What do you think?
Rate this book
Beyond AI: Artificial Dreams
Unknown Binding
First published November 5, 2012
2 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 19, 2026
I had forgotten about this. These are the proceedings of the International Conference Beyond AI that was held in Pilsen, Czech Republic, in 2012.
Was there even AI in 2012? And what did the participants thought would happen beyond? I was there and I presented a paper with the title From Gobble to Zen which sounds pretty cool, as you will have to admit (it was about early Go programs and described an evolution that would eventually lead to AlphaGo). Most of the papers (including mine) are only of historical interest today, if at all (a surprising number dealt with SF issues). But I would make two exceptions. One was called How we are predicting AI – or failing to. It told the fascinating story of how AI proponents were systematically too optimistic with their predictions, starting with Turing and his prediction that a machine would pass his test by 2000. The researches looked at 257 AI predictions from 1950 onwards. Nearly all predicted AI would be established within the next 15 to 25 years.
The other paper that I find truly excellent is called Beyond Artificial Dreams or There and Back Again by Jan Romportl et al.
When we are talking about artificial intelligence how do we tell natural from artificial? Natural the authors say is “that which defies being captured by language” whereas “artificial is imposed by language”.
The example they give is an old rustic wooden table. What is artificial about it? All we can grasp with words: shape and size, weight, color tone, purpose etc. But we cannot say how exactly it looks, how it feels when it is touched, how it smells.
A system becomes natural when it reaches a level of complexity that cannot be described in finite time any longer.
The result then is that if AI “creates an artificial mind emerging on top of an immensely complex system, this mind will be natural. As natural as our minds are.” Man can only be a creator of something artificial, true AI must emerge and will be natural.
Was there even AI in 2012? And what did the participants thought would happen beyond? I was there and I presented a paper with the title From Gobble to Zen which sounds pretty cool, as you will have to admit (it was about early Go programs and described an evolution that would eventually lead to AlphaGo). Most of the papers (including mine) are only of historical interest today, if at all (a surprising number dealt with SF issues). But I would make two exceptions. One was called How we are predicting AI – or failing to. It told the fascinating story of how AI proponents were systematically too optimistic with their predictions, starting with Turing and his prediction that a machine would pass his test by 2000. The researches looked at 257 AI predictions from 1950 onwards. Nearly all predicted AI would be established within the next 15 to 25 years.
The other paper that I find truly excellent is called Beyond Artificial Dreams or There and Back Again by Jan Romportl et al.
When we are talking about artificial intelligence how do we tell natural from artificial? Natural the authors say is “that which defies being captured by language” whereas “artificial is imposed by language”.
The example they give is an old rustic wooden table. What is artificial about it? All we can grasp with words: shape and size, weight, color tone, purpose etc. But we cannot say how exactly it looks, how it feels when it is touched, how it smells.
A system becomes natural when it reaches a level of complexity that cannot be described in finite time any longer.
The result then is that if AI “creates an artificial mind emerging on top of an immensely complex system, this mind will be natural. As natural as our minds are.” Man can only be a creator of something artificial, true AI must emerge and will be natural.
Displaying 1 of 1 review