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TECHNOLOGY
There Is No Such Thing As Artificial Intelligence
It’s all intelligence
Recently, a Google employee made the claim that an AI project was sentient. This was greeted by jeering and disgust by most, even those with no background whatsoever in the field.
The major argument against his claim is that the AI only knows what it has been told; it only pieces together responses and has learned what responses are appropriate.
So that’s that, case closed, Google engineer sent home to recuperate.
Hold on
But tell me this: Do you know anything you haven’t learned or been taught? Did you learn what responses are appropriate in your life?
The Google AI is circuits of transistors powered by electricity. Your brain is circuits of cells powered by chemistry and electricity. What’s the difference?
Is a dog sentient? A goldfish? An amoeba? Oh, that’s getting harder, isn’t it?
Instinct
Is instinct intelligence? We say instinct is “hardwired”. Where did it come from in the first place? Different animals have different instincts appropriate to their lifestyle — or at least the lifestyle of their distant ancestors. At some point, some member of the species learned…