Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!sharkey!msuinfo!sticklen
From: sticklen@cps.msu.edu (Jon Sticklen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: What actually is AI?
Message-ID: <1990Aug29.183823.25108@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Date: 29 Aug 90 18:38:23 GMT
References: <90241.112651F0O@psuvm.psu.edu>
Sender: news@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu
Organization: Michigan State University
Lines: 23

From article <90241.112651F0O@psuvm.psu.edu>, by <F0O@psuvm.psu.edu>:
>      Lately, I've been reading the book, "Man-Made Minds, The Promise of
> Artificial Intelligence".  The one thing going through my mind is, what is
> it that makes one program AI, but not another?
>      I know it has nothing(or very little) to do with the language you use,
> so is it the nature of the problem itself that makes a program an AI one,
> or is it in how you code the problem?  Some of both?
>      Can a certain problem be written using certain coding techniques, and
> be an AI program, but yet be written using other coding techniques, and not
> be AI?
>      Personally, I don't care what a program is called, as long as it does
> what it is supposed to!
> 
>                                                            [Tim]

tim,
  i think you are looking in the wrong place to find out what
ai is. in your note you emphasize programs and programming. fundamentally,
ai is a set of methodologies for analyzing problems. there are lots of
variations on that theme (eg, the way people solve problems...), but
the main point that i want to make is that ai is not a programing
methodology at all.
	---jon---