5 research outputs found
Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity
One might think that, once we know something is computable, how efficiently
it can be computed is a practical question with little further philosophical
importance. In this essay, I offer a detailed case that one would be wrong. In
particular, I argue that computational complexity theory---the field that
studies the resources (such as time, space, and randomness) needed to solve
computational problems---leads to new perspectives on the nature of
mathematical knowledge, the strong AI debate, computationalism, the problem of
logical omniscience, Hume's problem of induction, Goodman's grue riddle, the
foundations of quantum mechanics, economic rationality, closed timelike curves,
and several other topics of philosophical interest. I end by discussing aspects
of complexity theory itself that could benefit from philosophical analysis.Comment: 58 pages, to appear in "Computability: G\"odel, Turing, Church, and
beyond," MIT Press, 2012. Some minor clarifications and corrections; new
references adde
Artificial general intelligence: Proceedings of the Second Conference on Artificial General Intelligence, AGI 2009, Arlington, Virginia, USA, March 6-9, 2009
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) research focuses on the original and ultimate goal of AI ā to create broad human-like and transhuman intelligence, by exploring all available paths, including theoretical and experimental computer science, cognitive science, neuroscience, and innovative interdisciplinary methodologies. Due to the difficulty of this task, for the last few decades the majority of AI researchers have focused on what has been called narrow AI ā the production of AI systems displaying intelligence regarding specific, highly constrained tasks. In
recent years, however, more and more researchers have recognized the necessity ā and feasibility ā of returning to the original goals of the field. Increasingly, there is a call for a transition back to confronting the more difficult issues of human level intelligence and more broadly artificial general intelligence