You or your Machine



If you comfort yourself with the thought that computers can

never take over because they are not intelligent enough,

try this Spectrum program from Marcel Feenstra based on an

idea by Chris Harding - an Australian whose ability to do

IQ tests has earned him a place in the Guinness Book of

Records.

  The program, HIQ Solver, can sovle[sic!] three sorts of

missing number problems from numerical IQ tests. These are

sequences such as:

        9,7,5,3,?

including more complicated sequences:

      6,7,7,6,8,5,?

analogies of the form:

          6(3)2

          8(?)1

and nine number analogies:

          2,3,1,

          4,3,5,

          2,0,?

On an Eysenck IQ test a Spectrum running HIQSolver achieved

an IQ of 160 - enough to qualify it for membership of

societies for those who want to meet other people who are

good at doing IQ tests - like Mensa which includes Sir

Clive Sinclair among its members, and the International

Society for Philosophical Enquiry which Chris Harding and

Marcel Feenstra belong to.

  This high score is despite the fact that "the program has

not been written especially for the Eysenck test. It is

capable of finding patterns that are more complex than the

ones found there," says Marcel Feenstra, and he adds, "It

is relatively small and simple, so one really wonders what

it means to have a high score on an IQ test."

  Despite HIQSolver's 160 score William Head, International

President of the ISPE is not having it in his society -

"we're talking about people, a computer wouldn't be eligi-

ble." But times change. Chris Harding hopes to improve the

program "in time we'd like to come up with a general pro-

blem solving device able to tackle the real world."

  Such a machien would probably be better at IQ tests than

simple humans and as William Head believes that those -

like himself - who are good at IQ tests "tend to be more

ethical than the rest of us" there seems no rational obsta-

cle to handing over all decisions to the general problem

solving device - for the good of all of us. So enter this

program with care.