A New Artificial Intelligence 2
Kevin Warwick
Nature –versus-Nurture
• How much of our intelligence is due to our
genes (programming) and how much is
due to learning (the environment)?
• Twin studies
• Adopted siblings
• Typical latest – 80/20 genes/nature.
Intelligence Tests
• An intelligence test measures the degree
to which tester and subject think alike –
Subjective Intelligence.
• “Everyone is World Champion at some
game” (Ross Ashby) – You are the most
intelligent person in the world !!!
• Positive links with examination results –
indicates performance in specific areas
Subjective Intelligence reminder
• What we regard as being an intelligent act,
and what not, is very subjective
• Human centred – e.g. jokes
• Animal centred – bat’s ultrasonic sense
• Machine centred – maths, memory
Intelligence Hypersphere
• Intelligence is not something that can be
indicated by a single number (IQ)
• Intelligence is multifacetted
Intelligence Tests?
• In the 19th Century Frances Galton exhibited tests
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in Science Museum, London. These included:
putting in weight order boxes different by 1 gram
The closeness of two points on the back of your
hand before you couldn’t tell the difference
measuring the speed of response to a noise.
Felt to be no scientific basis for such tests as there
were no statistical links between the results of the
test and how well individuals performed at school
Binet
• The IQ test was formulated by Alfred Binet in
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1904.
Asked to develop a simple method to identify
children who would struggle in the normal school
environment
Concentrated on memory, comprehension,
imagination, moral understanding, motor skills and
attention.
His test (for children between 3 and 12) was made
up of 30 parts which children worked through from
the start until they could no longer continue - oral
The number reached was the ‘mental’ age.
Subtracting the answer from the actual age the
intellectual level was given
Can we improve mental
performance?
• What have studies shown thus far?
(Orange/Lead)
• Fun with IQ tests!!!
• Two sets of results.
• Q1: If I wish to improve my mental
performance in the short term – what can
I do?
• Q2: Can the food I regularly eat affect my
mental performance?
What do Intelligence tests show?
• Validity of (IQ) tests has been questioned
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recently
Validity has been shown by statistical links those who do well in school exams tend to also
do well in IQ tests.
Whether IQ tests indicate anything about
intelligence remains unanswered. But there are
strong statistical correlations between exam
performance (hence IQ test performance) and
job status (not with job performance).
IQ test performance gives a likely indication of
general exam performance and such tests have
been used to show the effects of lifestyle and
activity – whatever one thinks of IQ tests such
results are fascinating.
Statistical Evidence?
• Changing an IQ score by 3 points is a strong indicator
• Regular Vitamin C intake in children has been shown to
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improve their IQ score by 8 points (on average).
Pollution appears to have little effect – doubling lead intake
(pretty heavy) reduces a score by only 1 point.
Bottle-fed babies fare worse on IQ tests than breast-fed
babies (3 points).
Children who regularly use a dummy score 3 to 5 points lower
(in later life) than those who do not.
Children whose Mothers were above 35 score 6 points higher
Obviously there are social links associated with each of the
indicators - it is difficult to separate items from such aspects
Experiment 1:
• 200 first year students at Reading
University given an IQ test, then an
activity + food, then another IQ test.
• How did their results change over that
short time period? (IQ points score)
• Trying to answer the question “What is it
best to do immediately before an
examination, to maximize your
performance?”
Results - Food
• Alcohol
• Chocolate
• Coffee
• Orange Juice
• Peanuts
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+3
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+1
Results - Activity
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Reading/Swatting
Listening to classical music
Watching a chat show on TV
Playing with a construction toy
Sitting/Chatting
Watching a documentary on TV
Walking
Meditating
Watching Friends on TV
Completing a crossword puzzle
-6
-2
+5
-4
-2
+4
+1
+2
+1
0
Experiment 2:
• 50 children (aged 8-11) at Thameside School,
Caversham were given regular breakfasts over
a one month period.
• Tested at start/end to see how they altered
• IQ equivalent tests in numerical ability/word
association/shape recognition.
Results – Breakfast
• Toast + Orange Juice
• Bacon Sandwich
• Control
• Cereal
• Eggs (various)
+3
+3
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-1
-5
Nature – v - Nurture
• One of the most important and yet
contentious issues with regard to
intelligence is how does it originate?
• Is it natural/programmed or is it learnt
through education and experience?
• In the make up of an individual’s
intelligence, what percentage is inherited
and what percentage is due to life’s
environmental effects?
Intelligence in History
• Plato saw a person’s intelligence as being class related -
to maintain the status quo people should only produce
offspring with members of their own class.
• At that time, average levels of intelligence were further
maintained by killing children at birth (or infancy) if they
were seen to display characteristics of ‘idiocy’.
• In Aristotle’s time, things had changed. Levels of
intelligence were considered to be dependent on
teaching and life experience. Aristotle said that
intelligence was present in all citizens.
