Re:The singularity is close?
by idontwantthis on Friday April 01, 2022 @01:29AM
(#30875461)
Humans are terrible at pretty much everything except what they are specifically highly trained in.
von Neuman was a genius, but he also actively promoted nuclear war. Does that mean he is or is not intelligent? Do you think in a world where von Neuman got to nuke the USSR in 1950, we would be happy we gave him the keys?
Ignore von Neumann, he was just an example.
Basically, with the definition as given in the comment, only whatever matches up with the smartest thing around would count as intelligent. (Whether that's the smartest thing currently around, or the smartest thing possible even in theory isn't quite clear.)
In any case, von Neumann was definitely extremely intelligent for a human. Don't conflate intelligence with wisdom, or with having goals that align with yours.
The 'better than any other algorithm' part seems to make this into a pretty weird definition?
By that standard only John von Neumann [0] was intelligent, because every other human wasn't as smart as him?
I suspect any reasonable definition of intelligence has to work on a 'good enough' basis, not on optimality.
The paper you linked is quite interesting, and I'll be reading it now. I suspect your summary was perhaps a bit too brisk, and their more careful longer definition survives this trivial objection?
[0] Replace von Neumann with your favourite genius.