The solution of a problem often depends upon a set of variables, whose all possible values are known; the combinatorial search considers which combinations of these values satisfy all the constraints of the problem. This can also be used when there is a finite number of legal actions, and one considers the situations after all […]
The realization of a bootstrap has a serious drawback: the improvements are not obvious for all those that do not realize it. For them, it seems that we are at a standstill: the interest of a bootstrap only appears when it is completed, ant that may require many years. Naturally, I will consider CAIA; its […]
The possibility of being bored is very useful, although we dislike being in this state. Boredom happens when we are doing repetitive tasks, or when we receive only incomprehensible or already known information. When we are bored, we try to put an end to this situation so that we would have a better utilization of […]
Usually teachers explain the results that they set out; for example, they give the steps leading to a proof. Explanation is essential if one wants that the students accept a result, and use it. However, even when it has received an explanation, the student is not fully satisfied: he believes that the result is correct, […]
For living beings, death is ineluctable: they must disappear so that evolution can work. Indeed, our possibilities of modifying ourselves are too limited: we must improve through offsprings, the combination of genes allows a large variability. Some children may be born with the capacity to adapt themselves to a new environment, or to have an […]
This aphorism, often used by Socrates, insists on the importance for an intelligent being to know himself. It is certainly useful to know whether one can make a particular action, what one wants to do, to follow the steps taken by his own thought, and so on. This is also useful for an artificial being, […]
Consciousness allows us to know what we are thinking, and to think about it. We have already seen that this possibility is important, and we believe that we are very good in this activity. In fact, we are greatly better than animals, the best ones having only very limited capacities in this domain. However, this […]
Many people seem to think that there is only one form of intelligence, ours, which could be more or less developed; for them, there cannot exist another intelligence that the kind created by evolution on earth, where we seem to be the most intelligent living beings. This belief was clearly shown when Pioneer 10 and […]
When a system is said to be sound, its results must be free from errors, defects, fallacies. In almost all the scientific domains, rigor is a highly desirable quality: one must not publish erroneous results, and the referees of a paper have to say whether this paper is sound. However, AI could still have an […]
What we are easily doing may be very difficult for an AI system. Conversely, it can easily perform tasks that are very difficult for human beings. The reason is that, during millions of years, evolution made us very expert for some activities such as perception, but has not adapted us to many activities that are […]