Comment by pron | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pron | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> Intelligence measures an agent’s ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments

A tardigrade achieves its goals in a wide range of environments; I don't think anyone would call it intelligent. I've known quite a few 15-year-old juvenile delinquents that I'm certain were able to achieve their goals in a much wider range of environments than Albert Einstein; were they all much more intelligent than Einstein?

> But it is a great step towards AI.

How do you know how big a step it is? None of our learning algorithms has yet to achieve even an insect's level of intelligence (which would be normally considered zero or close to it). How do you know we're even on the right path? I mean, I have no real reason to doubt that we'll get AI sometime in the future, but the belief -- certainty even -- that AI is imminent has been with us for about sixty years now.

I would absolutely classify a tardigrade as an intelligent system. Systems of parts interacting in an intelligent way applies to more than just networks of nerve cells.

You've made a circular definition. And I wasn't claiming that only nerve cells can form intelligence, but I think that if we expand the definition beyond what people normally call intelligent, then we should be more precise than the vague "ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments" or else every complex adaptive system would be called intelligent, in which case we can drop that name because we already have one: complex adaptive systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system)

I wasn't to give a definition. Just refuting your claim that nobody would consider a tardigrade intelligent.

But if a tardigrade is intelligent then so are bacteria and even viruses. While you can define intelligence how you like, I don't think this coincides with common usage. In fact, you've extended the definition so much that it just means "life" or even a complex adaptive system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system). If by intelligent you mean "alive" or "complex adaptive system", why use the word intelligent?

Also, if intelligence means "achieving goals in a wide range of environments", then I think some computer viruses are far more intelligent -- by this definition -- than even the most advanced machine-learning software to date.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com