Essay Competition: On the Principles of Intelligence c/o AI-SGES list

On December 17, 1903, two brothers from Dayton,
Ohio, named Wilbur and Orville Wright,
were successful in flying an airplane they built.

Dear all,

Around 1500, Leonardo da Vinci published his sketches of an aircraft with rounded wings, and in 1783 the first manned hot-air balloon took off. It wasn't until 1905 – over 4'000 years after the oldest known depiction of human flight was carved in clay – that the Wright Brothers took off for the first sustained, controlled, and heavier-than-air crewed flight. From today's point of view, the principles of aerodynamics necessary to build operational aircraft seem relatively trivial.

But only in retrospect are the results of such breakthroughs considered part of the 'obvious'. In 1957, psychologist Frank Rosenblatt published the first paper on trainable neural networks. Since then, humans have walked on the moon, the internet has been invented, and smart devices have been built to fit in our pockets – but neural networks have still not led to human-level artificial intelligence. Neural networks appear like wings that fly for a short time but then drop like a stone when confronted with unknown tasks. Therefore, we'd like to propose moving away from the current hype around neural networks and ask you more fundamentally:

Which fundamental principles of intelligence must be considered in the successful design of artificial intelligence?

The appropriate example from aviation would be: "What are the core aspects of flight that must be considered in the successful design of aircraft?" (One possible answer: As a curved airfoil wing flies through the sky, it deflects air and alters the air pressure above and below it. When moving forward, the curved upper part of the wing lowers the air pressure directly above it, so it moves upward.)

With that in mind, we challenge you to write an essay of 2'000 to 3'000 words and become the Wright Brothers in the field of AI! Whether you answer the question from a philosophical, biological, computational, mathematical, neuroscientific, psychological, social, or any other perspective is up to you. We value novel and insightful arguments that are useful in the field of AI.

Go to https://lab42.global/essay/ and hand in your essay by 23:59 GMT on December 31, 2022. The best essays are rewarded with 3'500 USD in total.

Best regards

Oliver Schmid
oliver.schmid AT lab42.global

https://lab42.global/essay

[Do read the guidance on the website. PJ]

Image use here: https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_976.html
original credit - inc. Library of Congress

AI-SGES list