Human Brain and Artificial Intelligence

"The brain is simply a computer made of meat". Discuss this assertion with reference to the current debate about Artificial Intelligence. In discussing the assertion "The human brains is a computer made of meat", there must be a reference to Artificial Intelligence. As Martin Minsky (1968) noticed "Artificial Intelligence is the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done my men". About Intelligence it can be defined as the power of seeing, learning, understanding and judging though a mental process, which requires knowledge, consciousness - subconsiousness and emotion

An important example in the field of Artificial Intelligence is the Turing Test.

With this test, Alan Turing (1950), claimed that this test can be used to answer the question of whether a computer is capable of thought. The test involves two human beings and one computer. The main idea, is that the human investigator, must figured out with his question which of the other two is the computer. These three are kept in different rooms and communicate each other by computer terminal.

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The investigator is allowed to ask whatever he likes, until he decides which the computer is.

If the computer answers so well, then this computer passes the Turing test and is recognised as intelligent. The most well known researchers have accepted this test as standard of assessing intelligence. But this is test is inaccurate, because even if a computer answers correctly there is no statement of consciousness An other experiment that has to do with A. I. and generally with intelligence, is the "Chinese Room" by J.

Searle. He argued that behaving intelligently was not enough. Here is how the Chinese Room works: there is one person locked in a room.

This person has nothing to do with the Chinese language. Also there are two Chinese people outside, who asks the questions, but they do not communicate with any other way with the person inside the room. So, for every Chinese character he has the reply into the box and the only job he is doing is to replace the questions with the right responses from the boxes Searle 's point is that although the Chinese room seems to have intelligence and the person inside gives the right answers but he does not really understand Chinese.

The only thing he is doing, is following a set of rules, as all the computer systems do. This argument is similar to human memory and the memory is only one part of intelligence. For the human being, our decisions depends on our experiences and background. But memory is only a part of intelligence and not the intelligence it self Some people argue that the true intelligence can never be achieved by a computer. Most computer programs do just the they are programmed for. Some of these, they are caught in endless loops, doing the same thing over and over again.

Some other, are more cleverly programmed, when anything goes wrong they can try something else. But if the programme tries to solve the same problem, from the begging, it is going to make the same mistake until it is going to find the right operation to solve the problem. That's why, many people believe the computers will never be intelligent, because of this lack of common sense. Nowadays, we know many things about how to build them, but we still don't know how to give them common sense

An other disadvantage for people, who believes the brain is a computer made of meat, is the learning ability of computer systems. They need someone continuously update information for them. And the ability of learning is very important to call something intelligent. Also, an other problem is the vision of computer systems. Of course, to call someone at least intelligent, ha can see whatever normal people do, without any instructions for the manufacture On the other, computers have been developed remarkably to a level which reach perfection it terms of speed, calculation and generation in cascade process.

Also, new types of computers are been designed, with much more capabilities than the previous one. An example is storage as the years passes we have more storage in less space. But to say that a computer system is intelligent, cannot be based on the above parameters. These systems, have not yet achieved consciousness and therefore limit their ability to judge and understand Also, to call a computer system intelligent it requires some characteristics that they are connected with intelligence in human behaviour: understanding language, problem solving etc.

Addinitionally, the human mental process is not based only on data and input. This is because, data are auto-generated and not previous supplied, e. g. a teenager finds a wallet and then decides whether to keep the money or hand them in the police based not onto a previous experience, memory or outside information, but on the criticism developed by consciousness and sub-consciousness. In addition to, there is no computer program that has its own freedom. Each of the computer decisions are based to the instructions that the program contains

On the other hand, a classical example of intelligent computer systems, is a well known chess program called "Deep Thought" , which has beaten a few chess grand masters. The chess computers advance is the fast calculation. The human chess players advance is their power of judgement. However, when a computer system make o move on the chess board, it does not have the sense about the move it makes, he just perfume a series of calculations. Even a not very smart human being can only play chess at a good level, due his ability of fast calculations.

But fast calculations is not a signal of intelligence Generally speaking, there are many reason why humans wants to create intelligent machines. The will never be tired, they will always obey etc. But, the building of these machines, have found reaction mostly from the philosophical point of view. That is because if the build of intelligent systems will succeed, this will doubt the uniqness of the human mind. Some experiments of artificial intelligence are the "Expert Systems".

A definition of expert systems, according the British Computer Society's Specialist Group on expert system is the following one : "An expert system is regarded as the embodiment within a computer of knowledge-based component from an expert skill in such a form the system can offer intelligent advise or take intelligent decision about a processing function. A desirable additional characteristic, which many would consider fundamental, is the capability of the system, on demand, to justify its own line of reasoning in a manner directly intelligence to the enquirer"

These computer systems, helps us in construction, simulation and diagnosis, for medical and healthy purposes. Some of them are, QMR and MYCIN, which are two expert systems that helps for diagnosing illness and diseases. But, the major problem is, who is responsible for a wrong diagnosis, that the computer system did. Some people believes that the mistake belongs to the creator of the system and some other believes that the doctor is responsible In addition, an other part of artificial intelligence, has to do with robotics.

By this we mean " a reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to more material, parts, tools or specialized devices though various programmed motions for the performance of a variety of task" as mentioned by the Robot Institute of America (1979). Nowadays, more and more people use robots for their job. Especially, managers of large factors, cause they are cheaper they don't complaint etc. On the other hand, workers agree for this situation, if and only of, robots going to perform the dirty or the dangerous jobs At the end, a quite huge problem, is speaking and feeling too.

For example, everyone understands worlds like friendship, love and we have some feelings for them either positive either negative. We ca not say a computer system intelligent, if it does not understand the above words or meaning like partnership, where two persons can help each other in difficult situations The last 10 years, scientists are working on a bio-computer system. This system use human-neural tissue connected to an electronic circuit. This idea hopes to link the power of neurones to create conscious state with the effiency of computer processing. Such projects hopefully will create an original state of computer intelligence

Also, it is well known, that the human brain is the most difficult part of the human to explain, even from entire the world. We have now discuss this assertions with the most current sources and debates for artificial intelligence. My point of view, is that computer systems only succeed in some parts of intelligence, as playing board games, take care of people's health etc. But, they do not reach the entirely meaning of intelligence such as consciousness and motions. And because everyone is doing a really go to work, probably mane years later they are going to match the above assertion