Some scientists believe that human intelligence can be precisely replicated in a machine, thus creating artificial intelligence. Do you think artificial intelligence is a scientific possibility, and if so, what evidence leads you to believe this? Or do you think science will never create a machine that thinks as humans do?

This thread is just for the discussion of the theoretical science of artificial intelligence, and the theological implications can be discussed on the thread Artificial Intelligence.

I think science will be able to give the impression of replicated human intelligence, but it can never replicate a soul, and thus robots can never be human.

I don't believe science would ever be able to replicate human intelligence to a physical accuracy in every aspect of the human mind. I do believe science would eventually find it possible to replicate a shadow of human intelligence, however the robot would still work on a system of values. It would not have a conscience or emotions, so the it would have to make decisions based on what was right or wrong.

Then again, the values of a robot's right or wrong would need to be programmed into it. The robots in the movie "I,robot" worked as a difference engine, using differences to determine what decisions they made. I believe this is as close to real human intelligence science will ever get.

However, take Cleverbot for instance. It's a computer program that learns from what is put into it, not unlike humanistic learning. It understands sarcasm, answers questions, and tries to fool you. I guess true artificial intelligence could be closer then we know.

A very interesting topic for discussion. While I doubt that artificial intelligence could ever fabricate every facet of the immense and complicated human mind, and of course never replicate a human soul, with technology of sufficient advancement the idea of AI that could mimic human intelligence is plausible. Of course, AI is a wonderful storytelling device, as evidenced by I, Robot and 2001: A Space Odyssey. I've had an idea germinating for a while that would explore this concept in greater depth, and when I've outlined more details of said project, I may begin to write something of it.

Does no one pay ANY attention to Sci-Fi? AI will get us all killed, enslaved, or worse: Both. You've been warned. (So don't say I didn't tell you. )

We are nowhere near as close to true artificial intelligence as we think we are. We have yet to create a machine that has the human capability of learning. Intelligence, when replicated in computers, isn't actual intelligence at all. It's just sheer computing power. They've created computers that can beat the grand masters at chess, but that's simply because they run powerful predictive algorithms that help them to choose the best moves based on the probabilities of the game. It's just math - not intelligence.

Even the highly sophisticated robots being worked on today are nowhere near as advanced as the videos they appear in them portray them to be. Every single thing they do that seems so marvelous on camera is carefully programmed by a team of the best AI scientists. Everything is preprogrammed and the more "intelligent" machines are simply operating on larger predictive models.

We may someday be able to create true artificial intelligence, but I don't believe we've yet made the breakthrough that allows us to understand what intelligence in a machine is at all.

She's right. there are some cool YouTube videos that show robots mimicking people but it's just that, mimicking.

*nods * Yeah, every time I hear about AI, it is always human intelligence, translated to computer capabilities. It's not the computer itself learning, or gaining knowledge on its own. Man always has to do it. Until man is no longer part of the equation, it's not actually AI.

Define learning, intelligence, and knowledge in a useful, science-of-the-brain manner, and then continue.

Learning is the process of changing how your respond to a stimulus.

Knowledge is useful, stored, retrievable information.

Intelligence is the ability to learn and to obtain knowledge.

Most animals do these things. Computer programs can do these things if designed to. The argument is generally that man had to design the computer to learn. That falls flat on its face when you remember that God designed you to learn.

Unless, of course, you don't believe that you're intelligent.

Also, there is the question of sub-creation. Man imitates God. God created intelligences in His Image. We will try to create intelligences in our image. Will we succeed? Perhaps not, but remember, it was once inconceivable that man would walk on the moon. Once, calculus did not exist. Humans do inconceivable things everyday.

What confuses us is the use of the word "artificial". What we mean by it is that we invent it, it doesn't naturally occur. Well there was a point at which humans didn't naturally exist. Then God invented us. Does that make us artificial?

Artificial is not a useful word when discussing intelligence.

We mimic God. Our creations will mimic us. That just plain makes sense.

*nods* I agree. I myself have created some AI robots that, while they have intelligence, it is artificial (as made known by the name ). AI robots only function because of their creators (humans) and can only do what they are programmed to do!