On Sun, 28 Nov 1999 18:57:31 -0800, Chris Cogan wrote:
[...]
>SJ>Here is yet another difference between humans and machines.
>>
>>We can recognise faces easily, even from acute angles and under adverse
>>conditions. But surprisingly computers have great difficulty in even
>>knowing that it is a face they are supposed to recognise!
>>
>>This is more evidence that the basic AI assumption that humans are just
>>machines is on the wrong track.
>CC>This is like someone arguing, in 1910, that the fact that adding machines
>can't play chess is evidence that "the a basic AI assumption that humans are
>just machines is on the wrong track."
Well the fact is that even supercomputers cannot play chess *at all*.
Fascinatingly only yesterday I answered another post on a different List
with the following:
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I used to play tournament chess, so I have a bit more interest in
this.
I agree with Searle (I think it is him) who argued that such
computers are not playing chess at all. They are *simulating*
playing chess, like a flight simulator simulates flying.
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>CC>More likely, it's evidence that the
>machines aren't well-programmed for this task. What will you say if, in a
>few years, machines are able to recognize faces easily?
I would say that they are not recognising faces at all. They are *simulating*
recognising faces. Only when they *know* they are recognising faces will I
admit that computers are *really* recognising faces.
What will Chris say if, in a few years, machines are *still* not able to
recognize faces easily?
Steve
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"Two shafts of criticism struck Darwin more directly than the outside
world was allowed to know. They touched his particular theory that
evolution took place by natural selection, a process analogous to the
artificial selection which plant and animal breeders were practicing with
such great success at that time. The first criticism asserted that Darwin's
thesis was not true; the second, that it was not new. Such criticisms are
raised against all revolutionary hypotheses, but both of these were serious
and well informed." (Darlington C.D., "The Origin of Darwinism",
Scientific American, Vol. 201, May 1959, p60)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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