I cannot pretend to being to understand how AI software is created, but while reading some news articles today the thought occured to me: When does AI become actual AI and not just complicated IF statements in the background? If everything software does comes down to determinable IF statements with some degree of randomness, how does it have any more or less AI than any other program?
+2
A:
For starters, when you can 'train' your AI to behave a certain way. The AI can then make decisions based up on what it has learned from the training data, instead of from "hardcoded if statements". Obviously this is just scratching the surface, but you can see how AI using (for example) a neural network could evolve over time, as data in the network is changed.
Justin Ethier
2010-10-11 16:32:18
Training a neural network and "machine learning" in general is really just a fancy term for adjusting some constants in those if statements.
Michael Borgwardt
2010-10-11 16:43:04
Hmmm... perhaps you are right. Especially after reading the above answers, the real trick is in understanding what is happening instead of just blackboxing it as "AI".
Justin Ethier
2010-10-13 17:35:57
A:
I'd say that it's pretty close to AI when it can drive a real car in urban conditions.
Can you trivialize this by saying "it's just a bunch of 'if' statements"? I can't.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke.
Personally, I think auto pilots for planes and cars are quite advanced and impressive.
duffymo
2010-10-11 16:32:26
I'm not purposefully trying to start a debate, but in that situation, isn't all that is happening that input is being generator by sensors which is fueling some deterministic algorithms in the background. Yes, the algorithms are more complicated than they used to be, but that doesn't mean the computers themselves are becoming more 'intellegent'.
Shynthriir
2010-10-11 16:35:05
@duffymo: Personally, I _can_ trivialize it that way. In the end, the Google car project is just an autopilot, much like planes have used for some time. Admittedly piloting a car automatically is more complicated than doing the same for a plane, but the basic principle is the same. I certainly wouldn't call a plane autopilot AI, so I can't call the car autopilot AI either.
bcat
2010-10-11 16:39:01
(warning: silly comment) I'd rather say that it gets close to AI when it starts to swear at other drivers... ;)
Lucius
2010-10-11 16:49:12
Read "GEB: The Eternal Golden Braid". The computer's not going to become conscious, and it's not necessary for that to happen to call it AI.
duffymo
2010-10-11 16:52:13
Really? You can call what's described in that article as trivial "if" statements? You're a hard person to impress, bcat.
duffymo
2010-10-11 16:52:50
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A:
AI doesn't "become" actual AI... It's the other way around, it stops being AI when you figure out how it works.
Recommended reading: PoAIP
kotlinski
2010-10-11 16:35:59
There's an old saying in AI: "Today's computer science is yesterday's AI."
TechNeilogy
2010-10-12 19:04:59
+4
A:
When does AI become actual AI and not just complicated IF statements in the background?
Who says there's a difference? As far as we know, out brains are really just "determinable IF statements with some degree of randomness" as well. Physics is just applied math, chemistry is just phsyics with some details simplified to allow working at a larger scale, biology is just simplified large-scale chemistry, and so far we don't have any proof that psychology is not just simplified large-scale biology.
If everything software does comes down to determinable IF statements with some degree of randomness, how does it have any more or less AI than any other program?
Emergent complexity - the whole is more than the sum of its parts and, as it gets more complex, often shows behaviour that cannot be tracked down to any one of the parts, or even specific groups of them.
Michael Borgwardt
2010-10-11 16:41:28