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Human vs Computer Intelligence

DrLudicrous writes "The NYTimes is running an article regarding tests devised to differentiate from human and computer intelligence. One example are captchas, which can consists of a picture of words, angled and superimposed. A human will be able to read past the superposition, while a computer will not, and thus fails the test. It also goes a bit into some of Turing's predictions of what computers would be like by the year 2000."

149 of 405 comments (clear)

  1. Non-issue. by grub · · Score: 3, Funny


    Anyone that has seen Star Trek:TNG knows that Data is a pretty smart fella.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:Non-issue. by Subcarrier · · Score: 5, Funny

      You have a point, though. Data can read, unlike 23% of the American population.

      --
      "I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
    2. Re:Non-issue. by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Funny

      >> You have a point, though. Data can read, unlike 23% of the American population

      He also got laid, unlike 97% of the slashdot population.

      --
      I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    3. Re:Non-issue. by Subcarrier · · Score: 4, Informative

      Sorry, my friend, but you're off by 20%. According to the UN, 97% of Americans can read. Not as many was we'd like, but far from 23% illiterate.

      That depends on whether you count level 1 literacy (that's roughly equivalent to being able to recognize street signs) as being able to read.

      --
      "I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
    4. Re:Non-issue. by jonadab · · Score: 3, Interesting

      > According to the UN, 97% of Americans can read.

      That depends on how you define "read". Maybe 97% or more of Americans
      can read at a basic level, but quite a few of them get lost if you
      start using words that are moderately unusual, words with more than
      about two syllables, or sentences with more than two clauses, or if
      you require a reading speed that approaches the speed at which people
      normally talk. I could easily believe 23% can't read in a natural and
      easy fashion or read more advanced stuff. I'd be guessing at the
      figure, but that sounds pretty close to me. It's worse in some areas
      than others, of course. Galion is probably about 20%. The inner
      cities tend to be worse.

      Also, the percentage who can write coherently is way lower than the
      percentage who can read; I would hesitate to call anywhere near 97%
      of the population literate if the ability to construct a sentence
      and put it to paper is part of the expectation.

      Of course, computers write even worse than they read. (If they're
      making it up as they go, that is. If they have prefab stuff they
      can do pretty well, but that's different.)

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
    5. Re:Non-issue. by DennyK · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That doesn't really indicate illiteracy. Americans are not used to royal titles. Almost all titles commonly used in this country are usually followed by the surname of the person they describe, so it becomes a habit of sorts to assume that, say, "Dr. Smith's" first name is NOT Smith. Granted, "Charles" is not a name most people would think of as a surname when seen by itself, but I can see how the question might stump some folks if they were asked on the spot and didn't really think about it. (I haven't seen the mentioned show, but I'm guessing it was some guy wandering around the street sticking a microphone in random people's faces and asking them questions...am I way off here? ;) ) Doesn't mean they're stupid or illiterate, it just means that habit dictated their instinctive response ("Um...I don't know...") instead of logical reasoning, which is not unusual in that kind of situation.

      DennyK

  2. I failed! by Trusty+Penfold · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I did the gimpy test.

    Results
    Result of the Test: FAIL

    You entered the following words:

    school
    tall
    warm

    The words possibly displayed in the image were:

    able
    tongue
    tongue
    full
    train
    pictur e
    shelf
    It switched pictures on me! Honest!!

    1. Re:I failed! by Dachannien · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well, it looks like you got lucky - that server won't be switching images on *anyone* for some time now ;)

    2. Re:I failed! by roseblood · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You failed? You don't want to know how poorly I did with my contacts out. I figure the makers of the test regard those with poor/no eyesight as being of less than human intelegence.

      --
      There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
    3. Re:I failed! by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 2

      No, there are alternative tests, such as audio ones.

    4. Re:I failed! by egreB · · Score: 2

      They display just fine in Opera 6.1 Beta on Linux. I even passed the test (-8

    5. Re:I failed! by The+Notorious+ASP · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I failed a couple of times as well

      It seems there are several problems here, First in my mind is some of these would be impossible for my color blind friends to pull off. Also, with the level of distortion, some were hard for even a person with reasonable sight to get. Finally, this just sucks and is a pain in the arse.

      Why not use something simplier, easier, and less resource intensive such as:
      1) What is 2 + 4?
      2) What is seven minus four?
      3) What year is it?
      4) How many days are in January?
      5) How many hours are in a day?

      I mean, I could come up with these all day... I'm sure bots wouldn't be able to read a question, interpret it, and post the correct answer, but hey, correct me if I'm wrong.

  3. Good test by avandesande · · Score: 2

    can it get drunk?

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
  4. Difference = Taunting by Fastball · · Score: 5, Funny

    The difference between computer and human intelligence is the human ability to revel in his. That is, taunt others. Until a computer can get in my grill and explain to me on a colorful fashion that I am nothing more than a grab-ass-tic piece of *human* sh!t, then I won't think much of computers.

    1. Re:Difference = Taunting by Nevermore-Spoon · · Score: 3, Funny

      for all you Red Dwarf Fans....two words...

      Smug Mode

      --
      I have great faith in fools; My friends call it self-confidence. Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1845
  5. In case its slashdotted: by stratjakt · · Score: 4, Funny

    Welcome to The New York Times on the Web!
    For full access to our site, please complete this simple registration form.
    As a member, you'll enjoy:

    In-depth coverage and analysis of news events from The New York Times FREE
    Up-to-the-minute breaking news and developing stories FREE
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    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  6. Better test by ThrasherTT · · Score: 2

    Can it realize when its at the point where one more drop of alcohol will send it to the toilet?

    --

    All Your Memory Are Belong To Java
  7. Is this a joke? by .sig · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sure, computers aren't as smart as people. Wow.
    Computers are not good at complex pattern recognition. Wow.

    For the record, computers can recognize words like this, just not very easily. With a big enough dictionary and a lot of patience, you'd be suprised at what they can do. While still an undergrad I was able to write a rather simple program that would recognize images of the cardinal numerals, even if they were highly mangled, and worked with a grad student in building something that could pick out certain features of a rotated image and by comaring with some sample features, rotate the image correctly.

    --
    -Space for rent
    1. Re:Is this a joke? by Bastian · · Score: 2

      Don't forget, though. These articles are aimed at the kinds of people who don't understand that computers are nothing more than machines that follow instructions, and are no smarter than the instructions given to them.

      The semicoherent and coherent articles that talk about the capabilities of algorithms rather than the machines they run on are all in the research journals.

    2. Re:Is this a joke? by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 2

      You should sell your program to Project Gutenberg.

    3. Re:Is this a joke? by Washizu · · Score: 2

      "computers... are no smarter than the instructions given to them"

      Neither are you or anyone else.

      --
      OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
    4. Re:Is this a joke? by susano_otter · · Score: 2

      Whatever that means. It's not like human and machine intelligences are anywhere near similar enough to make that kind of comparison.

      --

      Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.

    5. Re:Is this a joke? by susano_otter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If that's true, then it really doesn't make sense to attribute Nietzche's conclusions to Nietzche, since they were also deterministic. The Universe figured it out, and Nietzche just manifested a phenomenon.

      The counter-argument is that formal systems (such as modern computers) have logical limitations that are not evident in human cognition. Therefore, machines must either make the same leap in complexity such that their actual thought processes can no longer be mapped directly to the underlying formal system, or else remain forever inferior to natural intelligences.

      It's also interesting to wonder if Nietzche knew about (or even could have known about) the discovery that nothing is deterministic at the subatomic level. Would he have persisted in his belief that intelligence was deterministic, or would he have theorized that it was probabilistic?

      --

      Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.

    6. Re:Is this a joke? by Huge+Pi+Removal · · Score: 2

      If you look closely at the scans that the distributed proof-reading project give you to check for Project G, they're of far, far worse quality than the mangled letters that gimpy-r gives you. I've never programmed image-processing software before, but given what I do know of programming I'd say that it's a relatively simple task to untangle those 4 twisty letters than it is a lumpy, blurry scan. And OCR software usually does a pretty damn good job.

      --
      - Oliver

      The right to bear arms is only slightly less stupid than the right to arm bears...
    7. Re:Is this a joke? by kfg · · Score: 2

      And I've been working on a image recognition program that will handle the timing and scoring of racing events by "knowing" who/what it is that has just crossed the timing mark.

      This doesn't make my computer smart. People tend to think of computers as "smart" because they can do certain things that smart people do, and do them better. Like math. Well, so can my pocket calculator, which is dumb as a rock. And so is your computer. Literally.

      I like to do this when I'm teaching computers to a bunch of newbies, like I might when I volunteer at an "Senior Center." I put a piece of quartz in my pocket. As soon as someone is obviously acting like they are intimidated by the computer because it's "smarter than they are" I pull the quartz out of my pocket and ask:

      "What's this?"

      To which the response is almost always:

      "A rock?"

      "Right. In fact, this is a piece of silicon crystal. Essentially the same thing your computer's "brain" is made from. Your computer is is about the smartest rock that any human has ever seen, but that *still* means it's as dumb as a rock. Your problem isn't that the computer is smarter than you are. Your problem is that the computer is so dumb, and you are so smart, that you have a hard time being dumb enough to communicate with it on its level. It only knows a few words and has to hear them exactly right. It can't figure out what you "meant" because it isn't smart enough."

      I then go on to show how a computer codes things with the handful of Othello chips I keep in my other pocket.

      "See, it's just like Morse code really, except the computer is so dumb that every letter has to have 256 dots and dashes even when only one would do. It's just a bunch of switches. It isn't a "brain." Flip the switches in a certain order and computer "knows" it's an a. But it's so dumb it doesn't know that A and a are the same thing really. You have to tell it that by flipping the switches in a different order. Everything a computer does is done by flipping these switches. The computer has a *lot* of switches in it, but they're all still just switches. Some of the switches switch other switches, so it does certain things automatically, but a *human* had to tell it to do it that way. And YOU have to tell it to do what that other human told it *how* to do, or the dumb thing just sits there."

