What is Synthetic Intelligence?
The popularity of artificial intelligence has grown to epic proportions. In recent years, we have seen the rise of advanced consumer-focused AI. Products such as Alexa, Siri, and Telsa autopilot are examples. Business too have embraced AI. Machine learning is exploding as an application of narrow AI. Businesses use it to comb through vast amounts of data to better develop and market product. Further still, learning computers have conquered complex games such as Go and DoTA2. These advances are momentous points in human development. Yet, the public has been told a lie. We have been duped into viewing these systems as thinking machines.
Thinking Machines
A thinking machine, a machine with intelligence, cannot be artificial. Artificial intelligence is a simulated intelligence. AI is a cantrip cast upon the public to hide the complex programming behind the technology. Virtual assistants. Auto-piloting vehicles. Game NPC behavior. None of us considers these constructs to be capable of thought. Thus, a simulation of thinking is not, strictly speaking, thinking.
A genuine non-human intelligence may not be out of reach, though. We just need to consider synthetic intelligence. The use of synthetic in the phrase synthetic intelligence does not, as some take it, mean fake. Rather, the use of synthetic implies a synthesis of foundational elements…
