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From: hmueller@wfsc4.tamu.edu (Hal Mueller)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: What actually is AI?
Message-ID: <7838@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Date: 30 Aug 90 16:29:37 GMT
References: <90241.112651F0O@psuvm.psu.edu> <1990Aug29.183823.25108@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> <34175@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <25392@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <38294@siemens.siemens.com>
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In article <38294@siemens.siemens.com> wood@jfred.siemens.edu (Jim Wood) writes:
>    Artificial Intelligence is a computer science and engineering
>    discipline which attempts to model human reasoning methods
>    computationally.

I've spent the last year working with a group that tries to build
models of ANIMAL reasoning methods; we use the same techniques
that you'd apply to any other AI problem.

Everything Jim said in his posting is true in this domain as well.
Shifting from human to animal reasoning doesn't make the problem
any easier.  In fact it's rather annoying to be unable to use 
introspection as a development aid:  I can watch myself solve a
problem and try to build into a program the techniques I see myself
using, but you can't ask an elk or a mountain lion what's going through
its brain.  All we can do is watch the behavior of our models and 
compare it to experimentally observed behavior, using the experience
of ethologists to guide us.

Watching elk in the mountains is much more pleasant than watching
a gripper arm pick up blocks, however.

--
Hal Mueller            			Surf Hormuz.
hmueller@cs.tamu.edu          
n270ca@tamunix.Bitnet