      A computer is a big abacus. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not even a very good abacus because it's beads only count in binary. So we include a LOT of beads.

      But it's still just a piece of rock.

      I have a device in my house that has memorized Shakespeare. Every word the great Bard ever wrote is infalably etched in this device's memory. It can reproduce them at will, perfectly, ad infinitum. Any person who did this would be considered pretty damned smart, or at least a savant, but this device is no smarter than a mashed up dead tree that's had some stains spattered on it. No one has ever accused a book of being "smart" no matter what data in contains.

      Because a computer is a machine, even though it's really just a big book made up of switches, it can do things " on it's own" that can appear amazing to a human onlooker. That doesn't mean it's *not* still just a machine under ultimate human control. Remember those little plastic adding machines used for grocery shopping where you pushed the buttons on top to make them work? In many repects your computer isn't quite as sophisticated as that machine. It has to make up for that lack of sophistication with a greater number of buttons.

      Put in enough buttons and you can press them to produce Quake, but that's *still* all you or your computer is doing. Philosophically there's nothing to see here, move along.

      The computer isn't smart. The *people* who arranged the button pushing are smart.

      The human brain, although a physical device, is *not* arranged like your computer. Although it has some hard wired robotic functions ( like those that make your heart beat) it's essesntial structure is NOT an arrangment of simple binary switches, one attached to another. Neurons are often connected to several other neurons. When a neuron fires it fires through a complex chemical "soup" and it's the exact properties of that "soup" and how it reacts to and moderates the firing that determines what a firing "means."

      The brain is an analog device, not digital, and a simple single neuron firing has the capacity to mean nearly and infinite number of things. Because the firing is transmitted through these chemicals neurons merely in the "neighborhood" of the firing neuron can also extract data from the firing, even though they aren't directly involved.

      The complexity of data transmitable by just a few thousand neurons firing is staggering.

      No computer yet devised can even come close to just a few thousand neurons. There aren't enough fundemental particles in the universe to construct such a purely switch based digital computer.

      Even Deep Blue itself was a moron. It cheated. It was programed to beat a *single* human. Whereas that human ( at the time) was programed to beat *every human on earth* because it could pull a trick Deep Blue couldn't.

      It could use the complexity inherent in the physical makeup of the human brain to *reprogram itself.* It can do this so well that even if certain portions of the physical brain itself are damaged it can reprogram other parts of the brain, sometimes parts that were once thought to be purely robotic in function, to take over the function of the damaged part ( there are, of course, limits to this).

      It can even reprogram itself to interfere with, and conciously control, certain of the robotic functions. This is called biofeedback. Anyone can learn it ( and anyone who does can make a "lie detector" do anything they want it to. It simply takes putting in the time to learn how).

      Competitive shooters take this so far that they actually *stop their hearts* while taking a shot so that its beat won't throw off their aim.

      The shooter, unlike the biofeedbacker, doesn't do this conciously however. Their brain, all on it's "own," has *figured out* that for this person making a perfect shot is important, that the heartbeat interferes with that goal, and *stops the heart* for the duration needed to take the shot. (THIS is what makes the biathalon one of the hardest athletic events ever undertaken. Competitors have to go from the event requiring the greatest load on the heart known, to one which requires a ZERO heart rate, and back to maximum load, all against the clock. These athletes are just plain fucking amazing! No matter how doofey you think the event is)

      No computer, no matter what sort of "amazing" mechanical stunts it pulls, comes even close to this sort of concious and *unconcious* intelligent behaviour.

      It would be like part of the Northbridge going bad and spontaniously reprograming part of the Southbridge to partially take over its function and keep the machine up and running.

      Does this mean I don't think we'll ever build a machine that will be truely intelligent?

      No, not at all. I think we might even do it in my lifetime ( despite my advancing middle agedness), but I don't think we'll do it by *adding more beads to abacus.* Nor do I think we'll do it by making the beads switch faster.

      We'll do it by making the bead/bead interaction more complex. We've entered the digital age. We'll have true AI when we, in some ways, outgrow that and go back to the analog age.

      *Analog carries more information per cubic centimeter of matter than anything else.*

      That's why we still use magnetic tape for backups.

      Digital carries more *precise* data than analog. Your brain is analog. You forget things. You make mistakes. Maybe you could even go crazy.

      *So will true AI*

      Think about that. It has vast implications.

      To be honest most of us don't really *want* true AI. We want "smarter" machines. We want machines that do more of we want them to without our having to tell them. In fact, we want this so much we don't insist they be intelligent so much as we demand they be clairvoyent. Like the gentleman featured here a while ago who has a vision of search engines going out on the web and not just finding the data you want but presenting to you ( or your professor) as a written paper on the subject.

      That isn't AI. That's wishing you had a genie who always knew exactly what you wanted and just did it for you.

      And THAT, boys and girls, fantasy.

      Oh, we'll make machines that do that sort of thing better than they do now, because that's the sort of machine we're trying to make, and we can do better.

      But we'll NEVER make that machine that writes your papers for you, always has the house at the right temperature at the right time, lit up just so and stocks your refridgerator with just *exactly* what you're going to want, when you want it.

      Because you have a brain. You are intelligent ( although the evidence somtimes belies this statement) and intelligence is fickle and *unpredictable.* That's why Dewey didn't win ( ask your mother).

      It could save us all a lot of trouble if you would all just except this fact right now and let those of us working on the problems get on with achievable, non fantasy based, goals. Really it would.

      You don't believe you really don't want AI? Ok, but you think this way because you want "realistic" computer "bots" in Quake ( or because you really want that fantasy genie as mentioned above). That's not true AI, that's a *model* of AI. THAT we can do better, even with just a bank of switches.

      REAL AI would get into an argument with you over whether it was going to let you play Quake right now or not. REAL AI would decide *IT* was too cold and turn up the heat in your house until you fried no matter what you did. REAL AI would decide Doritos were bad for you and refuse to place the order.

      Just like your girlfriend/boyfriend/mother does now, *because* they have intelligence.

      You *don't* want AI. You want clairvoyent servants. Ok, we're working on the servant part. Clairvoyence is a myth. As I said, get used to it.

      For that matter it wouldn't hurt you to get up off your lazy ass and just do a few more things for yourself. Is it too hot in here. Turn down the heat. We've already given you robot that will keep it at any given temperature you *tell it to* under understandable "standard conditions."

      For non standard conditions, use your own intelligence before telling the robot what to do. It won't hurt. You're all smart people. Or at least smarter than most, or you wouldn't be in this thread to begin with.

      Who really wants AI? Well, for starters, the people who do things just to see if they can do them. I fall into that catagory. I think the *usefulness* of AI is highly limited, for the reasons given above and some others, but's it's a fascinating problem, isn't it? Well, let's have at it then.

      Psycologists and social engineers would love to have an AI brain to pick at and prod at in the lab with no legislative or outside interference.

      Certain creative endeavors actually tend to come out better not if the "machine" does it better for you, but if it *does* argue with you about *which way* is best. Sometimes AI will be right, sometimes it will be wrong, but if the person interacting with it doesn't abrogate their own intelligence to the "mechanical brain" ( as I'm afraid most do already with their dumb as rocks PC's) then the interaction will bring up new ideas and a new synthesis.

      Of course you can do this with other *people* already.

      And of course there is a final point to consider:

      *Intelligence doesn't necessarily have to be HUMAN*

      KFG

    8. Re:Is this a joke? by jpmorgan · · Score: 2
      The counter-argument is that formal systems (such as modern computers) have logical limitations that are not evident in human cognition.

      How do you know there aren't logical limitations inherant in human cognition? I think by definition making that claim without a very complex and subtle analysis is absurd, and cognitive science isn't nearly up to that level yet.

    9. Re:Is this a joke? by susano_otter · · Score: 2
      Sorry, I should have said "a possible counter-argument". As far as a complex and subtle analysis to support this argument, you can find one here.

      The core argument seems to go something like this: Human minds are capable of contemplating paradoxical self-reference and infinite recursion, without getting trapped in infinite loops. Godel has proven that no formal system can do these things. Computers use formal systems. Therefore, computers cannot contemplate paradoxical self-reference or infinite recursion, without becoming trapped in an infinite loop. Therefore, computers have logical limitations which are not evident in human cognition. Q.E.D.

      But it is a very subtle and complex analysis, as you predicted, and I may have missed something important in my reading. You really should try it for yourself.

      --

      Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.

    10. Re:Is this a joke? by susano_otter · · Score: 2

      Sorry for the double reply. I just wanted to point out that I never said there were no logical limitations to human cognition, just that there were logical limitations in computer cognition that were not evident in human cognition. If computers are to be equivalent to humans in intelligence, these limitations need to be removed. The question was never about whether there are limitations on human cognition that keep us from being even more intelligent than we are.

      --

      Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.

    11. Re:Is this a joke? by susano_otter · · Score: 2
      Well that's true, but once you learn that free will isn't truly free (since it's preordained)...

      I wasn't aware that a theory of total determinism had been proven.

      Grey areas abound.

      If human behavior (and, in fact, all phenomena) truly is deterministic, then there should be no gray areas at all. Our reactions to pedophiles and murderers are predetermined. We may think there's gray areas, but we don't have any choice about how we judge them. I don't "have to" accept anything--in fact, I can't accept or reject anything. All I can do is manifest phenomena.

      Also, the probabilistic effects that we observe at a subatomic level do not prove that the mind (or the universe) is probabilistic at its core.

      Of course not. But new discoveries in one field often influence the direction of new thought in other fields. Newtonian physics is deterministic, and so a deterministic model of consciousness at least mirrors observed physical phenomena. Quantum physics is probabilistic--and now we're talking about the fundamental stuff the universe is made of! Would this knowledge (that at its most basic level, reality is proabilistic) have influenced Nietzche's theories on human cognition? Or Laplace's? Or mine?

      The effects are equally well explained by hidden variables that we cannot measure.

      True, but proposing hypothetical, unprovable variables does no more to prove that cognition is deterministic, than Schroedinger's wave equations do to prove that it's probabilistic. At least the wave equations can be tested in the lab.

