How to find the algorithm of the intellect
In our blog, we talk about infrastructure virtualization and related technologies . You can learn something interesting not only from the experience of working with infrastructure projects, but also from theoretical works aimed far into the future. Today we decided to take a look at the book by Michael Nielsen, reasoning on the algorithmization of intelligence.
/ photo by Sean Davis CC
As the author notes, the main reason for the study of neural networks lies in the hope that one day with their help we will be able to go far beyond the framework of such basic pattern recognition tasks. Perhaps one approach or another will lead us to the development of artificial intelligence, which is equal to or exceeds the capabilities of man.
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But is there a simple set of principles that can be used to explain what intelligence is? And even better to find the algorithm of the intellect. Too optimistic, it sounds to be true, but there is hope that in the end everything can be explained by a set of simple but fundamental ideas.
Consider, for example, astronomy in the early stages or the countless chemicals that make up our world, which are so perfectly ordered by Mendeleev in its periodic table. Even if we move aside from this, then the existence of forms of the intellect, which do not have a human way of thinking, but nevertheless surpass it in one direction or another, is quite acceptable.
A quantitative approach to assessing the functioning of the human brain can be viewed from the point of view of connectomics, which is concerned with building connections: how many neurons exist in the brain, how many glial cells, and how many connections are there between neurons. Given the presence of billions of neurons, cells and connections, we clearly do not come to a simple algorithm for the operation of intelligence.
In the second, more optimistic approach, the brain is considered from the point of view of molecular biology. The meaning of the approach is to find out how much genetic information is needed to describe the architecture of the brain. Here you can see that the genomes of humans and chimpanzees differ by about 125 million base pairs of DNA, and the similarity between humans and chimpanzees is about 96 percent.
Each pair of bases can be described with two bits of information — enough to indicate one of the four types of bases. Thus, 125 million base pairs are equal to 250 million bits of information. Even if half accounts for differences between the human brain and the chimpanzee, this is a total of 125 million bits, or (relatively speaking) 125 million letters (or about 25 million words in English). Well, if we recall that we are talking only about a part of the brain, it becomes clear that our genome should rather determine the general architecture and the basic principles underlying the work of the brain.
The concept of the brain in terms of molecular biology simplifies the complexity of our description by about nine orders of magnitude. Although it is inspiring, we still do not get an answer to the question about the possibility of the existence of a truly simple algorithm for the operation of intelligence. Can we make this description even simpler?
The experiment, published in April 2000 in the journal Nature, describing the “reconfiguration” of the brain of newborn ferrets, showed that the general principles of perception of sensory information can be put in the basis of different areas of the brain. Such a community, in turn, is an argument in favor of the idea of ​​the existence of a set of simple principles at the basis of the work of the intellect.
On the other hand, we know that evolutionary psychologists discovered a wide spectrum of human universals, general norms of behavior for all people, regardless of their cultural affiliation or upbringing. It was found that for many human norms of behavior specific areas of the brain are responsible, which are similar in all people.
Based on the foregoing, some people conclude that the brain function has an unseen complexity, which, in turn, rules out a simple explanation of the brain (and possibly a simple algorithm for the operation of the intellect). This point of view is shared by the researcher of artificial intelligence Marvin Minsky.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Minsky developed a theory called the Society of Mind, based on the idea that the human mind is the result of the interaction of individually simple (but very different) computational processes, which Minsky called agents. Having stated his theory in the book of the same name , Minsky comes to the following conclusion:
Of course, it’s hard to believe that we will find a really short Python program (either C or Lisp doesn’t matter) - say, up to a thousand lines of code - that will implement artificial intelligence, but you need to act as if An extremely simple algorithm for the operation of intelligence exists. The key to artificial intelligence is simple, fundamental ideas, and we can and should be optimistic about their search, Nilsen concludes.
PS We share not only our own experience with the 1cloud virtual infrastructure service , but also the experience of Western experts in our blog on Habré. Do not forget to subscribe to updates, friends!
