Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!apple!well!nagle
From: nagle@well.sf.ca.us (John Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: AI - the real problem
Summary: We still can't build an ant
Message-ID: <22951@well.sf.ca.us>
Date: 31 Jan 91 19:10:25 GMT
Distribution: comp
Lines: 28


     It's been thirty-two years since Samuels' checkers program, the first
major success of AI.  And yet we still can't build something with the
competence of an ant brain in dealing with the real world.  This is
discouraging.

     It's encouraging that this is now recognized as a problem.  Brooks,
Connell, Maes, and others are working on artificial insects.  The level 
of insect competence demonstrated to date is still rather low.  

     There is a bit of hubris in trying to address human-level intelligence
from our present level of ignorance.  We now understand that just getting an
ant though a minute of life is hard.  Walking over rough ground is hard.
Avoiding obstacles is hard.  Picking up things is hard.  Piling things up
is hard.  General ant level competence is very hard.

     We will not achieve lizard-level competence until we have ant-level
competence well in hand.  We will not achieve rodent-level competence
until we have lizard-level competence.  And we will not achive primate-level
competence until we can build rodent-level brains.  And until we have achieved
primate-level competence, we will not successfully build a general-purpose
human-level AI.

     However, we just might succeed working from the bottom up.

     This, not undecidability, is the problem with AI.

					John Nagle