"AI models" entries
In search of a model for modeling intelligence
True artificial intelligence will require rich models that incorporate real-world phenomena.
An orrery, a runnable model of the solar system that allows us to make predictions. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
In my last post, we saw that AI means a lot of things to a lot of people. These dueling definitions each have a deep history — ok fine, baggage — that has massed and layered over time. While they’re all legitimate, they share a common weakness: each one can apply perfectly well to a system that is not particularly intelligent. As just one example, the chatbot that was recently touted as having passed the Turing test is certainly an interlocutor (of sorts), but it was widely criticized as not containing any significant intelligence.
Let’s ask a different question instead: What criteria must any system meet in order to achieve intelligence — whether an animal, a smart robot, a big-data cruncher, or something else entirely? Read more…