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Subject: Re: Computer Chess. Useful??

Author: Tom Kerrigan

Date: 10:56:29 12/16/99

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On December 16, 1999 at 13:35:23, Dan Homan wrote:

>Perhaps you mean any problem that *requires* intelligence for a human
>to solve.  If such a problem is solved by artifical means, then the
>artifical means is by definition intelligent.  Let's use this as your
>definition of artificial intelligence.  A human can certainly use intelligence
>to wash clothes (identify the dirty spots, scrub them approriately, decide
>when they are done), but I suppose it is not required, a human could just
>move the clothes around randomly rather like a washing machine.

Right, if you have a washing machine that examines your clothes for dirty spots,
uses bleach appropriately, etc., then IMHO it's artifically intelligent. But not
if it just spins clothes around and spits 'em out.

>Couldn't a human just follow a brute force algorithm for playing chess?
>That wouldn't seem to *require* intelligence, in fact the human wouldn't

I disagree with this "extension." The washing-machine equivalent of playing
chess is moving pieces around at random, which humans and computers clearly
don't do.

>Take someone who doesn't know how to play chess at all.  By your definition
>they are not intelligent.  By my definition, their ability to learn

No, no. I never said that. I said that chess requires intelligence, not that
it's the measuring stick of intelligence.

You seem to be arguing more from a moral/ethical standpoint about "true"
intelligence and so forth. I'm only really concerned with the semantic argument.
If activity X requires intelligence to do, then anything that does X is showing
some degree of intelligence. I think that's pretty clear, from a logical
standpoint...

-Tom



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