Very many decades have been spent in the attempt to emulate
human intelligence with a computer. This was the original definition of
artificial intelligence, after all. “The 1950s and ’60s believed success lay in
mimicking the logic-based reasoning that human brains were thought to use. In
1957, the AI crowd confidently predicted that machines would soon be able to
replicate all kinds of human mental achievements.” This was simply not true.
Part of the reason for this fallacy of reasoning was because we still don’t
really understand how the human brain works, which makes emulating it’s logical
thought paths even more difficult. This is what caused a major shift in
Artificial Intelligence technology: we did not understand what we were trying
to emulate. So these days “Artificial Intelligence” as it’s called has changed
shape to now fulfill certain discrete simpler problems at a time. “Today’s AI
doesn’t try to re-create the brain. Instead, it uses machine learning, massive
data sets, sophisticated sensors, and clever algorithms to master discrete
tasks.”
The fact is that computers lend themselves to certain types of
tasks much better than they do to other kinds of tasks. The simplest example is
that computers do not have any potential for emotion, only logic-based decisions.
Computers need parameters in order to make a decision, whereas humans are
capable of making decisions without any relevant data if they were so inclined.
Even if a computer was to generate a random number, it would still have
parameters on what kinds of numbers were within its domain or workable set. Due
to these factors, I believe “true” artificial intelligence (emulating the human
brain) is impossible for a modern computer to achieve. However, computers can achieve
tasks that are useful to humans in so many other ways, why not redefine “artificial
intelligence”? We have.
The was a very thought provoking post. I like how you went into detail about just how difficult it is to replicate a human way of thinking. I always looked at AI as just needing more processing power to work, but I never took into consideration the truly random way people think.
ReplyDeleteHello Brian,
ReplyDeleteI like your reasoning behind the whole concept of Artificial Intelligence technology, where it’s not about emulating the human brain, but to use data to solve simpler tasks for humans. I can definitely tell you were engaging with the audience in this post and wanted to change our basic understanding on what AI is all about or what it can do. Other than a few grammatical errors, you did a great job on your post. Keep up the good work.
I think your blog has dedicated to a very important topic, whether it is meaningful to set the final target of AI as "to replace human being". I think your analysis here stimulates me with more thinking. I agree with you that AI should play more important role on assisting human but not replacing them. The analysis on the difference between the working ways of AI and human being also contribute to this conclusion.
ReplyDeleteHi Brian,
ReplyDeleteI liked what you wrote about for this topic. I completely agreed with what you said about how we barely understand how the human mind works. Even if we did understand everything about our brains, the amount of raw computing power required to emulate one would be astronomically large. I think it's safe to say that it's going to take a long time for AI to get where people want it to go.