Science: Intelligence Amplifier

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Computer experts are fascinated by the question: Will thinking machines ever be as intelligent as the human brains that create them? Dr. W. Ross Ashby of Britain, a mathematically minded psychiatrist, believes that the machines can at least "amplify" human intelligence just as the engine of a bulldozer amplifies the muscle power of the man who controls it.

In Automata Studies, Dr. Ashby explains how an intelligence amplifier might be constructed. "It has often been remarked," he says, "that any random sequence, if long enough, will contain all the answers." So a machine for solving problems too complex for the human brain should contain a mechanism that presents for consideration all the possible solutions. The machine's job will be to select the right one when it comes along.

It will do the job by a kind of testing system. One part of the machine is adjusted in such a way that it "has a veto" over any proposed solution that does not check. It says no, no, no, perhaps a billion times no. At last the right set of answers comes along. The critical part of the machine is satisfied. It signals its O.K., and the whole machine stops, displaying the right answers winnowed out of a billion wrong ones.