Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!orc!bbn.com!BKort
From: BKort@bbn.com (Barry Kort)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: What AI is exactly.
Message-ID: <59591@bbn.BBN.COM>
Date: 21 Sep 90 17:50:54 GMT
Sender: news@bbn.com
Organization: BBN Labs
Lines: 18
References:<59525@bbn.BBN.COM> <147@tdatirv.UUCP> <59556@bbn.BBN.COM> <3894@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>

In article <3894@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> jim@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Jim 
Ruehlin, Cognitologist domesticus) writes:

> I can take a multitude of drugs that will allow me to feel any emotion
> at all.  I wouldn't consider this a measurement of progress in learning
> anything.

The release of neurotransmitters is an epiphenomenon of emotions.  In 
silicon-based systems, one would expect a flood of state changes to 
manifest itself through corresponding solid-state epiphenomena.  But
mimicing the epiphenomena is not the same thing as experiencing genuine learning.  Perhaps we need to coin a new term to distinguish emotions
mediated by the learning process from chemically induced pharmacological effects.


Barry Kort
Visiting Scientist
BBN Labs
Cambridge, MA