DUMB AND SMART

To the contrary, a program to play chess or checkers does not foresee every possible move; it is programmed to make its own deci-sions by following certain principles (as well as using its past ex-perience). In my opinion, a new era of mankind dawned (but isn't here yet) on the day, back in the early days of AI, when a program to play checkers beat its own programmer.

The speed, reliability and memory of computers is certainly im-pressive, but in principle no more than the speed of a bullet or the force of a crane, for all of these man-made machines surpass man's corresponding ability. But a machine that outdoes man not in some physical property, but outwits him, is surely something entirely new.

Do not confuse intelligence with efficiency. Suppose I want to know the biggest number under 10,000 that is divisible by 51 (without remainder). Then a repugnantly stupid program would give instructions to look for the remainder in 1/51, then give new instructions to try it with 2/52, and so forth to 10,000/51. If instead I give not 10,000 instructions, but a single set of instructions to try it with 1/51 and how to repeat the procedure for every integer up to 10,000, then I have only used shorthand for the same program: it is more efficient (shorter) to write, but equally dumb in execution.