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What actually is Artificial Intelligence?

Lotus

AI is a common topic of conversation, but I've started wondering about what it actually is. I found an interesting article:

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/artificial-intelligence/what-is-artificial-intelligence-ai/

The article states "Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technology that enables machines and computers to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence."

 And that it "Simulates human intelligence through learning and reasoning"

Is simulating intelligence actually intelligence?

Also, can it ever "think outside the box"? For example, I recently moved into a new flat with a very small bathroom, and nowhere to hang towels. There is only a small space next to the sink and a towel rail will not fit. So I bought a coat stand - an upright pole on a stand with 6 hooks around it - on which towels can be hung, and it solved the problem. Could an AI have thought of this?

Parents

  • No. It's simply mimicking data it's been fed (including online interactions, pictures, videos, literature etc.) like a parrot mimicking a word it's just heard. It can't think outside the box because all it literally knows is the box

  • in reply to Jamesmac

    However, that box is filled with everything we humans could possibly know.

    For example, AI could potentially pull information from every book, article, and research paper on psychology ever published. That means that AI has the potential of being even more knowledgeable and efficient as a therapist than even the most talented psychologist with the highest possible credentials. An average AI agent could already possibly understand the human mind even more effectively than any one single person could ever accomplish.

    We’re not talking about a parrot here. That box you’re talking about is the entirety of the internet. Is there a single human brain that can contain the entirety of the internet?

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  • in reply to Jamesmac

    However, that box is filled with everything we humans could possibly know.

    For example, AI could potentially pull information from every book, article, and research paper on psychology ever published. That means that AI has the potential of being even more knowledgeable and efficient as a therapist than even the most talented psychologist with the highest possible credentials. An average AI agent could already possibly understand the human mind even more effectively than any one single person could ever accomplish.

    We’re not talking about a parrot here. That box you’re talking about is the entirety of the internet. Is there a single human brain that can contain the entirety of the internet?

Children
  • in reply to profdanger
    profdanger said:
    We’re not talking about a parrot here

    The term "parrot" to describe LLMs first appeared in this paper (section 6 I think, "Stochastic Parrots", and on the title) as a metaphor to describe what those systems do: predict the next slice of text given previous slice of text.

    The meaning of the text isn't built like ours, from perceptions and interactions to other humans, but from text-only (form). In other words, it continues the words, but doesn't know the meaning, just like you'd expect if a parrot says "Quantum Mechanics!". Current models are more complex, multimodal and use chain of "thoughts".

    Another way to say the above is that we can't learn meaning from a dictionary only. We also need the actual world of perceptions and events. Here "meaning" is about the relation to the world, but they can learn similarities for example (much simpler algorithms can too). 

    Of course, the continuations can be useful, and they are incredible machines/algorithms in my view.

    This "parrots" description is only one available (there are other ways to describe them), but just wanted to add a bit of context of how "parrot" appeared into AI.

  • in reply to profdanger
    profdanger said:
    AI could potentially pull information from every book, article, and research paper on psychology ever published.

    So it's a good information tool, that doesn't mean it understands what it finds and it has no empathy or theory of mind - both of which are required to be an efficient therapist. The AI can certainly help a therapist find out relevant knowledge, but I don't believe it can or should be allowed to be used as a therapist. 

    profdanger said:
    We’re not talking about a parrot here. That box you’re talking about is the entirety of the internet. Is there a single human brain that can contain the entirety of the internet?

    The parrot analogy relates to the parrot not really understanding what it is saying, just like an AI doesn't really understand its own output - to the AI it's just strings of numbers it's learned to use in response to inputs. Again, AI is a useful tool and can help us find information when we need it. Nobody needs to have all of the internet in their head.

  • in reply to profdanger

    I mean, true, yeah, but it can never have any original "thoughts" or ideas