Comments on: The Illusion of Intelligence

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 13:55:56 +0000

I’m sure we could get to the bottom of this if we could only harness the unused 90 percent of our brains…

By: Rollory

Rollory — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 13:11:04 +0000

That may be true but what I saw was something somewhat different — a claim that when people “decide” to do something, like reach out and pick up a piece of cheese, the decision-making areas of the brain activated after the motor areas, meaning that they were rationalizing a process already underway (and the later study claimed to disprove that).

What you describe makes sense on the surface but again I haven’t seen any clear explanation of the specific evidence supporting that claim. Not saying it doesn’t exist, but it looks like the sort of claim that is easy to hand-wave one’s way into.

By: Scipio Americanus

Scipio Americanus — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 20:40:09 +0000

I may be thinking of a different paper, but the way it was described back in my cognitive science courses was that you make most decisions instinctively; without input by the deliberative, “rational” portions of your brain. If you access the event in memory, you’ll automatically make up a post-facto rational reason for the instinctual decision. This isn’t usually lying, even you think that’s why you did what you did, at least most of the time.

By: Rollory

Rollory — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 19:41:49 +0000

That bit he mentions about making decisions before the relevant brain areas activate is very possibly one of those internet truths to which there is less than meets the eye. I remember seeing that being mentioned back when, and then a followup story on further research that indicated the original results were entirely experimental error. The followup didn’t get reported nearly as widely. Also, neither of the studies was described in any particular detail by most media organizations. The specifics of what exactly they were testing and how they got their results are really hard to come by, so it’s hard to make an accurate judgement as to whether the results are credible or not.

People hear “science!” and just trust it by reflex. They shouldn’t.

By: Steve Johnson

Steve Johnson — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 17:04:12 +0000

Obfuscation like this is infuriating:

I laughed about the recent reports of a computer that passed the Turing test by pretending to be a teenager that was such an airhead jerk that he never answered questions directly. That fooled at least some of the observers into thinking a real teen was behind the curtain instead of a computer.

Yeah, “he” was an airheaded jerk so much so that it fooled the observers.

We all know that that computer was simulating a moody teenage girl. A teenage boy would be way less likely to act that way because he’s been conditioned to expect violence if he does.

The constant intentional inversion of reality is exasperating.