Sunday, January 14, 2007

God is a computer engineer


“God is a computer engineer”. I have had this phrase as my yahoo status message for a very long time now. Its a funny thought, but somehow, it made some sense to me.

One of the greatest things that we computer engineers have been trying to achieve in all our hardware and software systems is intelligence. Defined formally, it is the ability of a system to act rationally: doing the “right thing”, given what it knows. The Turing test, proposed by Alan Turing, was designed to provide a satisfactory operational definition of intelligence. The system proposed by Turing, needed to possess the following capabilities to be termed as truly intelligent:


  • Natural Language Processing: to enable it to communicate successfully

  • Knowledge Representation: to store what it knows

  • Reasoning: to use the stored information to draw conclusions

  • Machine learning: to adapt to new circumstances, and learn new patterns


Only once we think about these disciplines from the perspective of AI, do we truly understand how difficult it is to achieve them in one of our computer systems. AI has been inspired by the way humans act and behave. The Turing test was designed to simulate a system which was largely human-like. This is hardly surprising, as humans have been the paragons when it comes to AI.

We humans dont think that these functionalities listed above are much of a big deal, because we are so used to them, because of the fact that these properties have been embedded in humans with such an amazing degree of perfection, that it seems completely natural. Only once you think from the perspective of a computer engineer trying to implement intelligence in a system, would you truly understand the complexity involved.

I cannot help but feel amazed at the complex systems that are humans. And I find it meaningful to think that it is not a mere co-incidence that humans are intelligent creatures. This is where my thought comes in where I say that “God is a computer engineer”.

I am not trying to propagate the “theory of intelligent design”. Neither am I trying to argue with atheists. It was just a thought that came to me once, that human beings are probably the perfect example of what we want to achieve with AI one day. After studying a little bit about intelligent systems, I realise how difficult it is to create even moderately intelligent systems; and whatever little success we have had, none of that was by mere co-incidence. None of these systms just sprang up magically out of the air. These systems were the result of years of study, experiment, trial and error, sweat, tears and blood.

Having said that, its a little funny to believe that we, the perfectly intelligent human beings turned out to be intelligent by co-incidence.

I believed that human beings are the result of a similar effort, being created out of primitive creatures, eventually evolving into the current state of intelligence. Today human beings are intelligent enough, not only to exhibit features such as natural language processing, logical reasoning and decision making, learning, and much more; but also make intelligent systems of their own.

I believed that God created man (yes, I can hear the Darwinists scream, but again I say, I am not trying to propagate or debunk a theory here). Like a pioneering computer engineer, God created such intelligent creatures (read humans) that are able to create intelligent creatures of their own.

God is a computer engineer

“God is a computer engineer”. I have had this phrase as my yahoo status message for a very long time now. Its a funny thought, but somehow, it made some sense to me.

One of the greatest things that we computer engineers have been trying to achieve in all our hardware and software systems is intelligence. Defined formally, it is the ability of a system to act rationally: doing the “right thing”, given what it knows. The Turing test, proposed by Alan Turing, was designed to provide a satisfactory operational definition of intelligence. The system proposed by Turing, needed to possess the following capabilities to be termed as truly intelligent:

  • Natural Language Processing: to enable it to communicate successfully
  • Knowledge Representation: to store what it knows
  • Reasoning: to use the stored information to draw conclusions
  • Machine learning: to adapt to new circumstances, and learn new patterns

Only once we think about these disciplines from the perspective of AI, do we truly understand how difficult it is to achieve them in one of our computer systems. AI has been inspired by the way humans act and behave. The Turing test was designed to simulate a system which was largely human-like. This is hardly surprising, as humans have been the paragons when it comes to AI.

We humans dont think that these functionalities listed above are much of a big deal, because we are so used to them, because of the fact that these properties have been embedded in humans with such an amazing degree of perfection, that it seems completely natural. Only once you think from the perspective of a computer engineer trying to implement intelligence in a system, would you truly understand the complexity involved.

I cannot help but feel amazed at the complex systems that are humans. And I find it meaningful to think that it is not a mere co-incidence that humans are intelligent creatures. This is where my thought comes in where I say that “God is a computer engineer”.

I am not trying to propagate the “theory of intelligent design”. Neither am I trying to argue with atheists. It was just a thought that came to me once, that human beings are probably the perfect example of what we want to achieve with AI one day. After studying a little bit about intelligent systems, I realise how difficult it is to create even moderately intelligent systems; and whatever little success we have had, none of that was by mere co-incidence. None of these systms just sprang up magically out of the air. These systems were the result of years of study, experiment, trial and error, sweat, tears and blood.

Having said that, its a little funny to believe that we, the perfectly intelligent human beings turned out to be intelligent by co-incidence.

I believed that human beings are the result of a similar effort, being created out of primitive creatures, eventually evolving into the current state of intelligence. Today human beings are intelligent enough, not only to exhibit features such as natural language processing, logical reasoning and decision making, learning, and much more; but also make intelligent systems of their own.

I believed that God created man (yes, I can hear the Darwinists scream, but again I say, I am not trying to propagate or debunk a theory here). Like a pioneering computer engineer, God created such intelligent creatures (read humans) that are able to create intelligent creatures of their own.