Chances are when I say alchemy, you begin thinking of old people hunched over in a distillery, attempting to create The Philosopher Stone. A stone which could be used as a transmutation agent, or could be mixed into an elixir to create an elixir of immortality. What you may not know, is that for many:
This is a fascinating historic insight. There is a parallel in the quest. The difference, however, lies in the purpose of the quest. The alchemical quest, though at times, was couched in the noble goal of the key to life was really about gold, or personal enrichment, the AI philosopher's stone is a more noble thing, it a quest for the quests sake. As such the delusion of the Turing test is not deliberate fakery by charletons but well meaning delusion about what is really being saught.
Is it intelligence you want? Or is it sentience? Intelligence you have, by many verifiable definitions. So perhaps what you seek is sentient intelligence, self aware, self reflective.
And in this understanding, perhaps, lies the true path to the philosophers stone. Intelligence, what creates it and how it functions we seem to be getting, but sentience is the illusion. And that may lie in organics of the sences and the interpretation thereof.
This is a fascinating historic insight. There is a parallel in the quest. The difference, however, lies in the purpose of the quest. The alchemical quest, though at times, was couched in the noble goal of the key to life was really about gold, or personal enrichment, the AI philosopher's stone is a more noble thing, it a quest for the quests sake. As such the delusion of the Turing test is not deliberate fakery by charletons but well meaning delusion about what is really being saught.
Is it intelligence you want? Or is it sentience? Intelligence you have, by many verifiable definitions. So perhaps what you seek is sentient intelligence, self aware, self reflective.
And in this understanding, perhaps, lies the true path to the philosophers stone. Intelligence, what creates it and how it functions we seem to be getting, but sentience is the illusion. And that may lie in organics of the sences and the interpretation thereof.
But this undoubtedly has already been thought of.
Interesting article! I wouldn't have thought to relate the developmental process of AI to that of alchemy ... that's cool!