Author: Graham Laight
Date: 05:35:32 12/22/99
Go up one level in this thread
On December 22, 1999 at 06:01:44, Georg v. Zimmermann wrote: >On December 21, 1999 at 12:27:46, Graham Laight wrote: > >>As the years roll by, it won't be just chess players experiencing this >>difficulty - it will be anyone who has any kind of measurable skill. >> >>If Moore's law continues to hold (computer power doubles every 18 months), and >>it has held since the mid sixties, it's easy to demonstrate that computer >>intelligence will surpass human intelligence in about 2021. > >How do u know how fast a comp. is needed to surpass human intelligence? I'd be >suprised if something(someone?!) would pass the T-test within that period. Likewise, many people were surprised that computers have displayed an ability to live with grandmaster chess players before the end of the century. Firstly, AI techniques are improving rapidly at the moment. People are regularly being surprised at computer displays of "intelligence" in various different aspects of life. Secondly, we have a rough idea of the connectivity in the brain. The following is a collection of "ballpark" figures and sweeping assumptions - it doesn't really matter if they're not exactly correct - they're just there to demonstrate the thinking of how we might calculate the capacity of the brain compared to a computer: The human brain has 10^10 nerve cells. Each nerve cell is connected to, on average, 10,000 (10^4) other cells. Therefore, there are 10^14 connections in the brain. If all this memory were used productively, this would equate to a computer with about 10^14 bytes of RAM. I'm afraid I don't have it handy right now, but I once created a spreadsheet with the amount of memory the biggest computers had plotted against year. I then extrapolated this graph into the future. The year computer power matched the human brain came out at 2021. But you don't have to take my word for it - get your spreadsheet out and repeat the calculation for yourself! 2021 may not be exactly correct - but unless Moore's law stops working, it's not going to be very many years before or after. Graham
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.