What is Intelligence?

post by DragonGod · 2017-07-23T00:12:13.420Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 6 comments

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6 comments

As far as Artificial Intelligence is concerned, what is "intelligence"? The definition I see on various sites like Wikipedia:

Intelligence has been defined in many different ways including as one's capacity for logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, planning, creativity, and problem solving

Merriam Webster:

  1. The ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations : reason; also : the skilled use of reason.
  2. The ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (such as tests).

etc seem to be a bit broad and nebulous, and not necessarily what I would be thinking of if I wanted to build an AI, or evaluate the intelligence of non human life-forms.

The definition I currently go with is:

General problem solving ability.

However, I'm not sure if this is broad enough to encompass all we think of when we say "intelligence" in the context of AI, or what we would be looking for in "intelligent" life-forms. What's a useful definition of intelligence. Broad enough to encompass all the we consider when we think intelligence, yet narrow enough to exclude particular idiosyncrasies of specific intelligent agents? A universal definition of intelligence applicable to all intelligent agents.

6 comments

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comment by CronoDAS · 2017-07-23T02:05:54.009Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

The usual definition given here is "efficient cross-domain optimization" - the ability to achieve goals in a variety of different situations using as few resources as possible.

Replies from: None
↑ comment by [deleted] · 2017-07-23T04:02:03.125Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Yep! See the lesswrong wiki link

comment by morganism · 2017-07-29T23:12:07.532Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

not really on point, but decision making thresholds to reach the "aha" moment,

"Thus, conscious awareness of having reached a decision appears to arise when the brain’s representation of accumulated evidence reaches a threshold or bound. We propose that such a mechanism might play a more widespread role in the “piercing of consciousness” by non-conscious thought processes."

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2817%2930784-4

comment by SamanthaErin · 2017-07-25T07:23:55.859Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Intelligence is defined as general psychological critical thinking aptitudes. Intellect is your main event when you don't recognize what to do need someone to do your assignment. Knowledge is a speculative thought which we have characterized as being reflected by specific sorts of conduct.

comment by EmilOWK · 2017-07-25T01:23:54.976Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

You do realize that there's >100 years of research on this topic about human cognitive abilities/intelligence? Reading this literature requires some understanding of statistics, but you would do well to read Stuart Ritchie's, Deary's or Haier's recent book length summaries of the area. Arthur Jensen's book is the best, but it's not an easy read.

comment by Gincon · 2018-05-10T09:59:38.634Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

You are right. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are the two buzzwords today and often misused. Of course, human intelligence and machine intelligence can't be the same thing. Just like writing books and reviews of Essay For Me require different level of creativity. I guess your definition is the best fit for the present.