Word: ais
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Further, much of the progress made lately on the difficult "simple" problems--like recognizing faces--has come via parallel computers, which mirror the diffuse data-processing architecture of the brain. Though progress in AI hasn't matched the high hopes of its founders, the field is making computers more like us, not just in what they do but in how they do it--more like us on the inside...
...years AI researchers have tossed around the question of whether computers might be sentient. But since they often did so in casual late-night conversations, and sometimes in an altered state of consciousness, their speculations weren't hailed as major contributions to Western thought. However, as computers keep evolving, more philosophers are taking the issue of computer consciousness seriously. And some of them--such as Chalmers, a professor of philosophy at the University of California at Santa Cruz--are using it to argue that consciousness is a deeper puzzle than many philosophers have realized...
Ryle's book was published three years after ENIAC's birth, and at first glance his ideas would seem to draw strength from the computer age. That, at any rate, is the line Dennett takes in defending his teacher's school of thought. Dennett notes that AI is progressing, creating smart machines that process data somewhat the way human beings do. As this trend continues, he believes, it will become clearer that we're all machines, that Ryle's strict materialism was basically on target, that the mind-body problem is in principle solved. The title of Dennett...
Actually there have long been a few mysterians insisting that the glory of human experience defies scientific dissection. But the current debate is different. The New Mysterians are fundamentally scientific in outlook. They don't begin by doubting the audacious premises of AI. O.K., they say, maybe it is possible--in principle, at least--to build an electronic machine that can do everything a human brain can do. They just think people like Dennett misunderstand the import of such a prospect: rather than bury old puzzles about consciousness, it resurrects them in clearer form than ever...
...What Dennett does, Chalmers says, is skip the "hard" questions and focus on the "easy" questions--and then title his book Consciousness Explained. There is one other "hard" question that Chalmers emphasizes. It--and Dennett's alleged tendency to avoid such questions--is illustrated by something called pandemonium, an AI model that Dennett favors...