Neurologist outlines why machines can’t think

[Anguspure]

This article is an interesting discussion about why it is not AI that is a threat to humanity. Rather it is humanity that may use AI to destroy itself.
https://mindmatters.today/2018/neurosurgeon-outlines-why-machines-cant-think/
A cornerstone of the development of artificial intelligence is the pervasive assumption that machines can, or will, think. Watson, a question-answering computer, beats the best Jeopardy players, and anyone who plays chess has had the humiliation of being beaten by a chess engine. (I lose to even the most elementary levels of the chess program on my iPhone). Does this mean that computers can think as well as (or better than) humans think? No, it does not. Computers are not “smart” in any way. Machines are utterly incapable of thought.

The assertion that computation is thought, hence thought is computation, is called computer functionalism. It is the theory that the human mind is to the brain as software is to hardware. The mind is what the brain does; the brain “runs” the mind, as a computer runs a program. However, careful examination of natural intelligence (the human mind) and artificial intelligence (computation) shows that this is a profound misunderstanding.

What is the hallmark of human thought, and what distinguishes thoughts from material things? Franz Brentano (1838–1917), a German philosopher in the 19th century, answered this question decisively. All thoughts are about something, whereas no material object is inherently “about” anything. This property of aboutness is called intentionality, and intentionality is the hallmark of the mind. Every thought that I have shares the property of aboutness—I think about my vacation, or about politics, or about my family. But no material object is, in itself, “about” anything. A mountain or a rock or a pen lacks aboutness—they are just objects. Only a mind has intentionality, and intentionality is the hallmark of the mind.....

....But to believe that machines can think or that human thought is a kind of computation is a profound error. Belief in this fundamental error about AI will lead us away from, not toward, the truth about AI. Machines, for example, will never become malevolent and harm mankind. Men will act with malevolence, using machines, or men will use machines in ways that (unintentionally) harm others. Men can use cars malevolently and carelessly and can thus harm others. But the malevolence and careless is in the man, not in the car.

To paraphrase Pogo: we have met AI, and AI is us.

By Denyse O'Leary

 

[Basil the Great]

I have seen the Terminator movies too many times to totally discount the possibility that one day machines might become self-aware and turn against us.

 

[Anguspure]

I have seen the Terminator movies too many times to totally discount the possibility that one day machines might become self-aware and turn against us.

Another interesting series that explores the concept is: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4122068/

But for my part I am wondering what the connection with the recent AI technological push and the desire of the fallen ones to have bodies to inhabit.

Could it be that the development is simply creating a user interface for a spirit being that will masquerade as a clever computer?

 

[ubicaritas]

I have seen the Terminator movies too many times to totally discount the possibility that one day machines might become self-aware and turn against us.

Its possible advanced quantuum computers might indeed achieve self-awareness and even experience something like qualia. .

The human brain and body may be more like a radio receiver for consciousness. So even rocks and trees may have a primitive kind of consciousness, but as life advances it becomes more developed until self-awareness is reached.

 

[Anguspure]

Its possible advanced quantuum computers might indeed achieve self-awareness and even experience something like qualia. .

The human brain and body may be more like a radio receiver for consciousness. So even rocks and trees may have a primitive kind of consciousness, but as life advances it becomes more developed until self-awareness is reached.

If the brain is a quantum radio reciever/transmitter for the mind, then the development may improve the user interface but the mind is something all together different again.

 

[Strathos]

I wouldn't rule such things out when it comes to future technology.

 

[Silmarien]

You're begging the question against any number of theories of mind here by suggesting that while the human brain is capable of producing intentionality, artificial intelligence is by definition impossible. From the bit of research I've done into the area of AI, it seems that older computational approaches are hopeless, but that deep learning and artificial neural networks modeled on the brain might in theory lead to strong AI.

I'm guessing that you're a substance dualist and see intentionality and thought as an immaterial process that can never be captured by any computation? A non-reductive materialist might reply by saying that sufficiently complicated computational programs will automatically produce mental processes as well, and that this can happen as easily in an artificial brain as in a biological one. (They are left with the challenge of explaining how this is possible at all, but that is a problem that goes far deeper than AI and should not be confused with it.)

Myself, I am actually a variety of idealist. I believe in mind and structure but am agnostic about matter, so the possibility that consciousness could manifest in a structure aside from the biological brain is not difficult for me at all.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Machines can't think because machines do not have billions of neural processors. The newest computer chip has 18 cores running 36 threads. Compare this to the human brain using billions of cores running billions of threads, capable of forming new threads when needed. When we create a computer like that, then we'll discuss if AI is possible...

