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What does 'real' artificial intelligence look like?


February 19, 2014

Artificial intelligence is here now, argues Miles Brundage, a doctoral student at ASU’s Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, in a Future Tense article for Slate magazine, co-written with cognitive scientist Joanna Bryson. “Denying the presence of AI in our society,” writes Brundage, “not only takes away from the achievements of science and commerce, but also runs the risk of complacency in a world where more and more of our actions and intentions are being analyzed and influenced by intelligent machines.”

Brundage’s argument is a response to renowned cognitive scientist and Pulitzer Prize winner Douglas Hofstadter, who recently claimed that IBM’s Watson AI system, which beat "Jeopardy!" champions Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings in a $1 million matchup in 2011, is not “real” artificial intelligence. According to Hofstadter, Watson is “just a text search algorithm connected to a database, just like Google search.”

According to Brundage, Watson is a more sophisticated thinking machine than Hofstadter gives it credit for. He also holds that its mode of reasoning is more similar to human brain function than we might imagine. Hofstadter argues that Watson “thinks” merely by searching for information, crunching numbers and attempting to identify and match patterns among diverse types of information. Brundage responds, based on the work of cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, that “true thought in humans is (also) made up of small, unintelligent parts. No brain, or computer chip, ‘looks’ intelligent in its details, under a microscope.”

“How we talk about AI matters,” concludes Brundage. “AI is likely to change our civilization as much as, or more than any technology that's come before.” By dismissing AI’s efficacy “unless and until it meets an arbitrary, human-centric standard of behavior,” we might overlook the very real effects it is having in our world today.

Future Tense is a collaboration among ASU, the New America Foundation and Slate magazine that explores how emerging technologies affect policy and society.

Article source: Slate magazine

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