
Ask HN: Pure mathematical route to intelligence? - friendoamano
Are there purely mathematical inspired routes to Artificial intelligence. Such routes perhaps assume intelligence as a property of some exotic pure mathematical structure? Such route deviate from the human-brain&#x2F;nature inspired ways of intelligence
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mindcrime
The closest thing I can think of would be Algorithmic Information Theory[1].
Marcus Hutter has done some work with that vis-a-vis Artificial
Intelligence[2][3][4]. And while it's not quite the same thing, you might find
Pei Wang's NARS[5] approach of interest.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory)

[2]: [http://www.hutter1.net/ait.htm](http://www.hutter1.net/ait.htm)

[3]:
[http://www.hutter1.net/ai/uaibook.htm](http://www.hutter1.net/ai/uaibook.htm)

[4]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIXI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIXI)

[5]:
[https://cis.temple.edu/~pwang/papers.html](https://cis.temple.edu/~pwang/papers.html)

~~~
antidesitter
I was going to say the same thing. You might also be interested in logical
induction:

[https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2016/09/logical_uncerta...](https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2016/09/logical_uncertainty_and_logica.html)

[https://intelligence.org/2016/09/12/new-paper-logical-
induct...](https://intelligence.org/2016/09/12/new-paper-logical-induction/)

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openfuture
Paraphrasing a quote from Al Perlis:

“there is no formal way from informal to formal”

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alacer
Check out the work of Dr. Sergio Pissanetzky on artificial general
intelligence starting at
[http://sergio.pissanetzky.com/](http://sergio.pissanetzky.com/) and
[http://sergio.pissanetzky.com/index-2.html](http://sergio.pissanetzky.com/index-2.html).
It seems plausible and promising, but details are omitted preventing easy
verification and it would have been convenient if he used graphs insted of
causal sets. Additional references to his work are in his Google Scholar page
at
[https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KEuEW8QAAAAJ&hl=en](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KEuEW8QAAAAJ&hl=en),
in particular see his 2 most recent publications near the bottom.

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whatsstolat
The universe seems to run on a maths based OS so I'd think so.

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aserafini
The question reminds me of a paper I read: Causal Entropic Forces, sometimes
referred to as 'entropic intelligence' but the basis is physics rather
mathematics.

[https://physics.aps.org/articles/v6/46](https://physics.aps.org/articles/v6/46)

In this theory, intelligence is equivalent to maximising future possible
states in a system. There are some interesting videos on YouTube about it as
well.

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kleer001
Intelligence seems to me a particularly adequate solution to the existential
problems of being and as such as inevitable as life its self, being a local
entropic minima. To put it another way I think you can extrapolate life from
physical laws and intelligence from life.

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shahbaby
I find questions like this frustrating...do you know what intelligence
actually is? I don't mean just a vague notion of it but an understanding of
the principles behind which it works.

Nature had billions of years and a possibly infinite universe to figure it
out. You don't have that long.

~~~
mindcrime
But nature wasn't _trying_ to create intelligence. Intelligence emerged
because intelligent creatures lived long enough to pro-create and spread their
genes.

Yes, evolution is a powerful force, but there's no _particular_ reason that
I'm aware of to think that we, as human, without our own intelligence and
reasoning abilities, can't engineer other intelligences.

~~~
ADanFromCanada
"But nature wasn't trying to create intelligence"

That may _seem_ true... but what if it was/is though?

~~~
muzani
That's the whole argument around theism.

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hsikka
This is interesting. I’ve opted completely for the other side of the spectrum,
modeling networks rigorously to the biological standard, but this may be worth
looking into.

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kleer001
IMHO Game Theory is the key to that

~~~
muzani
Game theory will result in something weird like Facebook, which is marginally
useful, but comes with so many downsides that people wish they didn't use it.

~~~
kleer001
I'm interested in how you got to that conclusion.

