Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aipna!cam
From: cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Doug Lenat's "cyc" project
Message-ID: <2696@aipna.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 3 Aug 90 18:35:06 GMT
References: <1990Jul31.034417.19350@nixtdc.uucp>
Reply-To: cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Organization: Dept of AI, Edinburgh University, UK.
Lines: 20

In article <1990Jul31.034417.19350@nixtdc.uucp> doug@nixtdc.UUCP (Doug Moen) writes:

>The latest issue of "Discover" magazine has an article
>on Doug Lenat's "cyc" project, which is nothing less
>than a frame-based database of all of the common-place
>knowledge of the world that a typical human adult would
>have.  

>My feeling is that someone is going to build an artificial
>mind sooner or later, and cyc is a plausible first step.

I presume you agree that apes, cats, and dogs have minds? Perhaps even
that beetles have minds? If so, how on earth is a program which can
mimic one thing which _only_ humans can do a plausible first step??


-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aipna   031 667 1011 x2550
Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK