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
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @04:31AM
Someone correct me if I am remembering this wrong. But was not the IQ test designed not to find 'very smart people' but the reverse? To help find and weed out people who are basically retarded?
There are better qualities to measure than 'IQ'. Scoring good on an IQ test just means you are not stupid. As anything above 100 means you do not need special help.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday July 01 2015, @06:44PM
Scoring good on an IQ test just means you are not stupid.
Since IQ likely does not actually measure intelligence, I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion. Maybe someone is good at the tasks the IQ tests ask you to perform, but when it comes to real-life issues, they are complete idiots. There is also the possibility that someone who did poorly gets extremely nervous when they take tests and therefore failed. I don't think these tests show much of anything for the individual.