As time goes on, more and more questions are being asked on whether we can make a robot or a system that is just as mentally capable as human beings are. This indeed would be a hard feat to achieve, seeing as the human brain is often too complex for some people to even comprehend, we have a huge variety of emotions and instincts that is practically impossible for anyone to replicate.
The development of an artificially concious entity may happen within our lifetimes - Robert Pepperell, The Post-Human Condition
For a short start, what actually is artificial intelligence (AI)? According to the book ‘New Media: A Critical Introduction’, there are two types, classical AI and connectionist AI. Classical AI is simply concerned with creating exact human intelligence in a machine, whereas connectionist AI (aka, ‘neural networks’) is centred around machine intelligence alone, even if it doesn’t totally resemble the human mind.
When reading up on AI in machines, you would be forgiven for wondering if it is actually possible for a machine to think for itself and have it’s own identity? This question has been subjected to debate openly for over 50 years, when Alan Turing published ‘Computing, Machinery and Intelligence’, the paper questioned such things on how we as humans think and the philosophy behind thinking itself. This report lead onto the Turing Test, which can test a systems capacity to show any kind of intelligence.
Is it possible that machines already have a small bit of intelligence, and is it likely that you’ve already encountered an example of a computer thinking? A common instance of a computer simulating having its own mind are the various ‘chatterbots’ that can be found easily on line. Chatterbots are programmes that have been made to simulate a conversation. One of the first chatterbots was ‘Eliza’, which was created in the mid-60s and was enhanced in the early 70s. Eliza was programmed to respond to questions of a psychopathic nature, and works via the use of scripts. However, Eliza’s intelligence is very low and whenever someone ‘confuses’ the script the reply they receive usually doesn’t make sense making it clear that Eliza is just in fact a computer programme rather than an actual independent intelligent being.
- Eliza the Chatterbot
However, there are more modern chatterbots that simulate human conversation much more effectively than Eliza. An example of one of these would be Alice (according to her site, A.L.I.C.E The Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity), with whom you are able to have a much more intelligent and varied conversation with than Eliza. Again, if you happen to mention something that the machine can’t comprehend then it is made clear that Alice is also just a computer programme without any real potential for intelligent thought (you can also follow a link on the site to talk to a chatterbot version of Captain Kirk, which is slightly more entertaining).
Even if you haven’t ever came across a chatterbot in your life, it is quite likely that you have encountered some kind of ‘bot’ on line at one point or another. There can be bots found in computer games, especially MUD’s/Dungeons where they’re set up to play and can pretend to be human. There is also the infamous ‘spambot’ which is commonly found in emails, they start their journey on webpages extracting peoples email addresses later sending them spam.
“There are many computer programmes called ‘bots’ that have been written to log into MUD’s and pretend to be human” – LivingInternet.com
Chatterbots are all good, but are there any other examples of computer intelligence that can be accessed by anyone? Whenever you play a game vs. a computer that is an example of your computer thinking and trying to make the best action it can to defeat you. A good example of this is the chess match now known as ‘Deep Blue vs. Kasparov’, which was a match between world champion chess player, Garry Kasparov and a computer Deep Blue, which won.
Although computers can do all the things described relatively independently, are there some human qualities that a computer just cannot replace? None of the examples I’ve used are very good at showing basic human compassion, or been able to react to simple questions with much depth. On top of that, none of the examples seem to have very dynamic personalities, apart from the entities that are based on well known characters, i.e. Captain Kirk.
digital sprog 