      --

      Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.

  8. Human intelligence by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We are never going to have a machine that is truly "human". Let me explain.

    That doesn't mean we won't have intelligent machines that can do just about anything intellectually that a human can do. A human being is more than just a smart computer. Our behavior is governed not only by the higher logic of our brain, but also by millions of years of bizarre -- often obsolete -- instincts. If you yanked a brain out of a body and hooked it to a computer, it would no longer be truly human because of the lack of hormonal responses that come from every part of the body.

    It's simply going to be too hard/impractical and, frankly, useless to make an intelligent machine that mimicked every hormonal reaction and instinctual mechanism.

    We will have intelligent machines, but we will never have human machines.

    --
    Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
    1. Re:Human intelligence by guidobot · · Score: 5, Funny
      hey, that's a truly well thought out and insightful post. EXCEPT for that the article is about how to prevent computers from automatically signing up for yahoo accounts (or pretending to be human online). frankly, i don't think yahoo is interested in the "lack of hormonal responses coming from every part of the body" -- unless they can find a hormone-testing software package they can use as part of the registration process.

      RTFA... that applies to moderators too.

    2. Re:Human intelligence by djembe2k · · Score: 5, Interesting
      You're mixing up levels here.

      No computer will have hormones, or millions of years of evolution, or bad hair days, or dendrites, or lots of things we have. But that's all beneath the surface, as it were. Turing's point is that whatever intelligence is beneath the surface, ultimately all we see if the phenomena of intelligence, its outward manifestations. If I decide whether or not you are an intelligent human (as opposed to a computer or a coffee table or a CD playing your voice), I don't see the gears turning inside your head, or really care if you've got actual gears or not. I just interact with you, and get an impression.

      The idea here is that to pass Turing's test, you create a machine with the outward appearance of all of those things, by abstracting the phenomena from the underlying causes.

      What your argument gets closer to is a slightly different point. Why would we want to create a computer that is indistinguishable from people? People make mistakes in their addition. People lie. People get depression and schizophrenia. People can be bastards. People don't want you to turn them off, and will fight like hell to stop you from doing it. If we really create an accurate simulation of human intelligence, one that acts like a person with neurons and hormones and everything else, you get all this baggage with it.

      I'd really like intelligent agents to search the web for me, to remind me about things I didn't tell them to remind me about, whatever. But I don't see the practical need to create a Turing testable machine, unless it is really an interim step by the AI gurus to get to the programs I want. Now, there may be a theoretical need, a human drive to create Turning's definition of AI because the gauntlet has been thrown down, but that's a different animal, ironically enough.

    3. Re:Human intelligence by Esteban · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That humans are too complicated for us to reproduce artificially is an empirical claim, and it's one that I think is likely true.

      Even if it turned out that we were able to produce what we'd now count as a "human machine," I think that we would then deny that it was human. That is, I suspect that it's a conceptual claim that there will never be any such thing as a human machine.

      No matter how human or intelligent a machine is, it'll never count as human (or even fully possessed of human intelligence, whatever that is), since the bar will be raised. (Consider that at one point, people thought the hallmark of being human was being rational and that the characteristic activity of rational beings was doing math...)

      When we've got a machine that passes all of the existing tests, someone'll ask "but why doesn't it cry during 'Sleepless in Seattle'?" or "why doesn't it hate Jar Jar?" or "does it get easily embarassed?"

    4. Re:Human intelligence by wdr1 · · Score: 2

      It's simply going to be too hard/impractical and, frankly, useless to make an intelligent machine that mimicked every hormonal reaction and instinctual mechanism.

      Funny. Similar things were said about creating GUIs.

      -Bill

      --
      SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
    5. Re:Human intelligence by Tim+Macinta · · Score: 2
      ...unless they can find a hormone-testing software package they can use as part of the registration process.
      You mean like this?
    6. Re:Human intelligence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, the biggest difference between computers and humans is their ability to interact with the world. A robot is a hybrid of the two, but even robots do not have the ability to sense everything that humans can, especially not at the same time. So yes, it is impractical and probably even undesireable to mimic a human completely because all of those stimuli that we experience every day make us very unpredictable. Our algorithms (emotions) are so complex that we can't even fully describe them, much less replicate them in a robot/computer. To top it off, humans have an enourmous concept of state (memory) such that a single experience in early childhood can affect us decades later. Sure we could mimic this kind of resources and sensing in a computer/robot, but would it make the robot/computer more useful to us?

    7. Re:Human intelligence by efflux · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Our behavior is governed not only by the higher logic of our brain, but also by millions of years of bizarre -- often obsolete -- instincts.

      Please elaborate on what you mean by instinct. How does this differ from any other algorithm? Certainly it was created by evolutionary processes, but we can also conceive of an algorithm where the algorithm itself is compartmentalized and acteded upon by a Genetic Algorithm, thus simulating evolution. We may not expect the resulting algorithm to be very usefull due to the complexity/nuances of selection, yet it should certainly do something.

      If you yanked a brain out of a body and hooked it to a computer, it would no longer be truly human because of the lack of hormonal responses that come from every part of the body.
      A couple of points:
      1) What is human? You have not defined what it is to be human, therefore, it becomes impossible to say unequivocally what it is NOT to be human. 2) Hormonal responses can be looked at in a variety of ways: 1) Such responses, in fact, are simply another stimulus. We would expect any intelligent machine to react differently under a different set of stimuli.
      2) The endocrine system also comprises the machine that is "human intelligence" and by removing a part of the machine, we, in effect, cripple it.

      As a final point, we are not interested in Human machines per se. Simply machine that are human-like, primarily intelligent in a manner that we may communicate with them and share a semblance of understanding.

      --
      Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. -- Walt Whitman
    8. Re:Human intelligence by Kragg · · Score: 2

      What do we say when the "machine" has a child with a "real" human?

      We say 'What the FUCK is going on?!?'

      --
      If you can't see this, click here to enable sigs.
    9. Re:Human intelligence by Rubyflame · · Score: 2

      IIRC, the idea of the "singularity" was that with computers designing computers, Moore's Law would speed up. IE, when the computers which design the chips are twice as fast as they used to be, it'll take only one year to double computer speeds, then 6 months, then 3 months, then 6 weeks, etc. In other words, within a period of 2 years, processing power will diverge to infinity. This is, after all, why it's called the "singularity."

      The web page you refer to erroneously defines the singularity as the moment when we become "capable of technologically creating smarter-than-human intelligence." This is a misinformed definition, because it does not describe a (mathematical) singularity, which is a vertical asymptote in some function.

      A true singularity in intelligence would be a big deal, because it would, in effect, save humanity from the end of the universe; in the time leading up to the singularity, it would be possible to think an infinite number of thoughts, equivalent to living forever.

      Unfortunately, such a singularity is impossible if what we know of physics is true. If the universe is discrete, rather than continuous, then it can only contain a finite amount of data. The laws of quantum mechanics are much more fundamental than Moore's law! I'm not saying it'll happen soon, but at some point, computers are doomed to stop getting faster unless some miracle occurs.

      --

      All it takes is nukes and nerves.
    10. Re:Human intelligence by Mittermeyer · · Score: 2

      I must disagree, we'll just have to model the hormonal system as input variables that affect entire subsets of processes.

      Think of it as a virtual X86 emulator, we'll have to emulate all the 'firmware' issues our glands bring to the table.

      No the big problem will be when no one wants to emulate us anymore because we are obsolete....

      --
      ________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
    11. Re:Human intelligence by infolib · · Score: 2

      The web page you refer to erroneously defines the singularity as the moment when we become "capable of technologically creating smarter-than-human intelligence." This is a misinformed definition, because it does not describe a (mathematical) singularity, which is a vertical asymptote in some function.

      I should have linked more specifically. The idea of the Singularity Institute is exactly that, though it doesn't say clearly enough on the front page. I quote:

      The Singularity is beyond huge, but it can begin with something small. If one smarter-than-human intelligence exists, that mind will find it easier to create still smarter minds. [...] That one technological advance is the equivalent of the first self-replicating chemical that gave rise to life on Earth.

      You're probably right that physics sets an upper limit. On the other hand, the idea of a self-improving intelligence is immensely cool, even if it has that upper barrier. Singinst.org get -3 for feasibility, but +10 for cool ;-)

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
  9. I feel a disturbance in the force... by condour75 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I was looking through the times and saw this article, did a search through google on the term "captchas", and based on the speed of the page's return, i immediately knew that there was a slashdot article.

    I'd like to see AI figure THAT one out! I call it Automatic Slashdot Slowdown Effect Detection, or ASSED for short.

  10. The New Turing Test? by Flamesplash · · Score: 5, Funny

    A I mentioned at the bottom of this journal entry. I think a new version of the Turing test should be whether a computer can tell the difference between a Human and a Computer.

    --
    "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
    1. Re:The New Turing Test? by Sri+Lumpa · · Score: 2


      I don't know why it was modded as funny instead of insightful but whatever.

      This is exactly the idea I suggested to my AI teacher as being probably a more rational step between current days AI and a hard AI.

      Think about it, most (all?) current AI are very easy to spot by humans because they use some formulaes and the input form the last two or three sentences. If we could make a program to detect this then you could test your AI against it, without having to set up a blind test where the guy testing the AI wouldn't know if it was an AI or not (and if he knows its an AI his judgement of its quality is already biased by that knowledge).

      When you get a new generations of improved AI using better tricks that the anti-AI software doesn't recognise you have to adapt/rewrite it, so you can use it for testing the AI.

      Goto start.

      IMO the biggest problem would be false positives, when the program takes (stupid?) humans for AI.

      --
      "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
  11. Here's a test by sielwolf · · Score: 4, Funny

    [Kicks first man in balls]
    First Man [falls over]: "AAAAAHH!"
    Me: "Human."
    [Kicks second man in balls]
    Second Man [falls over]: "Gffffff-!"
    Me: "Human."
    [Kicks third man in balls]
    Third Man [falls over]: "..."
    Me: "He's the robot! Get 'im!!!"

