“The basic idea of cognitive science is that intelligent beings are semantic engines – in other words, automatic formal systems with interpretations under which they consistently make sense.” The thought that people are semantic engines is kind of deep, and some people will agree with it and others will disagree with it. According to the reading, any semantic engine can be imitated by a computer if the right program is used to achieve the imitation. In order to achieve this, artificial intelligence is needed to imitate people and that allows for any type of imitation imaginable because ethics won’t get in the way of a project with artificial intelligence.
Although I am not completely clear with the idea that intelligent beings are automatic formal systems, I believe I disagree with what I understand about it. According to this thought, we need to alter tokens that follow the rules of a formal system. I don’t understand how humans can be related to a formal system. Someone can probably come up with aspects to describe as a person’s token and a starting position, but I don’t see any explanation in transition rules for a person’s life. There are no rules in life, and a person can choose to do or not do whatever they please. Although their decisions may not be looked upon as ethical, just, or morally right, all people have the option to do as they please.
In order to imitate a person, artificial intelligence is needed. I believe that artificial intelligence will only imitate people to a certain point. This is due to two reasons: humans will eventually reach a point in technology when it can go no further due to limited resources, and original intentionality will come into effect. Although people have endless ideas in their minds, there is no way all those ideas, especially with technology, can be produced due to limited resources in the world. Certain things are not cost effective and will never end up being produced. Also, original intentionality states that a computer does what it does because it was designed that way; the doings of that computer, or artificial intelligence in this case, was derived from the designer’s intentionality and not by the artificial intelligence itself. This means that the artificial intelligence would not be imitating a person under its own power; it would only take action and imitate a person due to the fact that it was programmed by a designer to do that.
Kevin K. Hong | 08-Oct-06 at 1:26 pm | Permalink
While I do agree with you in that technology and computers will never be able to completely render the same thing as human thought and emotions, I would be careful about making a claim like “humans will eventually reach a point in technology when it can go no further due to limited resources”. Humans have always been able to work with what we have on Earth since the beginning of time. But with what we’ve seen in technology in recent times, I believe that while we may run out of what we presently use as raw material, we certainly will be able to find alternative sources of natural resources long before we run out. For example, take a look at the problem of fossil fuels. We know that someday, we will run out of this type of fuel. But that won’t slow us down to a grinding halt. Further use of technology is solving that problem today. Hybrid and electric motors are slowly being integrated into mainstream cars today. When the time comes around, there will be a solution to these kinds of problems.
Daniel Estrada | 10-Oct-06 at 8:05 pm | Permalink
I’d be skeptical of the idea that the solution to technology’s problems is more technology. These situations can easily get out of control, and its not always apparent how the quick fix will turn out in the long run. Consider, for instance, Hawaii. Early immigrants imported snails as a delicacy. Soon, however, they got loose and started multiplying beyond control, eating all the native vegitation in the process. So the foreigners brought in some small rodents to eat the growing snail population. This proposed solution backfired when the rodents ignored to bigger, more agressive imported snails and started killing off all of Hawaii’s native snail population. Today, the vast majority of Hawaii’s plant and animal life is imported, and there are very few native species remailing.
You might think that introducing new technology to fix the problems of old technology might have similar consequences.
William Lee | 12-Oct-06 at 1:07 pm | Permalink
I think the most important thing about technology is to keep it balanced. Don’t get to greedy, but at the same time, also look forward. I also agree with Kevin when he says that human’s will always find a way. Don’t forget, as technology improves, so do our ways of harvesting and finding resources. Just because it seems now that resources are running out and the technology might be getting stuck, maybe the next improvement will make whatever the issue was before completely null.
I do however, agree with the unlikely probably of a machine ever being able to completely emulate a human, simply because that i can’t see how we follow set rules.
Danielle Bracken | 12-Oct-06 at 4:35 pm | Permalink
I also don’t see how a machine could come to imitate a human being exactly, like Jeffrey said we have no clear-cut transition rules that we all follow. I think machines will be able to be programmed to carry out and emulate normal behaviors of humans, and so to an outsider the actions of both may be indistinguishable, however, comparing them both for awhile I think should show that the humans have much more freedom and creativity in their behaviors. Human behaviors many times go outside the norms of what or how others think a person should be behaving, so unless machines are programmed somehow for all of those unique, unexpected behaviors as well, humans will always be able to surprise us with their actions and choices.
Teresa Hernandez | 12-Oct-06 at 11:00 pm | Permalink
What stuck out to me the most in this post is that there are no rules in life. I think that the life of a human and the “life” of a computer or machine can never be compared at the same level. Computers function based on some kind of program that has been installed into it. Programs have limits and I think that they always will. Therefore, computers cannot do as they please because there is always something that is placing some kind of limits on what it does. I also agree that AI can only go so far…we are the ones who are dictationg how far it goes, so if we don’t even know our own limits then how can we even begin to think about how far we can go in creating AI?