<p>I suppose the scientific consensus is that while we are <strong>very</strong> far from there, in principle a digital artificial intelligence could mimic a human intelligence. </p>

<p>For some recent work on the Church-Turing thesis and the relation between physical computation and digital computation by Turing machines, see:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p><em>Space Bounded Church-Turing thesis and computational tractability of closed systems</em>. M. Braverman, J. Scheiner, C. Rojas. Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 098701. 2015
  <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26371687" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26371687</a></p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-09T22:45:00.690Z
2018-01-09T22:45:00.690Z
Bjørn Kjos-Hanssen
<p>I was talking with two PhDs (both teach IT related subjects) about artificial intelligence the other day. They were in agreement that an AI can never reach the level of the human brain, but failed to give me an explanation as to why that is so.</p>

<p>As far as I know, we simply don't know. We don't understand how the human brain works, but we also don't know any function that humans can calculate which is not Turing complete. On the contrary the Turing-Church hypotheses <strong>assumes</strong> that what humans "intuitively" can do is equal to computers. But only because there is no proof for it, it does not mean that the opposite is true.</p>

<p>My current understanding is that for an AI to reach human level intelligence is merely a matter of algorithms and computing power.</p>

<p><strong>So have proofs been made that support the statement "<em>Artificial intelligences can never reach the level of a human brain.</em>"?</strong></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-09T18:56:03.033Z
Why the downvotes?
problemofficer - n.f. Monica
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-09T19:14:00.060Z
The downvotes? Do you know [On the Impossibility of Supersized Machines](https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.10987) by Ben Garfinkel, Miles Brundage, Daniel Filan, Carrick Flynn, Jelena Luketina, Michael Page, Anders Sandberg, Andrew Snyder-Beattie, Max Tegmark? Guess what they are trying to say!
Thomas Klimpel
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-09T19:44:21.173Z
I don't see how this answers anything and I don't get the joke either.
problemofficer - n.f. Monica
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-09T21:02:52.093Z
"Artificial intelligences will never reach the level of a human brain."? ... note that there is a sufficient condition for a positive answer to the question: it is sufficient that the human brain stops studying/developing/assembling AI stuff.
Marzio De Biasi
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-10T12:03:08.143Z
@MarzioDeBiasi I changed "will" to "can".
problemofficer - n.f. Monica
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-10T12:09:08.443Z
In case anyone is actually interested in increasing the quality of this' site content, some hints regarding the downvotes would be useful.
problemofficer - n.f. Monica
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-10T13:19:06.030Z
@problemofficer: your question is too vague and too broad and is out of the scope of this site which is focused on research-level questions on TCS (see the [FAQ](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/help)). Furthermore you ask for a "proof" ... but the statement is far from being "formal" (or formalizable). Perhaps "Evidences" would be a more suitable term. And even the term "reach" implies some sort of "measure", but what is the measure you have in mind? ("AI" is already more powerful than human brain for performing some tasks ... e.g. multiplications or chess :-).
Marzio De Biasi
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-10T13:20:04.363Z
... I think that cs.stackexchange.com is best suited for questions like this; but I suspect that it is still too vague/broad/unformal even for its scope.
Marzio De Biasi
<computability><ai.artificial-intel>
Are there proofs which show that AIs are bound to be "worse" than the human brain?
problemofficer - n.f. Monica
# Are there proofs which show that AIs are bound to be "worse" than the human brain?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-01-09)

I was talking with two PhDs (both teach IT related subjects) about artificial intelligence the other day. They were in agreement that an AI can never reach the level of the human brain, but failed to give me an explanation as to why that is so.

As far as I know, we simply don't know. We don't understand how the human brain works, but we also don't know any function that humans can calculate which is not Turing complete. On the contrary the Turing-Church hypotheses **assumes** that what humans "intuitively" can do is equal to computers. But only because there is no proof for it, it does not mean that the opposite is true.

My current understanding is that for an AI to reach human level intelligence is merely a matter of algorithms and computing power.

**So have proofs been made that support the statement "*Artificial intelligences can never reach the level of a human brain.*"?**

**Tags:** computability, ai.artificial-intel

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Why the downvotes?  
> **username_1**: The downvotes? Do you know [On the Impossibility of Supersized Machines](https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.10987) by Ben Garfinkel, Miles Brundage, Daniel Filan, Carrick Flynn, Jelena Luketina, Michael Page, Anders Sandberg, Andrew Snyder-Beattie, Max Tegmark? Guess what they are trying to say!  
> **username_0**: I don't see how this answers anything and I don't get the joke either.  
> **username_2**: "Artificial intelligences will never reach the level of a human brain."? ... note that there is a sufficient condition for a positive answer to the question: it is sufficient that the human brain stops studying/developing/assembling AI stuff.  
> **username_0**: @MarzioDeBiasi I changed "will" to "can".  
> **username_0**: In case anyone is actually interested in increasing the quality of this' site content, some hints regarding the downvotes would be useful.  
> **username_2**: @problemofficer: your question is too vague and too broad and is out of the scope of this site which is focused on research-level questions on TCS (see the [FAQ](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/help)). Furthermore you ask for a "proof" ... but the statement is far from being "formal" (or formalizable). Perhaps "Evidences" would be a more suitable term. And even the term "reach" implies some sort of "measure", but what is the measure you have in mind? ("AI" is already more powerful than human brain for performing some tasks ... e.g. multiplications or chess :-).  
> **username_2**: ... I think that cs.stackexchange.com is best suited for questions like this; but I suspect that it is still too vague/broad/unformal even for its scope.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2018-01-09. Score: 1

I suppose the scientific consensus is that while we are **very** far from there, in principle a digital artificial intelligence could mimic a human intelligence.

For some recent work on the Church-Turing thesis and the relation between physical computation and digital computation by Turing machines, see:

> *Space Bounded Church-Turing thesis and computational tractability of closed systems*. M. Braverman, J. Scheiner, C. Rojas. Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 098701. 2015
> <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26371687>


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