 

[Justatruthseeker]

You're begging the question against any number of theories of mind here by suggesting that while the human brain is capable of producing intentionality, artificial intelligence is by definition impossible. From the bit of research I've done into the area of AI, it seems that older computational approaches are hopeless, but that deep learning and artificial neural networks modeled on the brain might in theory lead to strong AI.

I'm guessing that you're a substance dualist and see intentionality and thought as an immaterial process that can never be captured by any computation? A non-reductive materialist might reply by saying that sufficiently complicated computational programs will automatically produce mental processes as well, and that this can happen as easily in an artificial brain as in a biological one. (They are left with the challenge of explaining how this is possible at all, but that is a problem that goes far deeper than AI and should not be confused with it.)

Myself, I am actually a variety of idealist. I believe in mind and structure but am agnostic about matter, so the possibility that consciousness could manifest in a structure aside from the biological brain is not difficult for me at all.

Which is exactly why the concept of a being of pure Energy/Thought/Mind is impossible for me to dismiss as merely myth or superstition. It's how our brains work. It's what makes up everything in existence and is in everything. It can't be created nor destroyed, but has always just existed. To me this is what God would be, not an old white haired man sitting on a throne, but the very fabric of the universe itself....

 

[Strathos]

Which is exactly why the concept of a being of pure Energy/Thought/Mind is impossible for me to dismiss as merely myth or superstition. It's how our brains work. It's what makes up everything in existence and is in everything. It can't be created nor destroyed, but has always just existed. To me this is what God would be, not an old white haired man sitting on a throne, but the very fabric of the universe itself....

Pantheism?

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Pantheism?

Not in the least, since the universe came from God. But even science agrees energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so must have always existed, even before the universe as we know it began.

 

[Petros2015]

I have seen the Terminator movies too many times to totally discount the possibility that one day machines might become self-aware and turn against us.

Machines don't need to be self aware to destroy us. A steam roller can crush you without being self aware in the slightest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo

 

[dysert]

I'd like to hear peoples' definitions of "intelligence". Computers, in my mind (and I've worked on them for nearly 40 years) will never be intelligent. They can store vast quantities of information, and they can make super-fast computations, but they can't reason. They only deal with inputs they've been given (or have derived from those they've been given). We have nothing to fear about AI because the computer's "I" is quite a poor substitute for human intelligence.

 

[essentialsaltes]

It is the theory that the human mind is to the brain as software is to hardware.
All thoughts are about something, whereas no material object is inherently “about” anything.

Even if we grant all of this, I don't see why AI is impossible.
Brains are material objects. So are computers (hardware). Thoughts aren't material objects; neither is software.

I mean, I assume this neurosurgeon doesn't use an ATM, because there is no way that number on the screen could be 'about' him or his bank account or the amount of money in it.

 

[dysert]

neither is software

We may start nitpicking here, but as a software developer myself, I would say that software *is* a material object.

 

[ubicaritas]

The real question is why are so many humans not intelligent?

 

[essentialsaltes]

We may start nitpicking here, but as a software developer myself, I would say that software *is* a material object.

Probably it would get nitpicky. But I think the same could be said for 'thought'.

We can send software around the world nearly instantaneously. Not something you can do with a rock.

Or looking at parallels, is a novel a material object? Certainly that book, the physical volume is a material object, but is Wuthering Heights itself a material object?

Ultimately, we might start talking about patterns of physical objects, whether it's semiconductor switches set to on and off, or marks on a page. But these patterns may well be more akin to how thoughts are thunk in brains.

 

[essentialsaltes]

The real question is why are so many humans not intelligent?

Lousy programming.

 

[dysert]

Probably it would get nitpicky. But I think the same could be said for 'thought'.

We can send software around the world nearly instantaneously. Not something you can do with a rock.

Or looking at parallels, is a novel a material object? Certainly that book, the physical volume is a material object, but is Wuthering Heights itself a material object?

Ultimately, we might start talking about patterns of physical objects, whether it's semiconductor switches set to on and off, or marks on a page. But these patterns may well be more akin to how thoughts are thunk in brains.

You could send a rock instantaneously if you were able to digitize and undigitize it, like you can for software. As I think of it, the software is what I'm typing into the computer every day to make it perform the tasks I want it to perform. The software is tangible: it can be typed in, read, measured, changed, compiled, run, etc. Software is created by an intelligent being (me) or by some entity that itself was programmed by an intelligent being (in the case of code generation systems).

All this just to reiterate my opinion that a machine won't be able to generate software on its own with no outside help.

 

[dysert]

The real question is why are so many humans not intelligent?

Lousy programming.

Bugs.