What scientific ideas should society get rid of?

[iancampbell]

I'm really surprised by how many people are saying "The Universe."

On another note, am I the only one who finds Roger Schank's anti-AI arguments to be intellectually lazy?

I don't know anything about his arguments. But it doesn't really matter, anyway.

An argument to use on people who don't believe in AI, who are rather few on this board I imagine:

I can show you an existence proof for the feasibility of a replicating network of replicating nanoassemblers, the assembly being complex enough and with enough computing power and sensory capability to have attained sapience. (Granted, this particular design requires the cooperation of another such network of slightly different design for its replication.) Want to see it? Look in the mirror.

People are made of matter, and people are sapient. (At least I am - but let's not go into solipsism!) Ergo, a material object can be sapient.

The only possible counter-argument to that relies on the putative existence of the supernatural.