Q24 - Taken as a whole, the computers that

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: The Internet will someday gain a humanlike intelligence.
Evidence: There are similarities between the brain and the Internet (a dense interconnected network that transmits info like the brain's neurons / both brains and the Internet is growing at millions of points).

Answer Anticipation:
Just because two things (brains and the internet) have some things in common (a complex collection of interconnected points, growing by the millions and transmitting info) doesn't mean they have to have OTHER things in common (humanlike intelligence).

It's a bit of a Part vs. Whole flaw, although I'd be surprised to see the answer be so bold as to describe it that way. Intelligence is an emergent property of the whole human brain. Just because the parts of the Internet have some similarity to the parts of the brain doesn't mean that the Internet will have the same emergent property of intelligence.

Correct Answer:
D

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) It doesn't equate them. It just thinks, "Since X and Y are both complex (and since we know that X has intelligence), Y will also have intelligence." It assumes that a certain level of complexity (and growth) will eventually lead to intelligence, but that's different from saying that they're one and the same thing.

(B) The conclusion has nothing to do with "a race" to see who can simulate intelligence first. It's just focused on will the Internet / won't it one day have humanlike intelligence.

(C) It does draw a dubious analogy, but it's about the intelligence of the human brain and the intelligence of the internet. We're not mad at the argument for saying that both the brain and the internet transmit information.

(D) YES! This is a very uncreative objection, but it's accurate. If the author thinks that having a complex network of connections, growing and transmitting information, is evidence that the Internet will one day have humanlike intelligence, then she needs to support/defend that idea. This answer simpy points out that the author never spelled out a logical bridge to get from "both of these things are complex, growing networks of info" to "both of these things will have intelligence".

(E) The author doesn't need to assume that anyone WANTS the Internet to be intelligent or that anyone is designing it to be so. The conclusion is just a descriptive prediction that the internet will in fact be intelligent at some point.

Takeaway/Pattern: The challenge of this one seems to be the answer choices. It's a fairly easy argument to react to: "Just because they have X in common doesn't mean they'll have Y in common". They knew that we would see an argument core going from complexity to intelligence, so they thought we'd like (A). And they knew that we would see an argument by analogy, that we know is flawed, so they thought we'd like (C). But both of those were wrong for other reasons, so we end up coming home to (D), which is a valid complaint, it just seems almost too boring to pick. It seems like we could ALWAYS say an argument is flawed because it "fails to give an indication of why the evidence it focuses on are sufficient for deriving the conclusion" (we COULD always say that ... we just don't see answers like this).

#officialexplanation