    --
    What is music when you despise all sound?
    1. Re:Here's a test by Maniakes · · Score: 2

      Thanks! I just tried that test on my girlfriend, and it seems that she's a robot.

      --
      A legparnasom tele van angolnaval.
  12. Couldn't a computer do the name, address parts by teamhasnoi · · Score: 2
    of the yahoo sign up, and leave the word guessing to a middle school kid who gets paid in PS2 games?

    Computers are good for repetitive tasks, middle school kids are easily bribed.

  13. Accessibility issues? by Ryu2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    These tests seem to be all visual in nature. Could this be a point of contention on the part of blind/visually impaired users of web sites?

    Or alternatively, are they perhaps working on, say, a audio version? Wonder how would that work.

    --
    There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
    1. Re:Accessibility issues? by bytesmythe · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Apparently, there would have to be alt tags that read "Type the word FOO to signify you are a human, not a register bot."
      I suppose it could generate a spoken list of words in a sound file that is linked to from the image. The alt tag could then read "Please click to listen to a series of words. Enter the words to signify you are a human, not a register bot."

      --
      bytesmythe
      Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
      -- Scott Meyer
    2. Re:Accessibility issues? by jacobjyu · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, if you look at the captcha site, it lists "Sounds" under Captchas. Here's the text:

      Sounds can be thought of as a sound version of Gimpy. The program picks a word or a sequence of numbers at random, renders the word or the numbers into a sound clip and distorts the clip. It then presents the distorted sound clip to its user and asks the user to type in the contents of the sound clip.

      This would probably be similar to the visual techniques, most likely employing some audio filters so its hard for a computer to decipher (our ears are pretty sensitive in deciphering noise from actual voices/useful sounds, so it shouldn't be a problem for us)

    3. Re:Accessibility issues? by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 2

      Apparently, there would have to be alt tags that read "Type the word FOO to signify you are a
      human, not a register bot."


      Great, that will make it really easy for the register bots to figure out what to enter in that textbox!

  14. Philosophy 101 by The+Jonas · · Score: 4, Informative

    Searle's Chinese Room theory. Strong AI vs. Weak AI and human interaction/interpretation. Fun Stuff. http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/c/chineser.htm

    1. Re:Philosophy 101 by majcher · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The Chinese Room argument is a load of pants. I don't believe it is taken seriously by anyone in the field these days - it has had a large number of holes poked in it, and Searle's reply to each of these flaws is basically, "nuh-uh!"

      Too lazy. Find the links yourself.

  15. A good step towards AI... by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 2

    A good step towards AI would be to emuulate natural stupidity.

  16. Instead of whining... by Alethes · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's very easy to do a search at news.google.com with some of the words from the story summary and come up with the story elsewhere.

    Yes, it's a nytimes.com link, but it's without the registration.

  17. It says I'm not human by Elladan · · Score: 4, Funny

    You entered: noses

    Possible responses: nose

    Result: FAIL.

    Wohoo! I'm a robot! This test proves it! Vegas here I come!

    Why does this test make me feel like I just had a run-in with John Ashcroft?

    1. Re:It says I'm not human by bytesmythe · · Score: 3, Funny

      I missed almost all of the picture ones...

      You entered: televisions
      Possible responses: television tv
      Result: FAIL.

      So next time...

      You entered: bike
      Possible responses: bicycle bicycles
      Result: FAIL.

      And again...

      You entered: toothbrushes
      Possible responses: toothbrush
      Result: FAIL.

      AAAAAAAAAARGH!!! I hate stupid word guessing programs that don't consistently account for common abbreviations and plurals!

      --
      bytesmythe
      Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
      -- Scott Meyer
    2. Re:It says I'm not human by LordKronos · · Score: 2

      I hate stupid word guessing programs that don't consistently account for common abbreviations and plurals!

      Or contain misspelled data...

      You entered the following word:
      automobile

      The possible words were:
      car cars automovile

    3. Re:It says I'm not human by _xeno_ · · Score: 2
      Yeah, I know, I got:

      Result of the Test: FAIL
      You entered the following word: lawyers
      The possible words were: shark sharks

      C'mon, same thing!

      I've been trying to see if I can get the first page I got, when I wasn't being stupid, which was:

      Result of the Test: FAIL
      You entered the following word: dogs
      The possible words were: pig pigs

      I'm fairly sure that those were dogs I in fact saw on the images, but since I can't get the page to redisplay (and I've creamed the cached copy of the page by reloading), I could be wrong. (I managed to get your bikes example, though.)

      Of course, this indicates another weakness in the system: it's a computer deciding if I'm a computer or not - it's only as good as the data it's given when it comes to making that decision. If the data entered is wrong (for example, dogs are mislabeled pigs, or forgetting "bike" as a common name abbreviation for "bicycle"), then it won't be able to determine human or computer successfully. Then there's of course typos...

      And for my final picking appart of the system:

      Result of the Test: FAIL
      You entered the following word: nothing
      The possible words were: monkey monkeys

      ...Caused by the images not loading properly. I think they were 404's, but I'm not sure (as I didn't check at the time).

      So, yeah, this system seems to have some flaws in it...

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    4. Re:It says I'm not human by Asprin · · Score: 3, Insightful


      You entered: toothbrushes
      Possible responses: toothbrush
      Result: FAIL.

      AAAAAAAAAARGH!!! I hate stupid word guessing programs that don't
      consistently account for common abbreviations and plurals!


      Ahh, delightful irony. That would be the point, then, wouldn't it?

      In other words, you have to be smarter than the tools you use, so it's pretty stupid to put a computer that is *not* intelligent in charge of deciding the intelligence of others.

      --
      "Lawyers are for sucks."
      - Doug McKenzie
    5. Re:It says I'm not human by Zwack · · Score: 2

      I got that one too...
      But I was wrong.
      Given
      1) A photo of a car crossing a bridge.

      2) A piece of art showing a person, a globe, a telephone, a computer, a radio, a skscraper and a car. The person was the most obvious point in the picture.

      3) A photo of a man holding a steering wheel as though he was driving.

      4) A photo of a street with a hotel with some flags hanging from it. The flags are the most prominent aspect. There are some cars in the street.

      5) A photo of a woman standing next to the open door of a vehicle.

      6) A photo of a ferris wheel. No cars are visible anywhere in it.

      What would you choose? I guessed wheels apparently I was wrong...

      Z.

      --
      -- Under/Overrated is meta-moderation, and therefore is Redundant.
  18. Another Area Not Talked About Much - Vicarious Exp by syntap · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Another area not discussed in the article is vicarious experience, that is, experience and knowledge you have because some cause and effect relationship existed with someone or something else.

    For example, the computer's tactile interface has to touch the oven and say 110 deg C, as opposed to taking as fact "I heard a human mention that Unit 5 already did that and it was 110 deg C, so I accept it as fact that it is 110 deg C".

    I know I'll get modded down for this, but I wonder what the limits of questioning the computer / human participants was? (Article said they quized participants to see if they could tell who was human and who was a machine). Like, could they ask "What number am I thinking of?" The machine would blank out and the human would stupidly blurt out "69 dude!"

  19. Re:in the year 2000 i predict! by Dachannien · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'd hate to think that computer power didn't increase between the time of Turing's death in 1954, and 2000....

    Pretty much any prediction that Turing could make about computers nearly 50 years after his death - and before the advent of transistors - would pure speculation. The fact that Turing's prediction that AIs would be indistinguishable from people in the "Turing test" was wrong, and that other projects based on sheer informational density (such as CYC) have been dismal failures, indicate that it is the purely scripted/explicit logical constraint strategy of solving this problem that is faulty. Unfortunately, the 30 years after that prediction have focused pretty much entirely on scripting and logical constraints, and other methods of artificial/computational intelligence didn't see the light of day until the 80s and 90s.

    Be sure to watch further developments in modeling of neurological processes, as there is still hope along this avenue of research :)

  20. Wanna bet? by dubl-u · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mitch Kapor and Ray Kurzweil have bet $20,000 on whether a computer will pass the Turing Test by 2029.

    1. Re:Wanna bet? by dubl-u · · Score: 2

      In 2029 $10.000 may allow you to buy a bag of dog food... maybe a couple of sandwiches.

      As the rules say, the money is invested between the placing of the bet and the payoff. So it's $10,000 plus 25 years of compound interest.

  21. Think Cash by Sanity · · Score: 2
    Some time ago, I was pondering a similar idea which I called "Think Cash" (a play on "Hash Cash"), where basically someone had to "pay" by thinking about something. The idea was to discourage automated spamming of anonymous services.

    While I mention some ways to achieve this, I thought more about the problem and the qualities a solution would need, than the solution itself.

    If interested, more can be found here.

  22. they found me out by AmishSlayer · · Score: 3, Funny

    no joke, I got this...

    acid/head
    acid/head
    acid/great
    acid/angry
    bo x/box ... my question is how'd they know?

  23. In the year 2000... by Penguinoflight · · Score: 2

    We'll obviously be able to travel to the future... to get new technology...

    --
    "And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
    1 John 4:14
  24. African or European? by Bastian · · Score: 3, Informative

    Whoever said that computers can't handle superposition has never heard of convolutional neural networks.

    Really, comparing human intelligence to computer intelligence doesn't seem like a good idea unless we're going to define what kind of computer intelligence it is.
    Neural computing really screws the comparison up - the kinds of computing that normal computers are good for are quite different from the kinds of computing that neural nets are well suited to. Furthermore, different neural net architectures make for different capabilities - the tasks a feedforward network are best suited to are very different from the tasks a bayesian network are best suited to.

    Take a look at this page for a good run-though of the different kinds of nets.

    1. Re:African or European? by Zordak · · Score: 3, Funny
      I think the idea is that you are probably not going to be using your expensive, experimental neural network to create spam accounts and troll chat rooms for personal info.

      Which, by the way, gives me a great idea. I'm going to adapt that annoying psychoanalyst algorithm to create Slashdot accounts and randomly respond to posts in high volume. Not only will it be fun for all ages, but it will actually increase the infamous Signal to Noise ratio for Slashdot!

