[SEQ RERUN] Ghosts in the Machine

AI cannot be just "programmed" as, for example, a chess game. When we talk about computers, programming, languages, hardware, compilers, source code, etc., - we're, essentially implying a Von Neumann architecture. This architecture represents a certain principle of information processing, which has its fundamental limitations. That ghost that makes an intelligence cannot be programmed inside a Von Neumann machine. It requires a different type of information processing, similar to that implemented in humans. The real progress in building AI will be achieved only after we understand the fundamental principal that lies behind information processing in our brains. And it`s not only us, even primitive nervous systems of simple creatures use this principle and benefit from it. A simple kitchen cockroach is infinitely smarter than the most sophisticated robot that we have built so far.

That’s not my point. Of course everything is reducible to Turing machine. In theory. However, it does not mean you can make this reduction practically. Or it would be very inefficient. Von Neumann architecture implies its own hierarchy of information processing, which is good for programming of various kinds of formal algorithms. However, IMHO, it does not support a hierarchy of information processing required for AI, which should be a neural network similar to a human brain. You cannot program each and every algorithm or mode of behavior, a neural network is capable of producing, on a Von Neumann computer. To me, many decades of futile attempts to build AI along these lines have already proven its practical impossibility. Only understanding of how neural networks operate in nature and implementing this type of behavior can finally make a difference. And how Von Neumann architecture fits in here? I see only one possible application, modelling work of neurons. Given the complexity of a human brain (100 billion neurons, 100 trillion connections), this is a challenge for even most advanced modern supercomputers. You can count on further performance improvements, of course, since Moores law is still in effect, but this is not the kind of solution thats going to be practical. Perhaps neuronic circuits printed directly on microchips would be the hardware for future AI brains.