Re: Is an SI possible with todays hardware?

John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Sun, 21 Feb 1999 16:43:32 -0500

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Jeff Davis wrote:

>Would it be possible to construct a self-enhancing AI with
>today's hardware?

Let's see how complicated it could possibly be, the human genome is 6 billion base pairs long, there are 4 bases so each base can represent 2 bits and there are 8 bits per byte. That comes out to 1.5 gigabytes, however 80% of that is junk DNA so the working genome of the entire human body is 300 megabytes. A chimpanzee's genome is only about 1% different from a human one, so I think I'm being very generous if I say that 10% of our working DNA involves intelligence. Thus a seed intelligence able to grow in power as it interacts with the environment as a newborn baby does can be specified with just 30 megabytes and probably much less.

Unless the brain works on quantum mechanical principles, (which seems unlikely) and some of those 30 megabytes are instructions for constructing a quantum computer then modern hardware is probably adequate for a AI seed. Of course I don't know what those 30 megabytes are so I have no idea how to actually build the damn thing.

John K Clark jonkc@att.net

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