• This may sound quite radical, however slaves, laborers,
many women and most foreigners were all excluded
from citizenship and therefore from being intelligent.
Charles Darwin
• Darwin’s publication of Origin of species by
means of natural selection (1859) led to huge
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support for the genetic nature of intelligence
Bolstered the idea of different levels of
intelligence between nations, races, classes and
individuals - to justify slavery/oppression.
Poorer people should be allowed to die out in
order that society can maintain a higher average
level of intelligence.
This meant that poor people were not given
social welfare and, in some parts of the world,
were not allowed to breed.
Foetal Development
• Some recent studies have put great emphasis on
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the environment before birth.
An article in Nature claimed that foetal
development in the womb accounted for 20% of
an individual’s total intelligence - genetic
influences only accounted for 34%, the
remaining 46% due to environmental factors.
But these percentages are contrary to the norm
Straw pole of research papers indicates 60-80%
being down to inheritance with the remaining
40-20% being due to education and training.
Adoptees
• A study in Denmark looked at 100 men and
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women adopted in and around Copenhagen
between 1924 and 1947.
The adoptees in the study had little in common,
in terms of their environment/education, with
their biological siblings, but shared a common
upbringing with their adoptive siblings.
Biologically related siblings correlated well in
terms of occupational status - there was no
correlation between adoptive siblings.
Twins
• Identical twins have a close genetic make up of their
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brains –including the period in the womb. In 1976, in
a detailed study of 850 twins, John Loehlin
concluded that the make up of intelligence was
80/20 inheritance/environment
The group of twins of most interest are those
separated at birth and brought up in different
environments.
In 1966 Cyril Burt presented results on 53 pairs of
identical twins who, he claimed, had been separated
at birth, randomly placed in their adoptive homes
and had had no further contact since birth. He came
up with a figure of 86/14 - his results were
discredited due to the validity of the twins used!
Further Twins
• At the University of Minneapolis, a special unit was set
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up for the study of twins and many interesting statistics
have subsequently been obtained
Results were pooled on a total of 122 pairs of identical
twins in terms of IQ test scores.
Similarities between pairs of twins correlated to be 82%
(pretty similar to the other results).
However, unlike Burt’s claimed study, twins tended to be
brought up in similar home backgrounds due to that
being the strategy of the social services responsible. In
fact results did not correlate so well for those twins who
had grown up in dissimilar backgrounds.
Anecdotal Example
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Twins - Jim Springer and Jim Lewis.
Adopted by separate Ohio families - grew up independently
Met at the age of 39. They found that they:
drank the same brand of beer - smoked the same number
of the same brand of cigarettes. Both had a basement
workshop, both built a circular bench, which they painted
white, around a tree trunk. In their youth they both hated
spelling but enjoyed mathematics and both had owned
dogs which they called ‘Toy’.
Both joined the local police force, got promoted to the rank
of Deputy Sheriff and left after 7 years. Both married and
divorced women called Linda - then married women called
Betty, with whom they had 1 son, although Jim Lewis’ child
was named James Alan whilst Jim Springer’s child was
called James Allan. Both took annual holidays in the same
week at the same beach - but they never met.
They both took an IQ test and gave identical answers.
Comparative Intelligence
• Mental and physical abilities are different between species.
• Difficult to compare the performance of an individual in
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one species with an individual from another species, other
than in the sense of performance in a specific task.
The ability to cover a distance over land in a minimum
time – compare a cheetah, a human, an automobile and a
snail. The human might finish in the top 3. But the result
would only relate to one specific result – speed over a
distance – could be seen as silly!
The same could be said if we compared a human, with a
rabbit and a computer in terms of ability to interact with a
second human in a Chinese conversation.
Certain computers could do a lot better than many
humans who cannot communicate at all in Chinese.
Think the Same
• Comparing individuals from different species is
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meaningless other than in terms of the skills required to
complete a task.
To compare humans and machines in terms of intelligence
we need to be clear which humans we are talking about
and which machines. Is the comparison being made in
terms of a human-centric task?
Can we expect the machine to carry out the task in exactly
the same way as a human? The end result is the critical
thing, not how the machine performed?
One human plays another at chess. The winner is not
disqualified because they were thinking about food
If a machine beats a human at chess we should not say,
yes but it wasn’t thinking in the same way as the human
therefore it has lost.
Conclusions
• Important to consider intelligence in other
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creatures as well as humans
Look at intelligence in humans in terms of the
broad spread of individuals that form humanity
as a whole and not simply an ‘ideal’.
Can be tempting to compare the intellectual
abilities of a machine with those of an ‘ideal’
human – in order to assess the standing of AI
We need to make sure that we do not make
fools of ourselves with naïve conclusions
Next
• Classical AI
Contact Information - UK
• Web site: www.kevinwarwick.com
• Email: k.warwick@reading.ac.uk
• Tel: (44)-1189-318210
• Fax: (44)-1189-318220
• Professor Kevin Warwick, Department of
Cybernetics, University of Reading,
Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 6AY,UK