/ photo by Sean Davis CC
As the author notes, the main reason for the study of neural networks lies in the hope that one day with their help we will be able to go far beyond the framework of such basic pattern recognition tasks. Perhaps one approach or another will lead us to the development of artificial intelligence, which is equal to or exceeds the capabilities of man.
')
But is there a simple set of principles that can be used to explain what intelligence is? And even better to find the algorithm of the intellect. Too optimistic, it sounds to be true, but there is hope that in the end everything can be explained by a set of simple but fundamental ideas.
Consider, for example, astronomy in the early stages or the countless chemicals that make up our world, which are so perfectly ordered by Mendeleev in its periodic table. Even if we move aside from this, then the existence of forms of the intellect, which do not have a human way of thinking, but nevertheless surpass it in one direction or another, is quite acceptable.
A quantitative approach to assessing the functioning of the human brain can be viewed from the point of view of connectomics, which is concerned with building connections: how many neurons exist in the brain, how many glial cells, and how many connections are there between neurons. Given the presence of billions of neurons, cells and connections, we clearly do not come to a simple algorithm for the operation of intelligence.
In the second, more optimistic approach, the brain is considered from the point of view of molecular biology. The meaning of the approach is to find out how much genetic information is needed to describe the architecture of the brain. Here you can see that the genomes of humans and chimpanzees differ by about 125 million base pairs of DNA, and the similarity between humans and chimpanzees is about 96 percent.
Each pair of bases can be described with two bits of information — enough to indicate one of the four types of bases. Thus, 125 million base pairs are equal to 250 million bits of information. Even if half accounts for differences between the human brain and the chimpanzee, this is a total of 125 million bits, or (relatively speaking) 125 million letters (or about 25 million words in English). Well, if we recall that we are talking only about a part of the brain, it becomes clear that our genome should rather determine the general architecture and the basic principles underlying the work of the brain.
The concept of the brain in terms of molecular biology simplifies the complexity of our description by about nine orders of magnitude. Although it is inspiring, we still do not get an answer to the question about the possibility of the existence of a truly simple algorithm for the operation of intelligence. Can we make this description even simpler?
The experiment, published in April 2000 in the journal Nature, describing the “reconfiguration” of the brain of newborn ferrets, showed that the general principles of perception of sensory information can be put in the basis of different areas of the brain. Such a community, in turn, is an argument in favor of the idea of ​​the existence of a set of simple principles at the basis of the work of the intellect.
On the other hand, we know that evolutionary psychologists discovered a wide spectrum of human universals, general norms of behavior for all people, regardless of their cultural affiliation or upbringing. It was found that for many human norms of behavior specific areas of the brain are responsible, which are similar in all people.
Based on the foregoing, some people conclude that the brain function has an unseen complexity, which, in turn, rules out a simple explanation of the brain (and possibly a simple algorithm for the operation of the intellect). This point of view is shared by the researcher of artificial intelligence Marvin Minsky.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Minsky developed a theory called the Society of Mind, based on the idea that the human mind is the result of the interaction of individually simple (but very different) computational processes, which Minsky called agents. Having stated his theory in the book of the same name , Minsky comes to the following conclusion:
What is the secret of our intellect? The secret is that there is no secret. The power of our intellect does not come from one perfect principle, but from their [principles] of aggregate.
Of course, it’s hard to believe that we will find a really short Python program (either C or Lisp doesn’t matter) - say, up to a thousand lines of code - that will implement artificial intelligence, but you need to act as if An extremely simple algorithm for the operation of intelligence exists. The key to artificial intelligence is simple, fundamental ideas, and we can and should be optimistic about their search, Nilsen concludes.
PS We share not only our own experience with the 1cloud virtual infrastructure service , but also the experience of Western experts in our blog on Habré. Do not forget to subscribe to updates, friends!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/266641/
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