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Re:Interview with Mark Cuban on AI, Silicon Valley, Politics... by erelde on Monday February 13, 2017 @08:14AM (#13634945)
Honest question to logicians:

Is there any proof that it [automating programming, mathematics, scientific method] is or isn't possible? Is there a way to prove or disprove it mathematically?

Re:Interview with Mark Cuban on AI, Silicon Valley, Politics... by throwaway729 on Monday February 13, 2017 @09:20AM (#13635333)
> Is there any proof that it [automating programming, mathematics, scientific method] is or isn't possible?

Decidability results can be useful, but note that it's certainly possible to do automated reasoning for undecidable theories. So decidability results are more useful for predicting the difficulty and determining appropriate approaches than for actually determining anything about the possibility of creating a useful system.

E.g. the halting problem is famously undecidable, but there's lot of impressive work on termination checking. Misinterpreting undecidable problems as "impossible problems" is a classic undergrad mistake.

> Is there a way to prove or disprove it mathematically?

No, not really, unless you can be very specific about the exact subproblem you're interested in. And even then, probably not.

Re:Interview with Mark Cuban on AI, Silicon Valley, Politics... by erelde on Monday February 13, 2017 @09:50AM (#13635603)
> Misinterpreting undecidable problems as "impossible problems" is a classic undergrad mistake.

Good thing I am one. Thank you :)

Re:Interview with Mark Cuban on AI, Silicon Valley, Politics... by fmap on Monday February 13, 2017 @08:40AM (#13635076)
Anything that humans can do is a priori possible. :)

It is merely unlikely to happen while there is anything else left which we can't automate...