How to Think About Artificial Intelligence : Iteratively.
There are several schools of thought that govern how one thinks, and in turn govern and build systems that replicate that process of thinking. But what defines true intelligence?
We have come from an age of pre-programmed mechanical and pneumatic machines controlled from a separate room. Fast forward to today, where we have machines that use no human assistance to build and create other machines that do the same.
It kind of gets you thinking about how we humans make machines think while we have no certainty about why our own mind works the way it does.
Although we have placed our ego’s apart by constantly reminding that we still have that X Factor in our brains that A.I doesn’t (or never will) have, which is what only keeps us from being completely worthless, when compared to the speed and adaptive nature of our Artificial Counter-parts.
Iteration
What defines intelligence is not just flawless absorption of information from one end and spewing out processed information from another. Even though it might be as straightforward as it sounds, it doesn’t always work out the way you want it to. Whether you’re human or robot. There are always cycles, repetition, iterations, to get a precise (or close) outcome. Which is why we train machine learning models. And they still might be way off on their predictions. We have obstacle-avoiding rovers perform course corrections iteratively in order to learn how to not bump into walls. There is a constant feedback loop that makes the future more tolerable if not better for us. It is the law of nature which every organism follows which is to observe and follow regularities and conformity. It is in these patterns that humans find security and safety. And that is how we dictate our robots to behave, to do what we do best, better than us.
I might be going off on a tangent here . The point of intelligence is much more than trial and error, but iterative course correction gets way less credit than it deserves. The process of learning and contemplating complex paradigms is an infinite loop, inside of which we mull over our thoughts over and over again to find meaning in words, formula and symbols. Trying to make sense of what we perceive is not a single swing effort. And all this mulling over in the end results in mix matching of several thoughts to form what is known as a unique thought.
The best way to think about A.I is to think about your own life. Put aside logic, linguistics and algorithms for one second. Try to figure out things like imitation, contemplation , communication and the exact number of times you need to look at someone’s face to exactly remember what they look like. Count the number of meetings. On every iteration, the picture becomes clearer.
Imagination and Abstract thinking is a completely different ball-game in figuring out human intelligence. Although it is scary how fast we’re getting there. Your brain multiplies from a single cell to something that almost weighs a couple of pounds. It is astonishing the kind of thoughts we can manifest from nothing. If your brain is a monolithic structure of neurons firing, what makes the exotic soup that builds it to feel emotion, drive and passion, something that logic can’t explain. Isn’t it the iterative process of evolution , generation after generation of creatures mulling over and over of what we later perceived as apes, and what we perceive now as homo-sapiens, surely there must be some sort of mapping that can explain this sort of phenomenal thinking.
I think there is more to study about this on my part, so it’s better I leave it at this, something for my readers to think about.
