Re: smart people doing stupid things

"Don Y" <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in message
news:v2bmtr$364pd$1@dont-email.me...

On 5/18/2024 3:49 PM, Edward Rawde wrote:

What is a decision?

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Any option to take one fork vs. another.

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So a decision is a decision.

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A decision is a choice.  A srategy is HOW you make that choice.
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Shouldn't a decision be that which causes a specific fork to be chosen?

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Why?  I choose to eat pie.  The reasoning behind the choice may be
as banal as "because it's already partially eaten and will spoil if
not consumed soon" or "because that is what my body craves at this
moment"
or "because I want to remove that item from the refrigerator to make
room
for some other item recently acquired".
>

In other words the current state of a system leads it to produce a
specific
future state?

>
That defines a strategic goal.  Choices (decisions) are made all the
time.
Their *consequences* are often not considered in the process!

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In that case I'm not seeing anything different between decisions, goals
and
choices made by a human brain and those made by an AI system.

>
There is none.  The motivation for a human choice or goal pursuit will
likely be different than that of an AI.

Yes

 Does an AI have *inherent* needs
(that haven't been PLACED THERE)?

I'm not sure I follow that.

>

But what started this was "People are invariably mislead by thinking that
there is "intelligence" involved in the technology".
>
So perhaps I should be asking what is intelligence? And can a computer
have
it?
Was the computer which created these videos intelligent?
https://openai.com/index/sora/
Plenty of decisions and choices must have been made and I don't see
anything
in the "Historical footage of California during the gold rush" which says
it's not a drone flying over a set made for a movie.
The goal was to produce the requested video.
Some of the other videos do scream AI but that may not be the case in a
year
or two.
In any case the human imagination is just as capable of imagining a scene
with tiny red pandas as it is of imagining a scene which could exist in
reality.
Did the creation of these videos require intelligence?
What exactly IS intelligence?
I might also ask what is a reason?

>
Reason is not confined to humans.  It is just a mechanism of connecting
facts to achieve a goal/decision/outcome.
>
Intelligence maps imagination onto reality.  Again, would an AI
have created /The Persistence of Memory/ without previously having
encountered a similar exemplar?  The idiot savant who can perform
complex calculations in his head, in very little time -- but who can't
see the flaw in the missing dollar riddle?
>
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Banana
Banana who?
>
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Banana
Banana who?
>
..
>
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Banana
Banana who?
>
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Orange
Banana who?
Orange you glad I didn't say Banana?
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Would an AI "think" to formulate a joke based on the APPROXIMATELY
similar sounds of "Aren't" and "Orange"?

Um well they don't sound similar to me but maybe I have a different accent.

>
Guttenberg has an interesting test for sentience that he poses to
Number5 in Short Circuit.  The parallel would be, can an AI (itself!)
appreciate humor?  Or, only as a tool towards some other goal?
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Why do YOU tell jokes?  How much of it is to amuse others vs.
to feed off of their reactions?  I.e., is it for you, or them?
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Is a calculator intelligent?  Smart?  Creative?  Imaginative?

That reminds me of a religious teacher many decades ago when we had to have
one hour of "religious education" per week for some reason.
Typical of his quesions were "why does a calculator never get a sum wrong?"
and "can a computer make decisions?".
Also typical were statements such as "a dog can't tell the difference
between right and wrong. Only humans can."
Being very shy at the time I just sat there thinking "there's wishful
thinking for you".

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You can probably appreciate the cleverness and philosophical
aspects of Theseus's paradox.  Would an AI?  Even if it
could *explain* it?
>

I don't claim to know what a decision is but I think it's interesting
that
it seems to be one of those questions everyone knows the answer to
until
they're asked.

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