A book I recently read (Range, by David Epstein) seems to draw a connection through some other research that points to modernization and globalization as the drivers of this trend, in the sense that IQ tests measure pure abstract reasoning ability and we now live in a world dominated by abstraction so our brains get used to thinking about all of our experiences abstractly from a younger age. Basically, each successive generation has more practice in thinking about the world abstractly since it is required use to modern technology effectively.
Anyways, this seems to buttress what Chollet is saying about externalized human intelligence. It is difficult to imagine anything resembling a "general" intelligence that isn't attached to a life-form that is already a self-replicating engine of negentropy, bootstrapping solutions to hard problems through some form of non-volatile memory. I would almost go so far as to say that "intelligence" and evolution are inseparable.
I think these are actually stronger arguments, because I can think of at least three very least significant material-science advantages that birds have even over modern technology that would, from a physics point of view, let me entertain the idea that a 19th century physicist could believe you'd at least need to be made of flesh to fly. I can't think of any comparable case for intelligence being restricted to biology.
Yes, I realize that the phrase "difficult to imagine" is fun to pounce on. There's a big difference between "flight" and "general intelligence"; namely that the former is like Justice Potter Stewart's definition of pornography and the latter is... not.
Anyways, maybe what I'm suggesting is that if you can point to something and say "that is a (artificial?) general intelligence", then I suspect you will also feel compelled to say "that is (artificial?) life".
Definitely wandering off into the weeds here, but why not: I see evolution as a computational problem. In its most primitive, there is no computer, but any specific problem can still be solved with luck and memory. If you have a structure that recognizes a solution, then you just wait until you randomly bump into it. The challenges of evolution in a given environment are specific to that environment, and thus memory without a computer can go a really, really long way.
If human intelligence is general intelligence, it is still the logical progression of this chain of memory and (later on) compute operations. I can reason about the abstraction of general intelligence, but it feels like any concrete general intelligence will proceed through essentially the same steps. The general intelligence must reside in a concrete existence, and whatever form this takes I feel very strongly that it will be recognizable as what we call "life".
Oh, that's what you meant... Ok, maybe. I think "intelligence" is a lot easier to draw a definitive box around than "life", though; life is more one of those things that I know it when I see it, whereas intelligence can persuade me all on its own.
I think it's difficult to develop complex artificial intelligence without a body. But that doesn't mean that, once some basic blocks are developed, the knowledge can't be applied to a "less alive" system.
A book I recently read (Range, by David Epstein) seems to draw a connection through some other research that points to modernization and globalization as the drivers of this trend, in the sense that IQ tests measure pure abstract reasoning ability and we now live in a world dominated by abstraction so our brains get used to thinking about all of our experiences abstractly from a younger age. Basically, each successive generation has more practice in thinking about the world abstractly since it is required use to modern technology effectively.
Anyways, this seems to buttress what Chollet is saying about externalized human intelligence. It is difficult to imagine anything resembling a "general" intelligence that isn't attached to a life-form that is already a self-replicating engine of negentropy, bootstrapping solutions to hard problems through some form of non-volatile memory. I would almost go so far as to say that "intelligence" and evolution are inseparable.