The end may well be nigh. No, no no … this is not another doomsayer trying to churn out his stuff. All it was supposed to mean was the end of the world as we know it today, and of intelligence as we define it today. While the better part of the world, including our beloved Pakistan, is struggling to be intelligent in conventional terms, the efficient part of the globe, the First World, has moved at a brisk pace in the realm of Artificial Intelligence. The big question, however is: moved on to where? That we will try to see.

In our context, ‘artificial’ intelligence may well employ the use of unfair means in exams, or even a bid to appear ‘intelligent and literate’ on the basis of some bluffer’s guide. Indeed, there can be an argument in that regard, but in order to take the discussion forward, let’s settle the issue by calling it ‘fake’ intelligence which is different from ‘artificial’ intelligence.

Having set the context thus, let’s finally tackle the question, can machines think? More precisely, can they be made to think? The question has often attracted opinions in the world of science and scientists. The field of Artificial Intelligence does not have a history older than six decades, but in that time, it has thrown up some interesting things.

Two teams of scientists in recent times have reported major advances that have brightened up things on the AI front. Ross King and his colleagues at Aberystwyth University in Wales have created a robot that can not only carry out experiments on yeast metabolism, but also reason out the results and plan the next experiment.

It was claimed to be the world’s first example of a machine that made an independent scientific discovery — in this case, new facts about the genetic makeup of baker’s yeast. “On its own it can think of hypotheses and then do the experiments, and we have checked that it has got the results correct,” Ross said of his findings in the journal Science.

Across the Atlantic, Hod Lipson and Michael Schmidt of Cornell University in New York developed a computer programme capable of working out the fundamental laws of physics behind a swinging double pendulum. “Just by crunching the numbers — and without any prior instruction in physics — the Cornell machine was able to decipher Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and other properties,” said the report.

Alan Turing, the patriarch of Artificial Intelligence, would have surely been pleased, but not quite. The brilliant Cambridge mathematician had prophesied that by the end of the 20th century, computers would be able to hold a five-minute conversation with humans. More importantly, he expected that the machines would be intelligent enough to fool at least 30 per cent of their respective audiences into believing that they were actually dealing with another human being; not with a machine. Well, by the end of the 20th century, machines were being actively used to fake identities and genders — remember the early days of internet chat rooms? — but the fooling around was being done by humans; not machines.

Born a couple of years before the First World War, Turing suggested a theoretical machine in 1937 — since called the Turing Machine — that became the basis of modern computing. During the Second World War, Turing led the team that succeeded in breaking German high-level secret codes, using the first practically programmed computer called Colossus.

In 1950, he designed what later came to be called the Turing’s Test and still remains the criterion for recognising intelligence in a machine. For having a lifestyle that was at the time a crime even in England, Turing was tried, convicted and sentenced to oestrogen treatments. He was 42 when he died of cyanide poisoning, an apparent case of suicide. But his dream has lived on regardless of the fact that his followers have missed the deadline that he had in mind.

The progress the world made in the realm of AI was good enough for Herbert Simon to tell Jack Copeland, the author of Artificial Intelligence: A Philosophical Introduction, in 1993 that things were indeed shaping up. “It is not my aim to surprise or shock you — but the simplest way I can summarise is to say that there are now in the world machines that can think, that can learn and that can create. Moreover, their ability to do these things is going to increase rapidly until — in a visible future — the range of problems they can handle will be comparable to the range to which the human mind has been applied.”

Simon, by the way, was not a scientist. He actually won a Nobel Prize in economics. This was in 1978. His area of expertise was the study of decision-making behaviour, especially in large organisations, and he developed new theories in economics, psychology, business administration, and several other fields. He was a truly extraordinary social scientist and philosopher who has had a profound influence on the underpinnings of nearly every social science. It was not for nothing that he was the first social scientist ever to get elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Simon’s prophecy was based on more realistic data. At the time he discussed the AI progress with Copeland, the world had already had a taste of Aaron, the computer artist, as well as AM, a computer programme that had made small-scale mathematical discoveries.

Simon was an octogenarian when in 1997 IBM computer Deep Blue beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov in what is still considered a major leap for AI researchers. The question that many asked at the time — and we raised at the outset — however, still remains an issue of debate; a leap to where? What do you think?

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