However, I’m not sure this makes sense:

So love can be modelled, just not in a single digital computer program, but rather as an emergent property of the interaction of many millions of simpler agents.

Arbitrarily many simple agents can be (simultaneously, perfectly) modeled by an (idealized) computer, and (except for time / memory constraints) an idealized computer can be (perfectly) modeled by a single digital computer (program). I’m pretty sure this is perfectly uncontroversial among computer scientists! (Is my profession-envy showing?)

If love can be accurately modeled by a system of rules, then it is emphatically not more than “rules-based machine behavior.” The machine in question just happens to be made of meat, and the rules just happen to be complicated and obscure.

Fair enough. Love can be modelled, but I believe that the rules governing love are impossible to compute using a single digital computer program.

I’d say that love is an emergent property of a complex adaptive system. It could be possible to model love using a large number of digital computers, each maybe simulating the behaviour of one cell in the brain (for example), but I dispute that it will ever be possible to create an algorithmic, logical formula for love.

So love can be modelled, just not in a single digital computer program, but rather as an emergent property of the interaction of many millions of simpler agents.

is that we cannot at this time see any obvious way of clearly defining intelligence, love, or any other properties of human behaviour. The best we can come up with is “love-like behaviour.”

Although human thought may be deterministic (a profound philosophical question in its own right) and is ultimately composed of (relatively) simple structures like molecules and cells, it does not necessarily follow that there is a an algorithm for intelligence.

Tom, if you also agree, then I think your objection disappears. If love can be accurately modeled by a system of rules, then it is emphatically not more than “rules-based machine behavior.” The machine in question just happens to be made of meat, and the rules just happen to be complicated and obscure.

I find Sterling’s continued harangues on this subject embarrassing. Sure, a lot of our human modes of thought don’t look or feel logical and rule-based. We’ve evolved a system of understanding behavior (call it animism) that understands complex systems as flexible ‘minds’ rather than deterministic objects — that’s why old religions have gods embodying rocks, trees, weather, etc. But that’s a hack, a limitation of our perceptions that, given the evidence, we should strive to overcome. Sterling instead chooses to celebrate the limits of his perceptions, like a religionist talking about how wonderful it is that he’s compelled to believe things with no rational basis, it’s “faith.” How sad.

I agree that it’s probably possible to create a synthetic human equivalent general intelligence. I just disagree with the idea that human thought is the same as rules based digital computation.

I found this article written by Sterling hissel’ way back in 2004 on the subject of AI and the technological singularity:

A singularity looks great in special f/x, but is there any substance in the idea? When Vinge first posed the problem, he was concerned that the imminent eruption in artificial intelligence would lead to ?bermenschen of unfathomable mental agility. More than a decade later, we still can’t say with any precision what intelligence is, much less how to build it. If you fail to define your terms, it is easy to divide by zero and predict infinite exponential evolution. Sure, computers might someday awaken into something resembling human consciousness, but we have no metrics to describe that awakening and thus no objective way to recognize it if it happens. How would you test a claim like that?

However, if he is (as I guess) making a general swipe against the conceptual possibility of the creation of human level artificial intelligence (based on computation) then the burden of proof is on him.

Why? Here is my argument:

All the available evidence indicates that the universe is Turing computable (possibly with a little randomness added). If anyone can prove, or even find any evidence at all that there was a part of the universe (such as the human mind) that was not Turing computable that would be a huge revolution in physics more significant than any advance since Newton.

And that’s the problem with any contention that AI is not possible. A scientific demonstration that AI is not possible would amount to such new physics as I just mentioned above. Without a scientific demonstration you would be left arguing that you could have something which passes every test you can devise for intelligence and yet you do not regard as being intelligent (likewise conscious etc.). This has the standard solipsistic problems. So the idea that AI is impossible (rather than just very very difficult) is mere wishful speculation and will remain so until some actual evidence to the contrary is presented.

In summary although there is a common viewpoint that AI is impossible or that the question of its possibility is in doubt this is not the case. Indeed if AI were impossible this would be immensely surprising and would certainly result in a noble prize and a place in history besides Einstein, Darwin and Newton for the person who proved it.

Of course this doesn’t address how hard it would be to create an artificial intelligence (I think is would be extremely hard but within the capacity of 21st century technologists).