[extropy-chat] D-Wave premiere of 16 qubit processor

[Ben Goertzel]

Robert Bradbury wrote:
>
> On 2/14/07, *Ben Goertzel* <ben at goertzel.org 
> <mailto:ben at goertzel.org>> wrote:
>
>     It is worth distinguishing as a different category, AI systems
>     that aim at general intelligence (in roughly the sense of the
>     g-factor from psychology) rather than achievement in highly
>     specialized domains.  I have come to the conclusion that pursuit
>     of general intelligence and pursuit of specialized intelligence
>     are quite different sorts of science/engineering tasks. 
>
>
> I agree.  And given the 3 problems I pointed out earlier I have little 
> hope that a good human level or even better than human level AGI, even 
> a self-improving AGI, would be as good at solving those problems as 
> dedicated hardware and software solutions should be.  Given the 
> difference that good solutions to those problems would make I'd rather 
> see the emphasis placed on them than on QC or AGI.

Well, we disagree pretty radically, but that's OK ;-)

My view is that the science and engineering problems involved in 
creating Drexlerian molecular assemblers are gonna be REALLY HARD, and 
will be most effectively and rapidly solved by a very intelligent 
artificial mind with nanoscale sensors and actuators.

-- Ben G

>
> One interesting question, IMO, would be what *fraction* of the neurons 
> (or power consumed) by the brain is actually dedicated to intelligent 
> thought vs. what fraction is dedicated to storing and retreiving 
> memory, sensory processing, motor control, maintenance of internal 
> state, etc.?  Given the way memory trends seem to be going we are 
> going to cross over the memory storage metrics (W/bit or bits/sec) 
> much sooner than we will cross over the computational metrics 
> (instructions/W or instructions/sec).
>
> Robert
>