      --

      Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
  25. Re:much like with RadioShack by Rick+the+Red · · Score: 3, Funny

    Gee, I thought you were going to say something like, "Much like with RadioShack, where you have to perform a test to see if you're talking with an intelligent being."

    --
    If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
  26. And why bother by DunbarTheInept · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And furthermore, if what you need for the task at hand is a machine that behaves and thinks in every way just like a human being, then just hire a human being to do it.

    It's the differences between computers and humans that make computers so damn useful. Tell a human to add up a list of 200 numbers and he'll likely take a long time, and get the wrong answer because humans suck at repetative boring tasks beyond the limit of their attention spans.

    --

    Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.

    1. Re:And why bother by Steve+G+Swine · · Score: 3, Funny
      humans suck at repetative boring tasks beyond the limit of their attention spans
      And they give us mod points anyway. Weird.
      --
      "Consider yourself a member of a virtual corporation with Mr. Torvalds as your Chief Executive Officer." - Linux Advocac
    2. Re:And why bother by HeghmoH · · Score: 2

      And what if the task at hand is something that requires both human and computer capabilities? For example, imagine Google Answers, but as fast and cheap as regular Google Search. And if you answer, well, it wouldn't be cost-effective, just use people, it used to be cheaper to just use people for lots of things that we use computers for now.

      --
      Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
  27. A much more accurate test... by craenor · · Score: 5, Funny

    Involves measuring pupil dilation when asked a series of personal questions...very good method.

    1. Re:A much more accurate test... by craenor · · Score: 2

      I figured the fact this was a blade runner reference was obvious...otherwise it makes no sense whatsoever.

    2. Re:A much more accurate test... by Winged+Cat · · Score: 2

      Thing is, I know some people who would just calmly accept these sorts of questions and statements. It's just not in their nature to get emotional about anything. Pupil dilation probably wouldn't detect them either: they really aren't getting emotional, but they really are human beings. (Unless you believe the conspiracy theories that intelligent AI droids really are out there right now, of course. ^_-)

  28. Re:weird.. by .sig · · Score: 2

    Well, the part that makes it tricky is the fact that the words are not just rotated, but distorted. Granted, it is still possible to do, it would just not be trivial.
    Of course, as with other types of computer intelligence, once it becomes commonplace, AI is redefined to include everything but that.

    --
    -Space for rent
  29. Can't really mimic human intelligence by TheWhaleShark · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While it would be nifty to have a very human AI, I somehow doubt that we could truly ever replicate human intelligence.

    The major roadblock is that a computer can only respond in ways that it has been programmed to do so. While you can code incredibly complex AI algorithms and simulate an incredibly complex level of intelligence, the fact remains that a computer invariably operates along rigid pathways.

    It can be argued that human thought is nothing more than a complex series of chemical reactions, but there is far less rigid logic involved in human thinking. Indeed, we're still not entirely sure just HOW we think.

    Never say never, but I don't think we'll be seeing a truly human AI before any of us is dead.

    --
    "It never got weird enough for me." - HST (RIP)
    1. Re:Can't really mimic human intelligence by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2

      Ever hear of connectionist or neural networks? They work a lot like a brain in that they can't tell you WHY they do something. What I mean is, I design a network, then I train it to do what I want it to do. It's all done by changing activation weights of conenctions and so on. Well in the end, I can train it to achieve the desired result. But then anaylizing the network, I can't tell you how it works, or why it got to the particular state it did.

      The thing is when most people talk about comuters they think of them in their normal sense which is as an imperative device. What I mean is the code a computer recievs is in the form of instructions, which are executed in sequence, giving precise answers. Conenctionist systems don't work like that at all like that. They are a lagre collection of interconnected nodes, with connections between them. As the chage to adapt to what they are trying to do they change the activation weights of teh connections (and sometimes add or remove connections in advanced network designs). They tehn eventually form the network (provided it is large enough for teh task) to complete the task. However two different learning sessions for the same task with teh same inital network can produce different results, that both do the same job.

      Sorry that I don't have any links on hand but google for the "connectionist computational theory of mind", "connectionist networks" and "neural networks" and you should come up with plenty of info. It is a real different way of thinking about processing and while normal computers don't natively work that way, they can be programed to simulate it.

  30. Re:weird.. by Rick+the+Red · · Score: 3, Funny

    You're looking for insight on Slashdot, that's where you're wrong.

    --
    If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
  31. The /. AI test by binaryDigit · · Score: 3, Funny

    To be considered truely "intelligent" a computer must:

    1. Make a "first post" posting 15 minutes after the article goes up.

    2. Be the fourth person to enter a "In Soviet Russia ..." post.

    3. Be labeled a karma whore.

    4. Whine about the masiv tipe ohs in artaculs.

    5. Hate M$, Sony, MPAA because thats one of the three laws right?

  32. One More Cool Item... by Tsar · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The home page of the CAPTCHA Website refers to an event in Slashdot history!

    CAPTCHAs have several applications for practical security, including (but not limited to):
    Online Polls. In November 1999, http://www.slashdot.com released an online poll asking which was the best graduate school in computer science (a dangerous question to ask over the web!). As is the case with most online polls, IP addresses of voters were recorded in order to prevent single users from voting more than once. However, students at Carnegie Mellon found a way to stuff the ballots using programs that voted for CMU thousands of times. CMU's score started growing rapidly. The next day, students at MIT wrote their own program and the poll became a contest between voting "bots". MIT finished with 21,156 votes, Carnegie Mellon with 21,032 and every other school with less than 1,000. Can the result of any online poll be trusted? Not unless the poll requires that only humans can vote.
    Cool, eh?
    1. Re:One More Cool Item... by guidobot · · Score: 5, Funny
      I remember that -- i was a student at CMU at the time. Someone posted to a widely read messageboard (misc.market) about the poll, and it was off to the races after that. Pretty funny.

      A related story was the time I saw on Boston.com that one of their editors was getting a haircut and they had posted an online poll for users to choose a style. Remembering CMU's adventures in slashdot polling, I posted to that same messageboard a plea for students to help the poor guy out.

      4000 robo-votes later, he had a mohawk. Then they showed pictures of him going home for mother's day, and his dad's embarassed look. The best part was the quote from the editor at the end of the story -- "I had fun with this and I hope all those hackers out there did too."

      So, see, geeks? You too can make a difference.

  33. Maybe.. by jedie · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Just maybe, if WE were smarter, we could make machines that are smarter. But then again, if WE were smarter, the level of intelligence that the machine reaches at that point is again lower compaired to our own intelligence.

    What I mean is, I don't think an intelligent being would be capable of creating something that is more intelligent than himself.
    The machines need to be programmed by humans, who are limited by their own inteligence.

    Can God make a rock so big that he can't carry it himself?

    --
    "The majority is always sane, Louis." -- Nessus
    http://slashdot.jp
    1. Re:Maybe.. by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 5, Funny

      What I mean is, I don't think an intelligent being would be capable of creating something that is more intelligent than himself.

      My dad was :).

    2. Re:Maybe.. by guidobot · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I think you need to take into account that any intelligent machine would make use of learning algorithms. So if man can teach a computer how to LEARN, and its got the time and resources to learn more than a human (say hundreds of processor years and a connection to the all the world's media), then the end result could be something "more intelligent" than the programmer.

      Or how about the example of the AI chess players, who can play vastly better than the people who programmed them?

    3. Re:Maybe.. by davew2040 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I could see two primary reasons for considering this an oversimplification.

      The first of these is the nature of hardware. Obviously, electronic hardware is much different than human hardware. Human hardware has a tendency to gradually improve between the age of 0 years to, say, 30 years, of if you subscribe to a different theory of learning, then 0 years to on average 80 years (being death). Factoring in evolution, there's some further gradual enhancement over the course of a million years. Computer hardware, on the other hand, has a tendency to improve itself at an impressive rate that depends on how much effort humans put into it. The end result being that for certain tasks, computers can vastly exceed humans. The reverse, that humans can vastly exceed computers, is also true, but as time goes on, this will probably end up being less the case. And, as anyone who's worked in teams on a technical project knows, it's difficult to make cumulative human effort scale upwards. This technological task can also be difficult with computers, but generally less so. So the point of all this being that there are simply fantastic computational levels that computers as a whole are able to achieve, to be applied to tasks of "intelligence" for better or worse in a way that humans can't compete with.

      The second point has already been touched upon: humans die, computers don't. I mean, you can make the claim that computer parts fail, but the fact remains that data and algorithms are passed from one generation to the next (hopefully) unchanged. The base of innovation built for computers really just expands. Humans, on the other hand, build their own innovation, but must then spend time teaching their successive generations how to do things, and for exceptionally bright individuals, the successors may not even reach their amassed abilities. No need to launch into arguments like "but software needs to be recompiled for different platforms!", that kind of talk is counterproductive.

      I suspect that anyone familiar with Linux has a certain appreciation for having complete control over what's on their system, but the fact is that increasing complexity will increasingly result in increasing layers of abstraction, to the point where everything is built upon layers that are further built upon layers. The advantages (and problems) associated with this are (painfully?) evident now, and computers are still relatively new; imagine things 50 years down the road! Once methods of software engineering are designed that lower the occurrence of bugs make things more fault-tolerant, it's just going to be commonplace, if it isn't already.

      So what I'm saying is, it's an interesting academic question, but in a lot of ways the potential clearly exists for computers outpacing anything that humans can do. Not unlike a teacher can instruct a brilliant and eager student to the point where the teacher actually becomes the student.

    4. Re:Maybe.. by shic · · Score: 2

      I think you're missing some crucial points in your arguments... First, winning at chess is not, in my opinion at least, an indication of intelligence. Chess is a game with a simple description won by recognising winnable patterns and planning - both of which are better suited to machines than humans. I would consider a chess computer to exhibit intelligent behaviour if it modified its objectives (not merely strategy) as a consequence of experience - for example, maybe "deciding" to let a novice player win in order to play a better adversary.

