Information and the Organism

One of the cogent distinctions that separates the notion that machines can do everything what a human can do is ‘humans can think’¹while a machines doesn't possess self-thinking creative prowess. Human beings have the power to “perceive, understand, predict and manipulate” which makes them superior species. AI attempts "not just to understand but also to build intelligent entities." ²

John McCarthy, 1956 describes the phenomenon of Artificial Intelligence as the science and engineering of making intelligent machines.¹

Artificial Intelligence is the study and design of intelligent agents, where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions which maximize its chances of success. The application of it has been successfully conducted on ‘cyborgs’ and the concept is referred as ‘cybernetics’ after the name of the book Cybernatics: Or Control and Communication in the animal and the Machine written by Norbert Wierner.

The hallmark of this creation is dependent on ‘body modification’ explored by Kevin Warwick, Stelarc and Samppa Von cyborg. They argued that body modification is an ever evolving structure. In this regard, robotic limbs, microchip implants are only the start of a new dawn.  However, the thing that stands apart is ‘intelligence’. 

"Intelligence is the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world. Varying kinds and degrees of intelligence occur in people, many animals and some machines."³ But, the problem is it is hard to generalize "what kind of computational procedures we want to call intelligent." Thereby a question arises- "Are machines intelligent or not?"

Simple answer-NO. Computers carry only those tasks that require only mechanisms that are well understood today. Sometimes machines acts as simulating human intelligence but not always.

A computer works hundred times faster and they possess long term memories than homo-sapiens but, they don't possess IQ or Intelligent quotient.

It is nearly impossible to analyze the performance of human level intelligence; hence it is a conjecture than robots/androids will catch up the power of normal human intelligence one day. The attempts are featured in films like the Terminator series, Matrix etc but this still far from reality.

References:

1)Class Presentation of Dr. Gavin Stewart on 4^th Nov 2011 in Uni of Beds.

2)Stuart j. Russell. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach. [Online] Available from: http://www.notable-quotes.com/a/artificial_intelligence_quotes_ii.html

[Accessed: 08/11/2011]

3)McCarthy, J. (2007). What is artificial intelligence? [Online]. Available from: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/whatisai/node1.html

[Accessed: 07/11/2011]

Image References:

1)http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/blog/uploaded_images/ai-callan-709542.jpg
[Accessed: 08/11/2011]
2) http://farm1.static.flickr.com/120/299078131_507febc71a.jpg
[Accessed: 08/11/2011]