Can computers think ?

Krishnan GTC talk Sept. 18,2011

Classic book on the subject

Machines vs. Humans

Machinery outperforms us in physical ways
Cars outrun us Planes can fly, we cant

This doesnt disturb us Is thinking a human prerogative ?

Can mechanical devices out think us

What can computers do better ?

Computations on large numbers
E.g. Multiplying two 100 digit numbers

Play chess (and other games) Answer natural language questions

IBM Watson

House cleaning robots ? But does this mean they are intelligent ?

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Thinking Computer : Rs. 100,000

Will you buy ?

What is intelligence ?
Newell and Simon - the use and manipulation of various symbol systems, such as those featured in mathematics or logic Large debate in the AI, Psychology, Philosophy community

Alan Turing
British scientist
Helped solved the Enigma Machine (WWII) Advances in Probability Theory

Invented the theory behind computers

Turing Machine Turing Test

The imitation game

Proposed by Alan Turing in 1950 It is played with three people, a man (A), a woman (B), and an interrogator (C) who may be of either sex. The interrogator stays in a room apart from the other two. The object of the game for the interrogator is to determine which of the other two is the man and which is the woman. He knows them by labels X and Y, and at the end of the game he says either X is A and Y is B or X is B and Y is A.

Turing test: Distinguish man and machine

What would it take for a computers thoughts to be indistinguishable from a humans?

Chinese Room
The system comprises:
a human, who only understands English a rule book, written in English two stacks of paper.
One stack of paper is blank. The other has indecipherable symbols on them.

In computing terms
the human is the CPU the rule book is the program the two stacks of paper are storage devices.

The system is housed in a room that is totally sealed with the exception of a small opening.

Chinese Room: Process

The human sits inside the room waiting for pieces of paper to be pushed through the opening. The pieces of paper have indecipherable symbols written upon them. The human has the task of matching the symbols from the "outside" with the rule book. Once the symbol has been found the instructions in the rule book are followed.
may involve writing new symbols on blank pieces of paper, or looking up symbols in the stack of supplied symbols.

Eventually, the human will write some symbols onto one of the blank pieces of paper and pass these out through the opening.

Chinese Room: Summary

Simple Rule processing system but in which the rule processor happens to be intelligent but has no understanding of the rules The set of rules might be very large But this is philosophy and so ignore the practical issues

Searles Claim
We have a system that is capable of passing the Turing Test and is therefore intelligent according to Turing. But the system does not understand Chinese as it just comprises a rule book and stacks of paper which do not understand Chinese. Therefore, running the right program does not necessarily generate understanding.

Strong AI
Strong AI is artificial intelligence that matches or exceeds human intelligence The intelligence of a machine can successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can Advocates of "Strong AI" believe that computers are capable of true intelligence They argue that what intelligence is strictly algorithmic, i.e., a program running in a complex, but predictable, system of electrochemical components (neurons).

Strong AI
Many supporters of strong AI believe that the computer and the brain have equivalent computing power With sufficient technology, it will someday be possible to create machines that have the same type of capabilities as humans However, Strong AI's reduction of consciousness into an algorithm is difficult for many to accept Proponents are: Ray Kurzweil, Marvin Minsky etc.

Weak AI
The Weak AI thesis claims that machines, even if they appear intelligent, can only simulate intelligence They will never actually be aware of what they are doing Some weak AI proponents believe that human intelligence results from a superior computing mechanism which, while exercised in the brain, will never be present in a Turing-equivalent computer Roger Penrose is a proponent of Weak AI

What can a computer compute ?

Hardware circuits, gates, wires Software Program that runs on the hardware Turings remarkable discovery All computing machines are equivalent in what they can do
Though speeds may differ

All computers are equivalent to a Universal Turing machine

Algorithms
The word comes from the Persian mathematician Abu Jafar Mohammed ibn Musa al Khowarizm He wrote a book
Kitab Al-jabr wal-muqabala

Example algorithm
Euclids algorithm for highest common factor of two numbers

Euclids algorithm

This is a systematic procedure that will work for any two positive integers

Hilbert's programme:

To establish the foundations of mathematics, in particular by clarifying and justifying use of the infinite: ``The definitive clarification of the nature of the infinite has become necessary, not merely for the special interests of the individual sciences but for the honour of human understanding itself.''
Aimed to reconstitute infinitistic mathematics in terms of a formal system which could be proved (finitistically) consistent, complete and decidable.