      I must next take issue with the idea that an ability to 'learn' coupled with time and resources can increase intelligence. To my mind, intelligence is the capacity to learn and not the body of knowledge retained - hence even a learning machine would not increase in intelligence until it discovers new ways to learn. While I suspect it is possible for a programmer to implement a system more intelligent than himself, I suspect that this will not also be true of the system architect (no offence to programmers intended.) In essence I'd argue that if intelligence is the potential to react, then any person designing an intelligent machine must be able to react in the same manner - hence has at least that level of intelligence. While it doesn't rule out collaborations which result in systems with more "intelligence" than any single participant, I expect that the upper bound is the collective intelligences of the machine's creators.

      Bring it on, I say, I don't need intelligent machines - hell plenty of people get by without intelligent friends!

  34. Taco Test by plip · · Score: 5, Funny

    I simply use my "Taco Test" (Inspired by the Invader Zim cartoon) to thwart chat bots and telemarketers. It's an amazing, powerful test that no computer or automated script can withstand.

    I ask the "suspected bot" if they like tacos. If they give me an intelligent answer, they are not a bot. If they give me an answer like "Wanna see my hot pics go to http://192.168.1.112/hotbabezzzz.pl?2345" Then they are a bot.

    This test also works on telemarketers in a slightly different fashion. I tell them to "STOP... I'll only buy your product if you send me a taco with it. If not, no deal." since there are big logistical problems with sending me a taco, they are thwarted every time. I'm sure this test would work equally well with any obscure food item.

  35. Article -1 redundant by bcwalrus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why don't you devise a test which asks for the sum of 10000 numbers?

  36. Google Link by zmokhtar · · Score: 2
    --
    Why aren't we told when editors moderate our posts?
  37. It won't work... by Quaoar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Computers can be specifically programmed to solve puzzles such as a this...if a test arises that supposedly tests for "human" intelligence, humans can simply modify the code so that it can solve that sort of puzzle.

    That's what Gary Kasparov was complaing about when he played against Deep Blue the first time...there was a whole team of IBM programmers modifying the code during the game to specifically counter Kasparov's playing style. It wasn't a reflection of machine intelligence, it was an example of human adaptation imposed upon Deep Blue.

    --
    I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
    1. Re:It won't work... by microTodd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe that's the point...a human can (potentially) adapt to any situation or problem. A computer is limited by the confines of its programming.

      --
      "You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
    2. Re:It won't work... by zCyl · · Score: 4, Funny

      Both neural networks and genetic algorithms (also genetic programming) can adapt to new situations and new problems. Humans are neural networks, and both neural networks and genetic algorithms can be programmed on a computer. The problem is simply that neural networks take a lot of processing power when using a single central processor (the way computers are typically designed), and work much more rapidly when done by a slower distributed neural network which does massive parallel processing (the human brain).

      The computer is not at all limited. Any physical process can be computed by a Turing machine, which means by extension that any modern PC can compute anything. It is simply a question of time required to compute it. The brain is a physical system, and is thus Turing computable.

      If there exists more to humanity than the physical, then computational theory does not claim that Turing machines can compute it. But the brain at least, and all of its adaptability to new situations and new problems, are computable.

      For more information search for information on programming "neural networks" and "genetic algorithms".

    3. Re:It won't work... by zCyl · · Score: 2

      I might add that Freeman Dyson has conjectured that the brain might work on quantum principals. It sounds strange but hey, he would know more about it than I do.

      Classical computers can still compute quantum systems, it just takes an exponential performance hit. Quantum computers can handle such systems much more efficiently.

      However the only reason you see so many people conjecturing that the brain might work on quantum principals is because humans are much more comfortable attributing the function of the brain to technology that is just at the fringe of their understanding. In fact, it's very unlikely that quantum principals play any more of a significance in the brain's function than they do in integrated circuits, and this is simply because of the size and temperature of the brain.

      though Stephan Wolfram might have something to say about this.

      Stephen Wolfram has announced in lectures that humans are no more computationally complex than a rock. I would disagree somewhat, and would instead say that humans are as computationally complex as most neural networks of the same size. I would also say that we can computationally simulate neural networks of that size (although it might be an expensive undertaking to simulate it close to human speed). And this still leaves the most difficult problem on the table, which is programming the neural network appropriately.

  38. tech econ boost? by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Amazing all this horsepower and research just to combat spam. Just might be the boost we need to get tech spending going again. A never-ending cat-and-mouse game where the cats and mouses get bigger and bigger. This racket is almost as good as the dot-com racket. I don't like spam either, but I miss real paychecks.

    The first true AI machine might be spam catcher. Spamminator 2000!

  39. Test is of no real use by photon317 · · Score: 5, Interesting


    Once you devise a test system, someone can write non-AI software that can fake it and pretend to be human by knowing what it needs to for the test. Only a real human can tell human and machine intelligence apart, not a systematic test. That's why Bladerunners had to manually test the androids, instead of just letting a machine do it. Real-time human insight is key to testing machine intelligence.

    --
    11*43+456^2
    1. Re:Test is of no real use by sohp · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeh, but, what if the Bladerunner is himself a replicant?

    2. Re:Test is of no real use by photon317 · · Score: 2


      It's not support for the argument, it's just an example of where a sci-fi author thought the same thing I'm saying.

      --
      11*43+456^2
    3. Re:Test is of no real use by photon317 · · Score: 2


      Actually, the subject is highly debateable. I seem to remember there being a certain amount of finality in some interviews of the film crew (cast, director, etc..) at one point that led me to believe it went something like this (really rough, I don't remember the details):

      SomeImportantGuy1 thought that Deckard shouldn't be a replicant, and so nothign specific was put in the movie that directly tells you he is.

      SomeOtherGuysFromtheMovie thought he should be a replicant, and tried to sway the movie that way but failed.

      InTheEnd they decided to leave it ambiguous and not clearly define it one way or the other.

      Then much later, years and years later, one of the crew said he was supposed to be a replicant in an Interview. Then some of the rest of the crew set the strory straight that this wasn't neccesarily the truth at all... etc... etc...

      Which version of Deckard you choose to believe in is really up to you, or perhaps up to which of the competing creative visions you think had more authority. I left out the names and positions of the people because I know I'd remember them wrong.

      --
      11*43+456^2
  40. Poll Stuffing on Slashdot by Zordak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The CAPTCHA website (how do you pronounce that, anyway) has a list of possible applications of CAPTCHA. The first mention is online polls, and recalls an event in 1999, when Slashdot (they use http://www.slashdot.com for some reason) had a poll for the best graduate CS curriculum. Carnegie-Mellon and MIT wrote competing poll-bots that stuffed the poll boxes. The point was supposed to be that a CAPTCHA would have prevented this. In my opinion, however, this was probably the most accurate Slashdot poll ever. Obviously, MIT wrote the better poll bot, since it stuffed more votes, and they didn't even start until somebody noticed that CMU was stuffing. Hence, the winner of the stuffing contest turned out to be the true winner of the poll.

    --

    Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
  41. Braille terminals by yerricde · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I suppose it could generate a spoken list of words in a sound file that is linked to from the image.

    The CAPTCHA web site has such a test, but of the sites that use image-based bot tests, only PayPal offers an audio alternative.

    Another problem is that sites often present the tests in proprietary formats with expensive implementation royalties, such as .gif and .mp3.

    But even providing both the image in a free image format (.png) and the audio in a free audio format (.ogg) won't help blind users behind a Braille terminal without a speaker, such as blind-deaf users.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
    1. Re:Braille terminals by Karamchand · · Score: 2

      I guess blind-deaf users need day-to-day-help anyway so there should be another person there all the time.

    2. Re:Braille terminals by yerricde · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I guess blind-deaf users need day-to-day-help anyway

      So what about Braille terminal users who aren't also deaf? Should Section 508 compliance (required for USA government web sites) allow a web site to require all blind users to have sound cards? /p)

      --
      Will I retire or break 10K?
  42. This ain't intelligence by Obfuscant · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This demonstration is not one of computer versus human intelligence. It is one of computer versus human cognition.

    In other words, can the computer detect the information in the same form that the human can? Can a human read a grocery store bar-code as easily as a computer? No. Can a human read one of those bit-boxes on the FedEx shipping label as easily as a computer? No. Can a human read the Tivo-data sent on the Discovery channel as easily as the computer? No. But none of those failures means the computer is more intelligent, just more capable of recognizing the information that is there.

    Both the computer and the human can recognize "moon/parma", but intelligence comes into play when the human starts thinking of Drew Carey and humming the theme music. Intelligence is not just collecting information, it is doing something useful with that information.

  43. Training a computer to fool Stumpy by ip_vjl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I took the 'Stumpy' test - where it shows you six pictures and asks you to choose a word that describes them.

    Looks like their system is hosed right now because it showed me 4 pictures of horses, 1 of a cowboy, and one of a turtle.

    When it asked:
    What are these pictures of?

    I answered "things"

    apparently it didn't like my answer.

    Funny thing though, the images are being pulled by image number from the getty images database. You could write a piece of software to lookup the images at getty, pull the keyword list (that getty assigns to all photos) and cross reference the list to get the answer.

    --

    Then this got me thinking about the whole thing in general. My answer WAS correct. Reminds me of the Cheers episode where Cliff is on Jeopardy and answers the final Jeopardy question:
    "Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen."

    Not the answer they were looking for, but is it wrong?

    I was being a smartass the other day while watching sesame street with my daughter. They had pictures of 4 animals and asked which one didn't belong.
    kangaroo
    rabbit
    grasshopper
    fish

    they, of course, were looking for 'fish' - because the other three live on land or travel by hopping.

    I popped up that the answer could be the kangaroo - because the other three are native to north america. Or it could be the grasshopper, as the only one with an exoskeleton.

    My wife reminded me that it was a kid's show. :)

    It comes down to the fact that if an strict mechanism is used to judge the answers (like a computer) it may not be able to handle legitimate answers from humans.

    --

    Seems both the questioner and questionee need to be intelligent to participate.

    1. Re:Training a computer to fool Stumpy by sohp · · Score: 2

      Obviously, the grasshopper -- the only invertebrate -- doesn't belong.

