

Inevitable Minds - dangoldin
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/04/inevitable_mind.php

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JacobAldridge
I've played, and marvelled at, the $10 20Q game, and wondered how they created
something so smart and so cheap. Turns out the answer was time - based on a
learning program that's been running since 1988.

And time, too, is what gives life intelligence, through Darwinian processes of
advantage. If the dinosaurs hadn't been 'wiped out', how would their
intelligence have developed? If the Roman Empire hadn't collapsed and been
replaced by a fundamentalist religion, would man have had heavier-than-air
flight in the 8th century instead of the 20th?

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donaq
Hmm. Why was this downvoted?

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ivankirigin
Don't ask questions like that.

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swombat
Excellent read. Just excellent. I know this comment is a little pointless, but
there's just nothing to add.

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dangoldin
Yea I'm a big fan of his writing. His writing gives me ideas and let's me
think about a variety of topics.

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nazgulnarsil
referring to 20Q as a mind seems stretching things a bit far. 20Q is just a
huge decision tree that has been built by trial and error.

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albertcardona
What exactly do you think a _mind_ is? The definition you gave is not far from
the biological definition (much debated on, by the way, and mixed with the
forever escaping concept of consciousness.)

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nazgulnarsil
inference is different from a static tree.

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ivankirigin
I would say the system that was used to build and train 20Q is a mind.

Keep in mind (heh) that calling something a mind doesn't mean "human level
consciousness".

