cognitive Scientists have placed emphasis on a systems embodiment, arguing we cannot regard an IP system as intelligent if it has no real world context. I am of the opinion that embodiment is a key feature of true intelligence. Thus AI can only be regarded as intelligent if it is embodied in some sort of robot. Relatively speaking we have not made much progress, but progress is accelerating exponentially. Rodney Brooks and his team at MIT are making good progress in designing robots that could situate AI in a real world context. In terms of IP capacity and realism of robotics we are around the levels of real insects today.
Many might believe that today's supercomputers must have IP capacities of at least humans due to their speed, but this is not true. Bare in mind the human brain has several 100 billion neurons (processing units) each with over 1000 interconnections: That's a lot of IP power! The average human brain can perform 10 to the power of 25 calculations per second, while Blue Gene/P, the world's most powerful supercomputer, is stuck at 10 to the power of 7 calculations per second. Of course in terms of number crunching, supercomputers outperform by far; but they are nothing like as good as humans at IP in real world contexts such as pattern recognition. Bare in mind as well that human brains work through parallel processing that has to deal with millions of functions Only time will tell whether computers develop to our level but its more than likely at current rates of growth. (For further discussion see Ray Kurzweil (2005) "The Singularity is near")
Wisdom on the other hand is something that at least currently can only be applied to humans. I'm sure many readers will maintain that computer controlled robots will never be considered wise. However I am not going to rule out the possibility.
Again there are countless definitions of wisdom. A good definition I believe is our ability to utilize our knowledge and act upon it in the most efficient way. For us humans, this usually comes with experience. We learn from our mistakes and gain wisdom with age as we build up highly structured informational patterns in our brains. With wisdom we are also able to complete intelligent tasks without all the necessary information currently available. Largely I believe this is the case because we are such brilliant pattern recognizers.
Ultimately there is no objective definition of intelligence or wisdom. However there are clear differences between the two. There is strong reason to believe that once AI becomes embodied and considerably better at pattern recognition, we will be able to regard its behavior as not only intelligent; but wise aswell.
1 comment:
One of the big differences I see between computers and brains, is the ability of the computer to perform without error. I especially notice this with chess playing computers. Though they are unable to plan, and their evaluation of positions is not that great, their tactical calculations, are error free, where as, humans blunder often. Computers never overlook mate!
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