Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aipna!cam
From: cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: What Has Traditional AI Accomplished?
Message-ID: <3271@aipna.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 14 Oct 90 20:55:24 GMT
References: <1990Oct7.003647.1666@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <69460@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <1990Oct9.184502.106@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <69604@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <1990Oct11.143937.29160@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Organization: Dept of AI, Edinburgh University, UK.
Lines: 19

In article <1990Oct11.143937.29160@watdragon.waterloo.edu> cpshelley@violet.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley) writes:
>In article <69604@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> loren@tristan.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich) writes:

>>	And one may want to have some high-level way of specifying the
>>tasks that they are to perform. One should not need to specify each
>>little detail of their operation, anymore than we consciously specify
>>exactly which muscles to contract, and by how much.

>  It would be nice, but I think you've left the realm of traditional
>AI here.

Not at all. This has been a central concern of both robotics and
planning researchers from the earliest days. It could also be said that
your description applies to PROLOG, a language in which you do not
specify HOW to arrive at the answer, but WHAT IS TRUE of the answer.
-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aipna   031 667 1011 x2550
Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK