I have a question about "solved" games, and the significance of games to

I have a question about "solved" games, and the significance of games to

I have a question about "solved" games, and the significance of games to artificial intelligence. I take it games provide one way to assess artificial intelligence: if a computer is able to win at a certain game, such as chess, this provides evidence that the computer is intelligent. Suppose that in the future scientists manage to solve chess, and write an algorithm to play chess according to this solution. By hypothesis, then, a computer running this algorithm wins every game whenever possible. Would we conclude on this basis that the computer is intelligent? I have an intuition that intelligence cannot be reduced to any such algorithm, however complex. But that seems quite strange in a way, because it suggests that imperfect play might somehow demonstrate greater intelligence or creativity than perfect play. [If the notion of "solving" chess is problematic, another approach is to consider a computer which plays by exhaustively computing every possible sequence of moves. This is unfeasible with current technology, of course. But we can imagine a futuristic computer which has such great raw power that it's able to play effectively using this otherwise exceedingly "dumb" strategy.]

Read another response by Richard Heck, William Rapaport
Read another response about Mind
Print