Gigaom AI Minute – September 5

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The brain, the mind, and robots are all topics on today's AI Miute.

Transcript

What is the difference between the brain and the mind? The mind is all of the stuff that happens that seems to be more than the brain could possibly do, given its biology. The mind is associated with attributes such as emotion, imagination, judgment, intelligence, volition, and will. The mind is a concept used by everyone. We ask people if they are out of their mind, we seek peace of mind, we tell people what’s on our mind and we are told that great minds think alike.

Can an artificial general intelligence be built without invoking the nebulous concept of the mind? Unfortunately, no. An AGI has to be dramatically smarter than any creature in the animal kingdom. If you made a computer dolphin AI that was as smart as the smartest dolphin, no one would call that AGI. I am reminded of an exchange in the Will Smith movie I, Robot where Smith’s character, Detective Spooner, is interrogating a robot named Sonny:

Detective Spooner: “Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a canvas into a beautiful painting?”
Sonny: “Can you?”

The point being that we probably can’t build an AGI until we have developed a theory of the mind.

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