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I want to pose an intellectual question to the MF goers

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Well we here at Mac-Forums I believe on the whole a smart bunch of people. And with that knowledge I had an idea. To pose a question to you all. More like an open ended question we can debate. Why do this? For something different. If you think it's boring or pointless just ignore it. But if you want to respond please do.

My question to you all is:

With the ever rapid increases in computational power the modern computers are possessing and with new and better models coming out all the time, will there be a day where man invents a computer that is on par with the powers of the human mind?
 
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Doubtful. The brain, and the human mind for that matter, both have capacity and capabilities that we have not been able to come near to understand or utilize. Mechanical devices have the ability to do some repetitive things faster and more consistent. But the human mind has limitless capabilities that we simply have not learned to utilize yet. Our average utilization of the brain still hovers around 15% or so.
 
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To achieve that the computer would need to be able to carry out multiple tasks at the same time. Not parralel processing, that involves multiple cores hence multiple brains, but actually be able to do many things with the same processor at the same time.
 
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Not a chance I feel. The brain is so adaptable, and has to be. A computer will never be able to react to a sudden change like the brain can. We are capable of making decisions on the fly, a computer will always need a program or command to tell it to do so.
 
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Not a chance I feel. The brain is so adaptable, and has to be. A computer will never be able to react to a sudden change like the brain can. We are capable of making decisions on the fly, a computer will always need a program or command to tell it to do so.


sure, but if it is programmed to do that then it would be possible. machines can learn, they just need to be programmed to learn.
 
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Not a chance I feel. The brain is so adaptable, and has to be. A computer will never be able to react to a sudden change like the brain can. We are capable of making decisions on the fly, a computer will always need a program or command to tell it to do so.

Like a smart auto pilot, or artificial intellegence.
 
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Ok, what I mean is, as an extreme example. If someone comes at you with a knife, you can react in a split second to change the course of actions. I don't think any AI will ever be able to do anything similar. Yes, Auto Pilot is very clever, but if something goes wrong it has to be handled by a pilot, regardless.
It is after all, a pre programmed system, with set guides as to what to do when and where.
 
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What if - for example, some researcher discovers a way to link a brain to a computer, so that the brain becomes the cpu? Granted, it is a bit far fetched, but what if at some point in the future, the brain is mapped to a degree where someone could take the brain of say a small animal, and utilize it with a specially designed instruction set (I guess synapsis (sp?) connections of sorts) to allow a brain to act as a cpu? The brain could then learn and expand, using the knowledge (ie: programs and data) to allow it to function.

Other then that, I'd imagine we'd need some sort of quantum leap in technological capability to even come close to the capability of a human brain. Our storage capacity may not be that great compared to what can be stored with silicon, but our ability to process and manipulate information (whether it be visual, touch, smell, memory, etc.) would be very hard to replicate.
 
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Ok, what I mean is, as an extreme example. If someone comes at you with a knife, you can react in a split second to change the course of actions. I don't think any AI will ever be able to do anything similar. Yes, Auto Pilot is very clever, but if something goes wrong it has to be handled by a pilot, regardless.
It is after all, a pre programmed system, with set guides as to what to do when and where.

Right but in a sense the pilot is programmed to react to those situations. I know that if I was in an plane and something went wrong I couldn't react to fix the problem. If the computer was programmed to asses the situation and find the source of the problem, it could react and work out a method to solve the problem. That is essentially what the human mind is doing in those types of situations.
 
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Right but in a sense the pilot is programmed to react to those situations. I know that if I was in an plane and something went wrong I couldn't react to fix the problem. If the computer was programmed to asses the situation and find the source of the problem, it could react and work out a method to solve the problem. That is essentially what the human mind is doing in those types of situations.

True, but how would it know? There's no way of programming it to know that there's going to be an incident, say a near miss, at a particular time, otherwise there would never be any. That would be a psychic computer program!
 
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True, but how would it know? There's no way of programming it to know that there's going to be an incident, say a near miss, at a particular time, otherwise there would never be any. That would be a psychic computer program!

