[SydPhil] 3500 USD Essay Challenge: On the Principles of Intelligence

[Oliver Schmid]

Dear all,

Around 1500, Leonardo da Vinci published his sketches of an aircraft with rounded wings, and in 1783 the first manned hot-air balloon took off. It wasn't before 1903, over 4'000 years after the oldest known depiction of human flight was carved in clay, that the Wright Brothers took off for the first sustained, controlled, and heavier-than-air manned flight. From today's point of view, the principles of aerodynamics necessary to build operational aircraft seem relatively trivial.

But only in retrospect are the results of such breakthroughs considered part of the 'obvious'. In 1957, psychologist Frank Rosenblatt published the first paper on trainable neural networks. Since then, humans have walked on the moon, the internet has been invented, and smart devices have been built to fit in our pockets - but neural networks have still not led to human-level artificial intelligence. Neural networks appear like wings that seem to fly for a short time but then drop like a stone when confronted with unknown tasks. Therefore, we'd like to propose moving away from the current hype around neural networks and ask you more fundamentally:

What fundamental principles of intelligence must be considered in the successful design of artificial intelligence?

The appropriate example from aviation would be: "What are the core aspects of flight that must be considered in the successful design of aircraft?" (One possible answer: As a curved airfoil wing flies through the sky, it deflects air and alters the air pressure above and below it. When moving forward, the curved upper part of the wing lowers the air pressure directly above it, so it moves upward.)

With that in mind, we challenge you to write an essay of 2'000 to 3'000 words and become the Wright Brothers in the field of AI! Whether you answer the question from a philosophical, biological, computational, mathematical, neuroscientific, psychological, social, or any other perspective is up to you. We value novel and insightful arguments that are useful in the field of AI.

Go to https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/lohUC81V0PTjqA124InAyr5?domain=lab42.global and hand in your essay by 23:59 GMT on December 31, 2022. The best essays are rewarded with 3'500 USD in total.

Best regards from Davos, Switzerland

Oliver Schmid
Lead Community & AI Enthusiasts Lab42

oliver.schmid at lab42.global<mailto:oliver.schmid at lab42.global>
https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/lohUC81V0PTjqA124InAyr5?domain=lab42.global<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/lohUC81V0PTjqA124InAyr5?domain=lab42.global/>

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