Level-headed

I don't believe that human-level intelligence is a well defined goal. As the cognitive-science community learns more about thinking and computation, the mileposts will keep changing in ways that we can't predict, as will the esteem we assign to past accomplishments. It would be fun to have a computer that could solve brain teasers as well as the average scientist, but focusing on such things, besides being parochial, overlooks the crucial role language plays in everything humans do, a role we understand hardly at all on a computational level. I am optimistic that we will eventually figure language out, but not without new ideas. Plus, when we can talk to machines, will we understand each other?

Authors

• Drew McDermott

Keywords

• Speculation
• Methodology
• Natural language