Right, but there is also no way for a pilot to know that either. He could know that there is an incoming projectile and start evasive manuvers. That would be pretty simple to do with a computer. It would not be as good as a pilot's intuition and ability to physically see the incoming missile but the computer would be connected to the radar system, so it would know the missile is coming and could take action to prevent a collision.
 
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Ahh that's a little different though, and there are evasive measures for that kind of thing already BUT human instinct, natural reaction can't be emulated exactly, that's why we rule!
 
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God created man in his own image, but man proved to be an imperfect creation. Man will indeed eventually create computing power in his own image; but it too will be imperfect, lacking the unique gifts of the human mind.
 
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sure, but if it is programmed to do that then it would be possible. machines can learn, they just need to be programmed to learn.
The difference is, that while you can program a computer to learn.. Humans don't require that programming. We do work within a construct of what we have experienced, but we are fully capable of taking in and processing completely new experiences. We're also capable of free and independent thoughts and associations.

So, I'll say certainly not in my (or my childrens) lifetimes.. and in general I highly doubt it, electric sheep or not.
 
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AI. Real AI.At one point there will be a computer that's programmed to be able to learn and adapt to new situations by analyzing past situations (like a human). Say you have a fully articulate robot at this point in time that has a sophisticated AI that's programmed to play soccer. It knows to catch the ball if it comes at it's head because it will cause damage.

So know the computer know that objects moving at a certain velocity can hurt it. So say it encounters some one running at it with a knife. If it can see/sense the object, a sharp knife, moving at it at that speed, then it will know that harm is coming it's way and it should avoid it. But if they see some one walking around the kitchen with a knife, they know by the way that the person is moving and even holding the knife that they pose no threat.

It's entirely possible.
 

vansmith

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This is a very hard question to answer because who's to say what the future will hold. Any predictions of what the future may hold can change drastically.

That said, I would like to think that in many respects, humans will always have an edge on computers. We don't need Skynet ;). Joking aside, I think a relevant question to ask is, assuming this is technically and theoretically possible, do we want it? Humans have control over what machines are capable of as it is now but do we need or want machines to have the same cognitive capacities that humans do? I'm not paranoid nor worry about something like Skynet happening (as I alluded to earlier jokingly) but I would like to think that we will always have control over machines and if computers are given a "true" sense of cognitive independence, do we lose that control?
 
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Yes I feel that with enough time a computer will be smart enough to fully interact and respond just as a human does. It would be years and years before it is possible, as it was said before humans learn by experience computers do as they are told. With a computer we can recreate things that we have never thought possible before. With the advancements in tech there is so many things that we are able to do, for example we are able to create robots that express emotions, that respond to our commands and does as we say(to a degree) and we have robots that move around based on the room they are within. I don't see any real major advancements in robot tech until we make it passed 128 bit processors, simply because the human mind has thousands to millions of "processes" running constantly and that's not including any of the thoughts that we may have at one time.

But into some degree we can be a computer our body uses eletrical impulses to control many of the motor functions within us. We have already been able to create a human heart and many other organs by using machines to "replace" them, we have been able to clone organs as well. within I'd say 20 years we will start having computers that are able to recreate the entire human organs and thought process. Within our programming languages we can have it check to see if certain conditions are met and to responsed to that. We are just beganing the point where the computer can responsed without given clear commands.

Edit: Also we are just on the starting path of nanotech, matter in fact IBM has been doing some major advancements of moving singular atoms to create a linkin log type effect with them.
 

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To quote that article, "...suggesting that if machines could even slightly surpass human intellect, they could improve their own designs in ways unforeseen by their designers...". Is it just me or does this not sound a little terrifying? I'm not sure I want a machine that can surpass our cognitive abilities. Sure, they can compute many, many times faster than I could ever imagine but at least I have the edge in terms of reason and logic. I can also pull the plug ;).

I believe that there needs to be a divide in the types of intelligence that machines and humans have. Machines can continue and should continue to be number crunching "superthinkers" while the realm of reason and changeable logic should be left to humans.
 
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Who knows. Can you imagine asking an individual in the year 1900 what progress would be made in the coming century?

And over my seventy years I have met some individuals who were not real bright!
 

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