According to the roboticists and their fans, Moore’s Law will come to the rescue. The implication is that we have the programs and the data all ready to go, and all that’s holding us back is a lack of computing power. After all, as soon as computers got powerful enough, they were able to beat the world’s best human chess player, weren’t they? (Well, no — a great deal of additional programming and chess knowledge was also needed.)
Sad to say, even if we had unlimited computer power and storage, we wouldn’t know what to do with it. The programs aren’t ready to go, because there aren’t any programs.
Even if it were true that current robots or computers had attained insect-level intelligence, this wouldn’t indicate that human-level artificial intelligence is attainable. The number of neurons in an insect brain is about 10,000 and in a human cerebrum about 30,000,000,000. But if you put together 3,000,000 cockroaches (this seems to be the A.I. idea behind “swarms”), you get a large cockroach colony, not human-level intelligence. If you somehow managed to graft together 3,000,000 natural or artificial cockroach brains, the results certainly wouldn’t be anything like a human brain, and it is unlikely that it would be any more “intelligent” than the cockroach colony would be. Other species have brains as large as or larger than humans, and none of them display human-level intelligence — natural language, conceptualization, or the ability to reason abstractly.87 The notion that human- level intelligence is an “emergent property” of brains (or other systems) of a certain size or complexity is nothing but hopeful speculation.
After more than 50 years of pursuing human- level artificial intelligence, we have nothing but promises and failures. The quest has become a degenerating research program89 (or actually, an ever-increasing number of competing ones), pursuing an ever-increasing number of irrelevant activities as the original goal recedes ever further into the future — like the mirage it is.
http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v12n02_AI_gone_awry.html
and at the end of the day- the worst case scenario is that we will just have to bootstrap part/all of the brains functions into various computational/mechanical/biotech analogues- unless you believe in magic this will work
I wouldn't forget to mention consciousness. Its my opinion that when(if) we figure out how to create a subjective experience in any configuration of matter, then that configuration of matter will start behaving intelligently. This i think is the basis of intelligence, and i suspect all other approaches are merely attempts to copy the behaviour that this basis produces.It will also require chips that have the ability to rewire themselves. Neural connectivity is not static and is the basis of learning. A hard wired chip would have to simulate that in software .. VERY slow.
Skeptic magazine is a quarterly science and critical thinking publication that focuses on examining controversial or pseudoscientific claims.
AI stands for artificial intelligence, which is the development of computer systems that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as visual perception, decision making, and language translation.
Skeptic magazine is discussing AI because it is a rapidly developing field with many potential ethical and societal implications. The magazine aims to critically evaluate claims made about AI and provide a scientific perspective on the topic.
In this context, "assaults" refers to criticisms or challenges to the claims made about AI by various individuals or groups.
Yes, the article discusses a specific example of AI being "assaulted" by a group of scientists who published a paper claiming that AI could potentially pose an existential threat to humanity. Skeptic magazine critiques this claim and provides a more balanced perspective on the potential risks and benefits of AI.