    2. Re:Training a computer to fool Stumpy by Eryq · · Score: 2

      Or it could have been the rabbit, because (given your three example answers) it's the only one which was *not* a possible candidate for an animal which didn't belong... and hence, it doesn't belong.

      --
      I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!
    3. Re:Training a computer to fool Stumpy by dsfd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      To me, this kind of questions actually test if the person who is answering has the same cultural background as the person who wrote the question.

      A certain context has to be assumed to find out the "correct" answer. The same holds for the tests that ask you to complete a sequence of numbers. There are infinite sequences of numbers with the first terms equal !

      Complete: 1,2,3,4,5, ?

      Why 6 has to be the "correct" answer ? I don't think that there is a good reason, the ordered sequence of the natural numbers is not better than the sequence 1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5,..

      But dont try that ! If your answer is not 6, you will never get a job, because that must mean that you are either totally stupid or from a different planet.

  44. Edsgar Djikstra said it best... by CommandNotFound · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Asking if a computer can think is like asking if a submarine can swim"

  45. What about the impaired? by phorm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Did anyone notice that a lot of these "human" test are also the same ones used for things like hearing/eye tests, color-vision impairment, etc.

    This knocks out computers, which lack the intelligence/programming (so far) to differentiate between conflicting objects to make out a letter/numbers.

    It also may knock out humans with vision problems though, especially those with colour-vision issues.For those with hearing problems, the sound test isn't good either.

    It seems that right now, computers trying to translate these puzzles probably perform along par with old-folks. This also might mean that quite a few seniors may have issues getting a yahoo account though.

  46. Re:Windows, anyone? by buswolley · · Score: 4, Funny
    does a computer programs stupidity reflect anything other than the stupidity of the programmers, or the true difficulty of writing a program without such things. If the computer was taunting you it would say:

    Abort, Fail, Retry? I know how to fix it, but do you human?

    --

    A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.

  47. Turing test by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Most people misinterpret the Turing Test.

    I don't believe that Turing proposed the Turing Test as the test to use, but rather as a "mathematical proof" that you could construct such a test.

    Basically he said if you could not tell the difference between a computer and a person then you would have to say it was intellignet. ie. this is a way of establishing an upper-bound test - not necessarily that this is the best test.

    Unfortunately, IMHO, the AI community and other latched onto this test and put effort into fulfilling the Tring Test rather than more practical and useful goals.

    If you asked "Did you sleep well last night?" and the computer said "Me not sleep, me computer." (or some question on some other biological function) then you could probably determine the difference between a human and a computer. This need not, however, preclude machine intelligence.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  48. pix by dirvish · · Score: 2

    Am I just stupid or is the Stumpy not working quite right?

  49. Re:NYTimes by BabyDave · · Score: 3, Funny

    Thet's part of the test - the logical computer clicks on the link and gets nowhere, while the human uses their ingenuity and sticks "captcha" into Google instead.

  50. They don't even work.. :-P by Jugalator · · Score: 2

    So much work to get a tidy Google-lookalike copy and the "similar pages" doesn't even work:

    404 File Not Found
    The requested URL (search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=related:www. geocities.com/Paris/Arc/4865/AIvsHI.html) was not found.

    If you feel like it, mail the url, and where ya came from to pater@slashdot.org.


    I thought that URL looked funny.. :-/

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  51. If that's the case, by underwhelm · · Score: 2

    Your mom and dad must be "proud" of you.

    --

    I don't need large brains to have a good time.

  52. I FAILED, so i am a computer ..?? by giaguara · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Trying the test that was on the NY times article at the original test at
    http://www.captcha.net/cgi-bin/pix

    I saw turtles. Turtles of which some were swimming. So i typed turtles.
    And i FAILED.

    "Result of the Test: FAIL
    You entered the following word:
    turtles
    The possible words were:
    seashell shell shells seashells"

    So, i notice this test does not take into the consideration the limits of second (or generally, non-native) language. English is not my first language and i had seen nowhere that turtles and shells are different?? i saw turtles and some turtles that were in the sea. Turtles.

    Uh yea. I take proudly failing in this computer or human test!!! wohoo!! :D

  53. Sort of by 0x0d0a · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You can say "there are physical differences between person A and computer B", but the problem is that person A and person C also differ quite a bit.

    Saying "foo cannot be done" frequently results in someone being utterly wrong. Just a few decades ago, the idea of atomic power would have been laughable -- the ability to wipe an *entire city* away? How about having a person walk around on the moon? Unthinkable.

    So, at the moment it seems to be an insurmountably difficult problem. But, a few years ago, the same thing would have been said about problems that we're not starting to think about being doable via quantum computers -- the face of computer science literally changed.

  54. Re:Expensive? Experimental? by Bastian · · Score: 2

    Convolutional neural nets are really quite simple and easy to implement and train. Granted, it probably isn't a problem with regular spammers, but I bet students from MIT and CMU would have the gumption to get around to doing it again.

  55. Re:I Found A Great Deal of Resources on AI by Dark+Lord+Seth · · Score: 4, Funny
    You really can't argue that this ISN'T informative, though.
    I would like a +5 Informative please.
  56. an odd tangent... by Exantrius · · Score: 3, Interesting

    *note, I'm not sure now that this has anything at all to do with the topic, but it's something that bounces off my head sporadically*

    Recently, I've been working with developmentally disabled people as a job coach-- Making sure they have the ability to do the job they're supposed to, and help them to understand anything that needs to happen.

    Part of this is working at a local fast food restaurant. The girl I'm working with can do math fairly well, but she has problems with logic, and pattern matching.

    And a few times I started thinking about her as a computer-- She can do math fine, and if I specifically tell her how to match a pattern, she can do it for a short time, but she can't do it in situations like when people order a combo. Let's say they order a #1 with onion rings and a small drink, a #6 large combo, and a kids meal, she won't be able to recognize them as "combos" (she'll read the whole thing back to them item by item.) This brings me to a whole other tangent about user interface design (why the normal methods suck, mostly), but that'll be saved until a proper time.

    This has been a difficulty with her position as a cashier, but I find it interesting that I'm more or less programming her as I talk to her and re-affirm her patterns to match.

    I wonder if certain disabled humans would fail any "turing" test that were given to them, because they don't have normal pattern matching ability. Furthermore, isn't it possible that instead of trying for fully developed Artificial Intelligence, we should look at perhaps emulating those with disabilities? After all, wouldn't this creation process be easier than a "fully aware", fully pattern realizing person?

    AI has always interested me, but I don't know nearly enough about it. The thing that made me notice this is I keep talking to her like I would program a computer ("If this, then that, otherwise this other thing" and "While there is someone in line, take their order").

    Maybe I'm off based, or this is already an accepted practice. Can anyone correct me? /ex

  57. Re:Captcha's is a word? by Anixamander · · Score: 2

    Judging from Dagg's posts, it appears all his posts are strictly to link to that same one sex question, which appears to be somehow revenue producing...probably by doing a referrer link to Amazon. For the love of God, please stop modding these posts up.

    (and I do have mod points today, I just feel better actually ranting about this one)

    --
    Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
  58. Computers are so far ahead of us... by saskboy · · Score: 2

    They don't pick noses.

    They don't get stressed.

    They go to sleep when told to.

    They aren't ticklish.

    And they are smarter too. I can't read binary, but my computer can beat anyone who can.

    --
    There are 11 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, those who don't, and me.

    --
    Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
  59. Re:Human intelligence VS Darwin by Scrameustache · · Score: 2
    Our behavior is governed not only by the higher logic of our brain, but also by millions of years of bizarre -- often obsolete -- instincts.

    That is the kind of frame of mind that gets you first prize...

    : )

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  60. Re:Another Area Not Talked About Much - Vicarious by jgerman · · Score: 2

    Hmmm, terrible test. Many people have to experience things for themselves to believe it. As far as regurgitating facts from a story, which is essentially what you've described, is relatively easy.

    --
    I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
  61. Re:It won't work... and then sell it. by Havokmon · · Score: 2
    I'm surprised I haven't seen any bitching about this.. If it was McAfee everyone would be up in arms.

    Since its inception two years ago, the Captcha effort has been building. Several research teams have joined the Captcha effort, trying to make and break Captchas and even using the ideas behind Captchas for new lines of research.

    Researchers at the Palo Alto Research Center modified a program used for scanning text to create a program that could solve certain types of Yahoo-Gimpy puzzles, says Dr. Henry Baird, who was in charge of that effort. The group is also developing a new text-based Captcha called Baffletext that it hopes to license to e-commerce sites.

    So they've come up with a way to get around the Captcha on Yahoo's site, and are now trying to create new ones to license..

    Granted, you could argue that Anti-Virus companies SHOULD be writing new virii in an attempt to run undetected, so they can create better sigs, but people seem to bitch about that..

    --
    "I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
  62. Re:In Soviet Russia... by Mike+Schiraldi · · Score: 2

    You're really not making much of an effort these days...

  63. isRabbit by xant · · Score: 2

    The rabbit is the only one that is a rabbit. The others fall into the set "not-rabbit".

    --
    It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
  64. Arghhhh.....Not the Chess argument! by NickFusion · · Score: 2

    The "Computers can play chess better than humans so they must be intelligent" argument drives me nuts.

    Show me a damned computer that can *invent* a game like chess, then I'll be impressed. Should I call my calculator intelligent because it can figure the square root of 209384298332 faster than I can?

    A chess program is good at following a set of chess rules (designed by people). End of story.

    --
    What were you expecting?
  65. Re:AI is no match for human intelligence by duck_prime · · Score: 2
    simple argument -> creator is always more powerful than the creation
    Tell that to Darth Vader!
  66. Turing Test by IHateEverybody · · Score: 2

    My first thoughts as I read this article were of the Turing Test. I don't know if I could handle it if spammer tools became smart enough to pass a test that I myself have with on bad days.

