Computers, Artificial Intelligence

So what are we to consider intelligence? The most compelling Argument is that intelligence is the ability to adapt to an environment. Desktop Computers can, say, go to a specific WWW address. But, if the address were Changed, it wouldn't know how to go about finding the new one (or even that it Should).
So intelligence is the ability to perform a task taking into consideration The circumstances of completing the task. So now that we have all of that out of that way, can computers think? The issue is contested as hotly among scientists as the advantages of Superman over Batman is among pre-pubescent boys. On the one hand are the scientists who say, as philosopher John Searle does, that "Programs are all syntax and no semantics." (Discover, 106) Put another way, a computer can actually achieve thought because it "merely follows rules that tell it how to shift symbols without ever understanding the meaning of those symbols." (Discover, 106) On the other side of the debate are the advocates of pandemonium, explained by Robert Wright in Time thus: "[O]ur brain subconsciously generates competing theories about the world, and only the 'winning' theory becomes part of consciousness. Is that a nearby fly or a distant airplane on the edge of your vision? Is that a baby crying or a cat meowing? By the time we become aware of such images and sounds, this debate have usually been resolved via a winner-take-all struggle. The winning theory-the one that best matches the data-has wrested control of our neurons and thus our perceptual field." (54) So, since our thought is based on previous experience, computers can eventually learn to think. The event which brought this debate in public scrutiny was GarryKasparov, reigning chess champion of the world, competing in a six game chess match against Deep Blue, an IBM supercomputer with 32 microprocessors.Kasparov eventually won (4-2), but it raised the legitimate question, if a computer can beat the chess champion of the world at his own game (a game thought of as the ultimate thinking man's game), is there any question of AI's legitimacy? Indeed, even Kasparov said he "could feel-I could smell- a new kind of intelligence across the table." (Time, 55) But, eventually everyone, including So, what's the answer? The evidence points to the position that AI is possible. What is our brain but a complicated network of neurons? And what is thought but response to stimuli? How to go about achieving AI is another question entirely. All avenues should be explored. Someone is bound to hit on it. That depends on time whether computers are the machines that would ultimately make the turn into the new artificial intelligence that would make man do what they think is right, not by instincts, but through calculated decisions. They are just programs designed to be efficient and put to the best use, they would eventually prevail.

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