Beyond Zero and One (Andrew Smart) / quote 52 of 171
AI is still building wing-flapping machines
However, when studying human thought and artificial intelligence we do not have something like aerodynamics. We do not know the right physical principles and models that allow humans to think or be conscious. Right now we are convinced it is through computations, but I believe this is mistaken. The problem of flight turned out to require generating lift. To extend the flight analogy further, we can’t try to figure out how to “generate lift” for an artificial mind because we don’t even know if generating lift is the right way to solve the problem. We do not know what physical principles to study in order to create an intelligent machine because right now we do not understand how or why the soggy, lumpy, scrambled-eggy substance in your skull creates your world. Another way to think of it is like this: several attempts at making wing-flapping machines failed, rather comically in hindsight, before people like the Wright brothers realized that flight is not about flapping wings. Artificial intelligence is still at the stage of making the equivalent of wing-flapping machines in terms of our quest for an artificial mind.