David Hilbert
(1862-1943)

Consistent: It should be impossible to derive a contradiction (such as 1=2). Complete: All true statements should be provable. Decidable: There should be a (definite, finitary, terminating) procedure for deciding whether or not an arbitrary statement is provable. (The Entscheidungsproblem)

There is the problem. Seek its solution. You can find it by pure reason, for in mathematics there is no ignorabimus.
Wir mssen wissen, wir werden wissen

Bertrand Russell
(1872-1970)

Alfred Whitehead
(1861-1947)

Russell's paradox showed inconsistency of naive foundations such as Frege's: {X | XX} "The set of sets which are not members of themselves" Theory of Types and Principia Mathematica (1910,1912,1913)

Kurt Gdel
(1906-1978)

Uber formal unentscheidbare Stze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme (1931)

Any sufficiently strong, consistent formal system must be

Incomplete Unable to prove its own consistency

Alan Turing
(1912-1954)

On computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem (1936) Church, Kleene, Post

Turing machine
Imagine a device for carrying out a computational procedure (like Euclids algorithm) What is the general form such a machine can take ?
Machine should have discrete states (large but finite in number) Input/Output of unrestricted size Finite number of states implies cannot internalize the data

Tape ......

A Turing Machine
...... Read-Write head

Control Unit

Adapted from slide by Costas Busch,

28

The Tape
No boundaries -- infinite length

...... Read-Write head

......

The head moves Left or Right

Adapted from slide by Costas Busch, 29

...... Read-Write head

The head at each time step:

......

1. Reads a symbol 2. Writes a symbol 3. Moves Left or Right

Adapted from slide by Costas Busch, 30

Example:
......

Time 0

a b a c

......

...... 1. Reads a 2. Writes k 3. Moves Left

Time 1

a b k c

......

Adapted from slide by Costas Busch,

31

The Input String

Input string ......

Blank symbol
......

a b a c
head

Head starts at the leftmost position of the input string

Adapted from slide by Costas Busch, 32

States & Transitions

Read Write Move Left

q1

a b, L

q2
Move Right

q1

a b, R
Adapted from slide by Costas Busch,

q2
33

John von Neumann architecture

Ways that the brain differs from a conventional computer:

Very few cycles available to make decisions Massively parallel: 100 trillion interneuronal connections Combines digital & analog phenomena at every level
Nonlinear dynamics can be modeled using digital computation to any desired degree of accuracy Benefits of modeling using transistors in their analog native mode
35

Ways that the brain differs from a conventional computer:

The brain is self-organizing at every level Great deal of stochastic (random within controlled constraints) process in every aspect
Self-organizing, stochastic techniques are routinely used in pattern recognition

Information storage is holographic in its properties

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level of complexity we can manage

Only about 20 megabytes of compressed design information about the brain in the genome
A brain has ~ billion times more information than the genome that describes its design

The brains design is a probabilistic fractal Weve already created simulations of ~ 20 regions (out of several hundred) of the brain

37

Is the brain a computer ?

If it is
then the limits of computers are the limits of the brain A brain cannot do what a computer cannot Counter example: The halting problem

What computers cannot do: The halting problem

An example of something that is not computable. Created by Turing in 1936 to define a problem which no algorithmic procedure can solve. Can we write a program that will take in a user's program and inputs and decide whether
it will eventually stop, or it will run infinitely in some infinite loop ?

The answer is No; there is no procedural method for answering the halting problem Human beings can do this by inspection
Does this imply human brain can perform non-computational procedures ? If so what is the mechanism ?

Penroses belief
There is some part of conscious thinking that cannot be simulated on a computer What is it in the physics of the world that cannot be controlled computationally ? Is quantum mechanics the answer ?
In quantum mechanics, a particle can be in two places at the same time Quantum wave function collapse happens when the particle is observed

How are new ideas formed

Physical brain activityrapid trials of combinations of growing and contracting dendritic spines, which stretch out to the synapses that separate a nerve cell from its neighbor These take place below one graviton (particles that transmit gravity)

How are new ideas formed ?

How is a final dendrite construction settled on when our mind grasps a concept or glimpses a new symphonic work? Microtubules in brain orchestrate collapse of the quantum wave function

Further readings
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/20 10/09/07/what-does-it-mean-to-be-human/