How To Create A Mind: The Secret Of Human Thought Revealed (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
This is the book which introduced me into the wonderful world of Artificial Intelligence.It introduces the underlying principles behind one of the most well used Machine Learning techniques called Neural Network, and even how it was deeply connected with the inventor of modern computing himself, Von Neumann.Right after completing this book I took a Coursera course "Machine Learning" by Andrew Ng and set up my own personal project.Knowledge is like drinking a salt water, you thirst as you drink more. Until today, it still never ceases to amaze me how Machine Learning can be integrated into many, if not all, of different disciplines.Needless to say, this is a must read for anyone wanting to prepare for a brave new world we are about to go into. This book makes an attempt at documenting how to recreate a human mind with technology. I was let down by this book. Perhaps it was too early to write the book. Other of Kurzweil books come off as just trying to be the first to document the idea. The structure and presentation of this book seems to support that premise.First off, there's the definition of the word 'mind.' it's a word made up by humans to describe a phenomena real or not. For a scientific approach you define it then move forward. Some chapters are spent going back and forth trying to prove how an artificially created 'mind' could be considered as valid as human. I wasn't looking for a wordplay book, but the author does the same thing with the words 'soul', 'freewill', and 'sentient/conscious.' I wasn't so interested in a proof of whether an AI representation of a mind would be considered a valid entity on par with a human. My thoughts: it's not, because whatever is electronically stored can be copied ad infinitum. It is a machine. A human body is not easily copied (even 1000 years from now) and is singularly irreplaceable.I think the author gets caught up in the representations.Onto creating a brain. The question is, do you want to build an AI replica of the human brain, or do you want to create an AI entity that can process and think like a human brain?Computers (hardware and software) are representations that store, process and act on inputs. A human brain does the same thing, but with organic structures, chemicals. Understandings in both sides can be used to build upon. The abstract concepts are the key here. What does a brain do and how does it do it? From there you go with whats feasible. Does a AI version need an equivalent of two hemispheres? why not four? It really doesn't matter. What does matter are areas of function and their interconnectivity.To build a replica of a human brain you would need to start witha baseline which is the genetics and organic structures of a human brain. This would include mutations, and potentially defects. Next there would need to be an impetus for that life form. Humans are driven by impetus which defines how they look at the world, what drives actions, and what drives learning.Humans have fears, survival mechanisms, ego, etc this drives knowledge accumulation. A similar impetus would be needed for an AI brain more than just a single purpose like playing chess, recognizing speech, or answering questions from the television show, Jeopardy.Next would be the interconnection of stimuli, their storage, weighting, retrieval and associations. The brain stores visual separate from the written and aural. Would you structure an AI mind similarly? What about smells, touch, temperature, deja vu etc?None of the above was discussed. Instead, there's a lot of talk on his previous works, shout-outs to his companies, patents, books, etc.A later chapter covers how he's a predictor of the future. He provides graphs showing, that if you historically document achievement you can identify - trends. Surprise! Can anyone do that? He also takes a section for some smackdown against a paper Paul Allen from Microsoft critiqued him. That doesn't really push the advancement of creating an AI initiative forward.Anyways, perhaps the book was too early for its time. I'd like to see a much better, and scientific book written on how to create an artificial intelligence.
What do You think about How To Create A Mind: The Secret Of Human Thought Revealed (2012)?
I enjoyed the interplay between human mind and artificial, and what makes them similar. Fun read.
—derekb
Yazar çok yakın bir gelecekte yapay zekayı göreceğim konusunda ikna etti.
—Elyse
