Comment by IpV8
8 years ago
We are born with pre-programmed information about the structure of our environment, IE instincts. Why should an AI be held to higher standards?
8 years ago
We are born with pre-programmed information about the structure of our environment, IE instincts. Why should an AI be held to higher standards?
The manner of human "pre-programming" is so abstract that it falls outside the definition of what is normally meant by "pre-programming" in the context of AI. If you had some basic "instincts" codified into your AI that allowed for "self-perseveration" or was manifested as some type of reasoning-engine-BIOS that's one thing, but applying arbitrary training data sets onto your AI (as a pre-requisite for it to function maximally) is the type of "pre-programming" I'm getting at.
I think that it is still very relevant though to this discussion. I was born with some reprogrammed instincts and senses to let me objectively decide if an experience was positive or negative. This ultimately is the basis on which I am able to learn. When you're young, you may try random things like putting your hand on a hot burner. It gives you pain, so you learn not to do that! Likewise we need to pre-program an AI with ways of objectifying its environment and stimulus. From there a trial and error mentality can lead to a wealth of artificial knowledge. To expect a program to come to intelligence that can compete on any degree with humans without first programming some basic 'artificial emotions' would be unfair.
Primates have relatively few instinctive behaviours. Almost everything we do is learned to one degree or another.
You don't recoil when you see a snake/spider? You don't get tired when it gets dark out? You aren't born with the knowledge of how to extract milk from your mother? You don't cry when you're hurt? You don't have an innate desire to please, and fear of pain... which ultimately allows your parents to teach you? We are loaded with survival instincts that set us up for successful learning.
This is dead wrong. We have instincts for extremely complex behavior (like acquiring language, navigating reciprocal relationships, acquiring mates, etc.).
Just because we have evolved the neurological substrates that can be applied to those behaviours doesn't mean those behaviours themselves are instinctive. If navigating reciprocal relationships and acquiring mates are instinctive behaviours, why are so many humans so terrible at those things?
In contrast, something like breastfeeding really is an instinctive behaviour that infants can do automatically without being taught.
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