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Science just took us a small step closer to HAL 9000. A new artificial intelligence (AI) program designed by Chinese researchers has beat humans on a verbal IQ test. Scoring well on the verbal section of the intelligence test has traditionally been a tall order for computers, since words have multiple meanings and complex relationships to one another.
But in a new study, the program did better than its human counterparts who took the test. The findings suggest machines could be one small step closer to approaching the level of human intelligence, the researchers wrote in the study, which was posted earlier this month on the online database arXiv, but has not yet been published in a scientific journal. Don't get too excited just yet: IQ isn't the end-all, be-all measure of intelligence, human or otherwise.
For one thing, the test only measures one kind of intelligence (typically, critics point out, at the expense of others, such as creativity or emotional intelligence. Plus, because some test questions can be hacked using some basic tricks, some AI researchers argue that IQ isn't the best way to measure machine intelligence.
[Paper - PDF]: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1505.07909v2.pdf
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by mr_mischief on Tuesday June 30 2015, @09:05PM
IQ tests aren't the best way to measure human intelligence, either. They produce a handy, easily packaged single score that's one somewhat useful single data point in situations that require a numerical score. That's it. That's all they do. Give me a pile of IQ scores and I won't know which to hire or which to turn to when I want to strike up a conversation. Give me for person an IQ score, a personality matrix, a resumé, a list of pastimes, a list of favorite movies, a list of favorite games, a list of favorite songs, and a portfolio of their work and we're starting to get somewhere. Of these, the raw IQ score is probably the least important but it would be a handy tie breaker all other things being more or less equal.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Tuesday June 30 2015, @09:32PM
Give me a pile of IQ scores and I won't know which to hire or which to turn to when I want to strike up a conversation.
But you will probably know which NOT to turn to for any of those tasks.
There probably would eventually prove some vague correlation between your best hires, and some specific score patterns.
There will still be the odd idiot savant that can capture license plates passing a certain point in the road all day long, and then go home and write them down in order**. Then mom might have to spoon feed him dinner. But you will rarely find reason for conversation with such.
**(I knew of such an individual, who was employed by a railroad to record serial numbers of rolling stock crossing a bridge into Canada. An hour sitting on a bench, followed by two hours of writing it down. They even trained him how to type them into a computer. Then he died, and they had to go digital.)
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.