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An Equation for Intelligence
From Francois Chollet: “On the Measure of Intelligence”
Throughout history, the measure of intelligence has been changed wildly to adapt to shifting thought and attitudes towards different groups of people and animals. In recent decades, the possibility of intelligence is being extended towards machines.
Many have attempted to articulate criteria of intelligence in terms of language: there is room here to slide around, and the application of intelligence is something which must be evaluated by an external agent rather than being demonstrable solely by the measured being. Others make the convincing philosophical claim that intelligence, and the downstream labels of agency, free will, personhood, and so on are not for humans to impose in the first place (see Gunkel, The Machine Question). Even further, some philosophers assert that the existential anxiety projected upon the status of machines and other Others is a fake image: a mask to cover internal conflicts and tensions (See Zizek, Absolute Recoil and Sex and the Failed Absolute).
Still, many have hope for an objective measure of intelligence. In the landmark paper “On the Measure of Intelligence”, Francois Chollet may advance this cause: Chollet proposes an expression for the intelligence of a system. He offers many other interesting perspectives in the…
