[ExI] Oxford scientists edge toward quantum PC with 10b qubits.

[Richard Loosemore]

spike wrote:
>> ... On Behalf Of Richard Loosemore
> ...
>> For example, I would bet that if I ask Watson:
> 
>> "If I have a set of N balls in a bag, and I pull out the same number of
> balls from the bag as there are letters in your name, how many balls would
> be left in the bag?"  It would be completely unable to answer.  Richard
> Loosemore
> 
> 
> Well sure, but Richard, there is an appalling fraction of humanity which
> would fail that test.
> 
> My question is more pragmatic.  Let us not worry for now about having
> created intelligence, but rather the more practical and pragmatic question: 
> 
> How far are we from creating software that will serve as an adequate
> companion for the partially impaired elderly person?  
> 
> We need machines which can tirelessly carry on stimulating
> conversation.  With the Watson experiment, I feel we are getting
> tantalizingly close to that now.

But that is *exactly* my point.  We are not getting tantalizingly close, 
we are just doing the same old snake-oil con trick of building a system 
that works in a ridiculously narrow domain, and which impresses some 
people with the sheer breadth of information it stores inside it.

Watson does not contain the germ of an intelligence, it contains a 
dead-end algorithm designed to impress the gullible.  That strategy has 
been the definition of "artificial intelligence" for the last thirty or 
forty years, at least.

A real AI is not Watson + extra machinery to close the gap to a full 
conversational machine.  Instead, a real AI involves throwing away 
Watson, starting from scratch, and doing the whole thing in a completely 
different way ....  a way that actually allows the system to build its 
own knowledge, and use that knowledge in an ever-expanding range of ways.



Richard Loosemore