Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!ghost.unimi.it!cdc835!gin001
From: gin001@cdc835.cdc.polimi.it (Mauro Cicognini)
Subject: a naive idea
Message-ID: <1991May16.134123.6335@cdc835.cdc.polimi.it>
Summary: We don't really need computers to do work humans do better
Keywords: intelligence, human, artificial
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Organization: C.d.C., Politecnico di Milano
Date: Thu, 16 May 1991 13:41:23 GMT

It may be a naive idea, but my assertion is that artificial intelligence 
is not worth for any economical results it may produce. In fact, it will
always be less expensive to train a human being to do a certain intel-
lectual job than to devise an artificial system to do the same thing.
This because the machine has first to be imbued with "artificial" intel-
ligence; and this task has yet to prove itself easy. I doubt that it ever
will, though this is only a personal opinion.

My point is that, even if we reach the point where we can "make" intellig-
ence out of silicon (or gallium arsenide), it will always be more costly
than to have intelligence produced to old way, that is, to make babies.

Than why all this fuss about AI? I think this is a just and good effort,
because of the enormous consequences it has already had and it'll have 
in the future on the way we understand ourselves. I mean that the 
research on AI has stimulated research on intelligence at large, and so
including the way we memorize things, the way we understand, we general-
ize, and so on. Let's not forget the studies on artificial vision and
hearing, manipulation, et cetera.

We have this way taken away this subject from the exclusive domain of
philosophers and literature-major people, and merged it with the main-
stream of scientifical research; paving the way for a countless number
of applications in a world that relies ever more heavily on machines.
I believe that the one most important consequence af AI will be to ease
our survival in such a world, improving our relations with ourselves,
other humans and, last but not least, the machines we cope with.

