Without actually reading the book, it appears the author asserts that a large component of human intelligence can be reproduced by AI, and perhaps the chaotic interactions that underpin human intelligence, also allow nonliving systems such as AI farms to express intelligent behavior.
What he would like people to believe is that AI is real intelligence, for some value of real.
Even without AI, computers can be programmed for a purpose, and appear to exhibit intelligence. And mechanical systems, such as the governor of a lawnmower engine, seem able to seek a goal they are set for.
What AI models have in common with human and animal learning is having a history which forms the basis for a response. For humans, our sensory motor history, with its emotional associations, is an embodied context out of which creative responses derive.
There is no attempt to recreate such learning in AI. And by missing out on embodied existence, AI can hardly be claimed as being on the same order as human or animal intelligence.
To understand the origin of human intelligence, a good starting point would be, Ester Thelen's book[0], "A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action" (also MIT Press, btw.)
According to Thelen, there is no privileged component with prior knowledge of the end state of an infant's development, no genetic program that their life is executing. Instead, there is a process of trial and error that develops the associations between senses and muscular manipulation that organize complex actions like reaching.
If anything, it is caregivers in the family system that knowledge of an end result resides: if something isn't going right with the baby, if she not able to breastfeed within a few days of birth (a learned behavior) or not able to roll over by themselves at 9 months, they will be ones to seek help.
In my opinion, it is in the caring arts, investing time in our children's development and education, that advances us as a civilization, although there is now a separate track, the advances in computers and technology, that often serves as a proxy for improving our culture and humanity, easier to measure, easier to allocate funds, than for the squishy human culture of attentive parenting, teaching and caregiving.
What he would like people to believe is that AI is real intelligence, for some value of real.
Even without AI, computers can be programmed for a purpose, and appear to exhibit intelligence. And mechanical systems, such as the governor of a lawnmower engine, seem able to seek a goal they are set for.
What AI models have in common with human and animal learning is having a history which forms the basis for a response. For humans, our sensory motor history, with its emotional associations, is an embodied context out of which creative responses derive.
There is no attempt to recreate such learning in AI. And by missing out on embodied existence, AI can hardly be claimed as being on the same order as human or animal intelligence.
To understand the origin of human intelligence, a good starting point would be, Ester Thelen's book[0], "A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action" (also MIT Press, btw.)
According to Thelen, there is no privileged component with prior knowledge of the end state of an infant's development, no genetic program that their life is executing. Instead, there is a process of trial and error that develops the associations between senses and muscular manipulation that organize complex actions like reaching.
If anything, it is caregivers in the family system that knowledge of an end result resides: if something isn't going right with the baby, if she not able to breastfeed within a few days of birth (a learned behavior) or not able to roll over by themselves at 9 months, they will be ones to seek help.
In my opinion, it is in the caring arts, investing time in our children's development and education, that advances us as a civilization, although there is now a separate track, the advances in computers and technology, that often serves as a proxy for improving our culture and humanity, easier to measure, easier to allocate funds, than for the squishy human culture of attentive parenting, teaching and caregiving.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Approach-Development-Cognition-Cognit...