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From: maniac@sonny-boy.cs.unlv.edu (Eric J. Schwertfeger)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: What Has Traditional AI Accomplished?
Message-ID: <2067@jimi.cs.unlv.edu>
Date: 10 Oct 90 22:06:28 GMT
References: <69367@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <1990Oct7.003647.1666@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <69460@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <1990Oct9.184502.106@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <3649@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
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Reply-To: maniac@sonny-boy.cs.unlv.edu (Eric J. Schwertfeger)
Organization: UNLV Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
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In article <3649@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>, minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky) writes:
) In article <69367@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> loren@tristan.llnl.gov (Loren
) Petrich) writes: (I may have the attribution wrong)
) 
) >	I know that this question may well start a big flame war, but
) >I would like an idea of exactly what traditional AI has accomplished.
) 
) Someone at Arthur Anderson Inc told me that half of their
) multi-billion dollar income was coming from the expert systems
) supplied by them, about a year or so ago.  The ES part of the company
) had become as large as the rest of it, and this led to the company's
) splitting into two parts.
) 
) It is hard to say what AI is, after a few years, because the heuristic
) methods get refined.  

	This is exactly why it seems that AI has made so little progress
to some people.  I'm in a 400-level Intro to AI class now, and our 
definition of AI is basically "whatever we haven't figured out how
to do yet."  As soon as AI research refines the methods, the problem
falls out of the AI category.

	Playing chess was originally considered an AI field.  Well, that
research resulted in machines that now play low-Grand-Master level chess.
The problem is no longer considered AI as much, since we've had success.

-- 
Eric J. Schwertfeger, maniac@jimi.cs.unlv.edu