A letter from Boris: Is AI intelligent?
A friend compared his excitement over AI to connecting to the early internet with his 14.4K modem in 1995. I immediately understood what he meant. When I first came online, it felt like the back of my computer had opened up and uncovered an almost infinite source of information and connections. AI can create a similar feeling in people because it is a technology that seems applicable to a nearly infinite number of tasks and challenges. There are days now when I spend more time using AI than all my other online services combined.
Last week, I got a tour of a sailboat that I considered buying. I uploaded photos of every inch of the boat and asked ChatGPT to walk me through how old each item was, how it worked, how it would have to be maintained, and whether that was something I could do myself. Even if I had had someone who knew everything there was to know about sailboats, I still wouldn't feel comfortable asking them about every little detail of everything on that boat for hours and hours. But AI is patient, never has anything else to do, and has no issue explaining the finer details of diesel engine maintenance as if I were 5 years old.
I'm aware, however, that my brain hasn't adapted to AI yet. I sometimes wonder if I'm asking too much of it, until? I realise the chatbot has no feelings or even the ability to be impatient. Sometimes, before asking a question, my inner voice will say, "how could it possibly know that? Maybe give it some context first." Then I realise, I can ask anything I want without embarrassing it.?
Not only do I have to remind myself that AI has no feelings or memory, but also that AI isn't intelligent. And that's sometimes harder because wouldn't we all agree that someone who has answers to almost anything you ask them is considered intelligent? AI could probably pass any IQ test you throw at it and score higher than some of the most intelligent people. So why isn't AI intelligent?
To help understand the difference between human intelligence and machine intelligence, philosopher John Searle developed the "Chinese Room" argument. Imagine you're locked in a room with an extensive library of books and an easy way to search through them. Now and then, a Chinese-speaking person slides a note under the door with a question written in Chinese characters. You don't understand what the characters mean, but you find them in one of the many books, copy the corresponding answers on paper, and slide it back to the person behind the door.?
Although you may have the right answer, you are clueless about what's being said but are good at retrieving and passing on information.
It raises questions about the definition of “understanding” and what it means to be conscious. AI is more than a set of simple predefined questions and answers; it is more like a constantly updating and changing collection of datasets. So, even though the comparison might not be one hundred percent accurate, it does help us understand the difference between human and artificial intelligence.??
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