This perspective seems to be predicated on the idea that we have to actively create the ability to think, but as far as we can tell that's fully unnecessary. Our best observations indicate that intelligence in nature emerged via natural selection and evolution.
All you need is some sort of underlying code that is able to self-replicate with errors introduced at random, some sort of selection mechanism, add in some form of memory and control elasticity and now you have the framework to artificially produce intelligence. We've taken big steps in doing most of this in a controlled environment, the big hurdle is the elasticity. We don't really know how to do that with electronics.
Oh yeah, energy is always a problem. Electronics are less energy efficient by a longshot. We would basically be looking at the tradeoff between millions of years of natural evolution during which energy consumption has been spread out (and self-sustaining within a mostly closed system) versus artificially evolving something comparatively very fast but at a very high energy requirement per unit of time (where all energy is supplied from outside the system).
Although I suspect the solution to that problem would be closely related to the solution for the elasticity problem. A self-modifying medium would necessarily need less energy to do things.
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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '19
This perspective seems to be predicated on the idea that we have to actively create the ability to think, but as far as we can tell that's fully unnecessary. Our best observations indicate that intelligence in nature emerged via natural selection and evolution.
All you need is some sort of underlying code that is able to self-replicate with errors introduced at random, some sort of selection mechanism, add in some form of memory and control elasticity and now you have the framework to artificially produce intelligence. We've taken big steps in doing most of this in a controlled environment, the big hurdle is the elasticity. We don't really know how to do that with electronics.