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From: yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: STRONG AND WEAK AI
Message-ID: <1989Dec9.200649.28014@cs.rochester.edu>
Date: 9 Dec 89 20:06:49 GMT
References: <11870@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <16033@megaron.cs.arizona.edu>
Reply-To: yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi)
Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department
Lines: 47

In article <16033@megaron.cs.arizona.edu> mike@cs.arizona.edu (Mike Coffin) writes:
>From article <11870@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> (Stevan Harnad):
>> The typical error of believers in Strong AI is a misconstrual of
>> the Church-Turing Thesis: Whereas it may be true that every physical
>> process is "equivalent" to symbol manipulation, i.e., is simulable by
>> symbol manipulation, it is decidedly NOT true that every physical
>> process IS symbol manipulation. Flying, heating and transduction, for
>> example, are not.
>
>Not unless we are living inside a simulatation.  Since we have no
>basis on which to dispute their physicality, we accept our perceptions
>as ``reality.''  Just, I suppose, as an artificial intelligence living
>in a (sub-)simulation on a Cray-9 would have no choice but to accept
>the simulated flight to Istanbul to the AI conference as ``reality.''

Sure, but this misses the point.  The symbol manipulation associated
with flying in this simulated world would take place in the
*simulator* not in the AI program.  As far as the AI was concerned, it
would be taking actions in the real world -- actions which affect its
perceptions.

My complaint about most AI programs is not the worlds are simulated,
but that the simulated worlds often are very unlike any type of
perceptual reality sensed by organic creatures.  It's a matter of
semantics to argue whether this is "intelligence", but I think it's
clear that if your entire world consisted of statements like block(a)
and on(a,b) without any sensory input, the type of "intelligence" you
would develop would be totally unlike any sort of human or animal
mentality.

If you're interested in AI as advanced problem solving techniques,
then this is fine, but if you're interested in building fully
autonomous system which can act in the real world or if you're
interested in building systems which can model human intelligence,
then it's not fine.

It seems that one interesting approach to AI would be to use the
virtual reality systems which have recently been developed as an
environment for artificial creatures.  Then they would be living in a
simulated world, but one that was sophisticated enough to provide a
convincing illusion for *human* perceptions.

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Brian Yamauchi				University of Rochester
yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu		Computer Science Department
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