    --
    Does this .sig make my butt look big?
  67. Re: The Chineese Room by johnrpenner · · Score: 5, Interesting



    the question of whether computers use intelligence the same way as humans use intelligence has long been determined through the 'chineese room'.

    the point of John Searle's Chinese Room being is to see if 'understanding' is involved in the process of computation. if you can 'process' the symbols of the cards without understanding them (since you're using a wordbook and a programme to do it) - by putting yourself in the place of the computer, you yourself can ask yourself if you required understanding to do it:

    Minds Brains and Programmes (The Original Chineese Room):
    http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/04/84 /b bs00000484-00/bbs.searle2.html

    the complementary question - 'is the human brain
    a digital computer' is answered by the same author:

    Is the Human Brain a Digital Computer (John Searle):
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Py104/ se arle.comp.html

    Summary of the Argument:

    1. On the standard textbook definition, computation is defined syntactically in terms of symbol manipulation.

    2. But syntax and symbols are not defined in terms of physics. Though symbol tokens are always physical tokens, "symbol" and "same symbol" are not defined in terms of physical features. Syntax, in short, is not intrinsic to physics.

    3. This has the consequence that computation is not discovered in the physics, it is assigned to it. Certain physical phenomena are assigned or used or programmed or interpreted syntactically. Syntax and symbols are observer relative.

    4. It follows that you could not discover that the brain or anything else was intrinsically a digital computer, although you could assign a computational interpretation to it as you could to anything else. The point is not that the claim "The brain is a digital computer" is false. Rather it does not get up to the level of falsehood. It does not have a clear sense. You will have misunderstood my account if you think that I am arguing that it is simply false that the brain is a digital computer. The question "Is the brain a digital computer?" is as ill defined as the questions "Is it an abacus?", "Is it a book?", or "Is it a set of symbols?", "Is it a set of mathematical formulae?"

    5. Some physical systems facilitate the computational use much better than others. That is why we build, program, and use them. In such cases we are the homunculus in the system interpreting the physics in both syntactical and semantic terms.

    6. But the causal explanations we then give do not cite causal properties different from the physics of the implementation and the intentionality of the homunculus.

    7. The standard, though tacit, way out of this is to commit the homunculus fallacy. The humunculus fallacy is endemic to computational models of cognition and cannot be removed by the standard recursive decomposition arguments. They are addressed to a different question.

    8. We cannot avoid the foregoing results by supposing that the brain is doing "information processing". The brain, as far as its intrinsic operations are concerned, does no information processing. It is a specific biological organ and its specific neurobiological processes cause specific forms of intentionality. In the brain, intrinsically, there are neurobiological processes and sometimes they cause consciousness. But that is the end of the story.

    --

    best regards,

    john

  68. The other difference. by TheLink · · Score: 2

    Sometimes the human learns chinese all by himself/herself.

    Sometimes just a bit of motivation is enough (not even training).

    And seems kids do it better ;).

    --
  69. Modelling !=understanding. by TheLink · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Trouble is we may be able to model it but it doesn't mean we understand it.

    At least when we are simulating/modelling weather we can start with base points and do comparisons.

    Whereas with stuff like consciousness, I suspect even if the model is broken you might not be able to tell till much later.

    If we really wanted intelligent entities which we didn't understand (how they work), there are always humans and other creatures.

    The GM bunch may even concoct a few more.

    --
  70. Re:I don't know of any links off the top of my hea by TheLink · · Score: 2

    I thought shooters just wait for the right moment between heart beats and breath to shoot. They just make sure they are very fit and so their hearts beat slowly.

    I only dimly recall reports of one guy being able to stop and more importantly RESTART his own heart. And he wasn't an olympic shooter. Plus I doubt you'd do these things standing up - guess what happens to your blood flow. Can't find links at the moment.

    I'm not saying it's impossible, but I believe it's rare. Stopping one's heart voluntarily doesn't seem as useful (or safe) as being able to open your eustachian tubes voluntarily.

    Then again maybe it's not rare, maybe there were people who _finally_ figured out how to stop their hearts neuro-voluntarily but unfortunately failed to restart their hearts and failed. So all we hear = death unknown causes. Not like you get much practice restarting your heart from zero y'know.

    --
  71. Huh??? by TheLink · · Score: 2

    Didn't you read the article or even the story blurb?

    Computers ARE telling the difference between humans and computers.

    --
  72. Defintion of species by MichaelPenne · · Score: 2


    If the human and machine have a child who is also fertile, then they are the same species already.

  73. Did someone finally make an intuitive GUI???? by MichaelPenne · · Score: 2


    All the ones I've used are terrible in some maJOR WAY! (not mention we can't even fix the location of the caPS LOck keY!.

    1. Re:Did someone finally make an intuitive GUI???? by wdr1 · · Score: 2

      The skepiticism wasn't in making it intutitive... it was that machines would have horsepower to do even a primitive GUI.

      -Bill

      --
      SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
  74. Why? by olethrosdc · · Score: 2

    Why do we need to simulate human intelligence? It is not useful. There are already enough humans to behave humanly, if you would like. A human-like intelligence will incorporate all aspects of humanity (and animals), including emotions, autonomy insticts for self-preservation etc.

    Do you really think that robots would be something like Data in Star Trek? I think this is really a cliche that will never be true. We need systems that behave intelligently, but whose needs will not be as our own. Intelligence may not be separated from the underlying biological mechanisms that constitute the organism as a whole.

    In the end, we shall be seeing a lot of intelligent systems that perform interesting, useful, but very specific tasks. Already some have emerged. As for human-like intelligence, recent advancements in neurobiology and computational learning theory seem to indicate that it is at least theoretically possible right now. However, as I said before, creation of a human-like intelligence is of purely academic interest and has no practical purpose. This is why we might never see it happen.

    --

    I miss my rubber keyboard.(Homepage)

  75. ok ok but what about this? by Flamesplash · · Score: 2

    you got me, I didn't read the article first. However; after reading it I still think my original idea is valid.

    I didn't expound on it, but the test given in the article is a single point test, not a volley of different determinations as is used in the turing test. In the turing test you have 5 minutes and a simple text display/intermediary, in this you have a single visual problem to solve.

    What I was proposing was that you take the original confines of the turing test and replace the human interigator with a computer, where the communication mechanism is still a teletype or intermediary.

    There is one thing the test in the article overlooks. As of now I believe that there are a number of AI systems that have been put to the turing test that behave similar to young children, including those that can't read. In the original turing test this isn't an issue. Also the articles method is not actual AI, but a simple "puzzle", I think it would be more interesting to see and actual AI agent that could tell the difference, or an AI agent that developed this "puzzle" :P

    --
    "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
  76. Re:Windows, anyone? by shrikel · · Score: 3, Funny
    Funny you should mention that. All my programs refer to me as "Sir" and lick my proverbial boots.

    Back during high school, I wrote dozens of .bat files called "what" or "how" or "go" and so forth, and I basically had them parse themselves so they could keep up a semi-decent conversation. Kind-of like a shell-based Alice. (Well, if you knew what to say, since if you didn't put a recongized word first on the line, it would just say "Bad command or file name.")

    My favorite was when I came back from a two-year stay in Brazil, and my friend and I were at the computer. We had both totally forgotten about those little batch files, and his playing with the computer went something like this:

    C:\>dri
    Bad command or file name

    C:\>Huh?
    Bad command or file name

    C:\>What was that?
    Bad command or file name

    C:\>Could you repeat that please?
    Bad command or file name

    C:\>Thank you.
    You're mighty welcome, sir!!

    --
    Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
  77. Representative poll by Sri+Lumpa · · Score: 2


    I think that that poll was indeed representative of the best graduate school in CS, after all, MIT won while coming in one day after CMU, thus proving that their bot was better and, by extension, that the product of their CS courses were better CS engineers than those at CMU.

    And let's not talk of all these other CS schools who weren't even able to put a bot together to compete.

    --
    "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
  78. stupid humans by Flamesplash · · Score: 2

    IMO the biggest problem would be false positives, when the program takes (stupid?) humans for AI.

    But what if there was no difference between a good AI and a stupid human? I guess that would be some level of sucess for AI's. The ultimate goal being to create an AI that humans, and AI's, can't detect. A lot of current AI systems that do the Turing test end up sounding like little children. Is this a bad thing, or just the first step?

    --
    "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
    1. Re:stupid humans by Sri+Lumpa · · Score: 2

      The first step, undoubtedly, what I meant is that even today there are human judges that confuse some human for computers but rereading the sentence it seems that there isn't any problem given that human judges do the same mistake sometimes.

      Still, it would be better to reduce false positives, given that it means that the judging program doesn't make a good enough distinction between a human and a computer and that it therefore can be improved upon.

      Maybe another view to the problem is to create two programs:

      One that can discriminate a set of input as coming from a machine without discrimating any human input in such a way. Discriminating a human input is a bug and failing to discriminate a machine input as such is also a bug. You modify your program until it doesn't have any bugs (that is, forever).

      The other is a classic AI program who must try to fool hte first program. It is bugged as long as it cannot do so.

      Of course it means that a program considered bugless at one point can become bugged if a better opposing program appears.

      The whole point is to create an arms race that allow incremental development. After all, it seems to work pretty well for protection/cracking, anti-cheaters/cheaters in online games,...

      Having an AI pitted against a reasonably intelligent and knowledgeable human seems unfair, given that he is going to be way smarter than the AI for a long while to come, whereas the anti-AI program is going to be on a similar level of intelligence as the AI (both originate from a similar level of technological development).

      It's like the difference between climbing a cliff and walking up a hill. The difference of altitude may be the same but one is way more dificult than the other and just because you have more distance to travel to go up the hill doesn't mean that you will get there slower (because you can run).

      I hope this makes sence because it's 2:40 AM here in the UK and some sleep could do me good quite soon.

      --
      "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
  79. This post is also offtopic by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 2

    please moderate it accordingly

  80. Re:It damned well won't work... by zCyl · · Score: 2

    Actually actually, the 3-body isn't a deterministic system in a physical sense any more than it is in a computational sense. The inherent problem with the 3-body problem is that in general, solutions are unstable because they depend greatly on specific initial conditions, which can only be known so well.