News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Stephen Hawking: AI, Potentially the Worst Thing to Happen to Humanity. Parent comment

Re:Stephen Hawking: AI, Potentially the Worst Thing to Happe... by apw on Saturday May 03, 2014 @08:11AM (#7690463)
I don't think that "it can be emulated by computers" follows from "intelligence is a purely physical phenomenon".

Even fairly simple quantum systems (which are "purely physical phenomena") cannot be emulated by any classical computer in any meaningful sense, since the computational complexity of integrating the dynamical equations is exponential. Even if we could recruit all the atoms in the known Universe, we still couldn't build a classical computer capable of emulating many simple quantum systems.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stephen Hawking: AI, Potentially the Worst Thing to Happe... by moe on Saturday May 03, 2014 @09:36AM (#7690684)
Even if we could recruit all the atoms in the known Universe

In the past 233 years we have evolved from the first steam machine to the iPhone 5S. I would say we have a pretty good track record at overcoming miniaturization problems.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stephen Hawking: AI, Potentially the Worst Thing to Happe... by sampo on Saturday May 03, 2014 @09:36AM (#7690686)
Then again, most people don't think that quantum level phenomena have anything to do with human intelligence.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stephen Hawking: AI, Potentially the Worst Thing to Happe... by yohanatan on Saturday May 03, 2014 @03:11PM (#7692007)
Not sure it's clear that most people don't think that. There has been a lot of articles on quantum effects in the human brain lately. e.g., http://goo.gl/Ff0elU
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stephen Hawking: AI, Potentially the Worst Thing to Happe... by sampo on Sunday May 04, 2014 @02:01PM (#7695098)
Those theories (also in your link) have only one source: Roger Penrose.

If you open any Neuroscience textbook, there will be no mentions of quantum phenomena as related to consciousness.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stephen Hawking: AI, Potentially the Worst Thing to Happe... by yohanatan on Wednesday May 07, 2014 @04:18PM (#7712416)
I was referring to the "recent discovery of quantum vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons" which is a fact independent of any particular theory or interpretation thereof.
[ Parent | on HN ]