Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!retina.cis.ohio-state.edu!stucki From: stucki@retina.cis.ohio-state.edu (David J Stucki) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,osu.ai Subject: Re: What is your favorite definition of AI? Message-ID: Date: 8 Mar 91 18:56:17 GMT References: <1991Mar4.192154.2209@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> <90943@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <91998@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Followup-To: comp.ai.philosophy Organization: Ohio State University Computer and Information Science Lines: 37 In-reply-to: thadani@amygdala.cis.ohio-state.edu's message of 7 Mar 91 19:25:30 GMT >My current favorite is: > >AI is the study of the relationship between computation and intelligence. > But if you took computation to mean "symbol manipulation", then doesnt your definition exclude connectionism from the field of AI? Sunil This doesn't make sense. Connectionism is clearly a computational approach to understanding intelligence, and computation as symbol manipulation is a fair characterization, so how can connectionism not be in the field of AI, given the above definition of AI? The difference between "symbolic AI" and connectionism is not that connectionism doesn't use symbols -- all mathematical (or computational) models use symbols. The main difference, as I see it, is in the domains of interpretation we are willing to apply to our symbols. One factor contributing to the semantics that a symbol is perceived to have is the set of operators that can use that symbol as an operand. The symbols of a connectionist model are perceived as numerical in nature, subject to manipulation by arithmetical and numeric operators. The symbols of "symbolic AI", on the other hand, are perceived by some to be logical in nature, subject to manipulation by logical operators; others allow for less restrictive characterizations, yet typically non-numerical ones. dave... -- David J Stucki /\ ~~ /\ ~~ /\ ~~ /\ ~~ c/o Dept. Computer and 537 Harley Dr. #6 / \ / \ / \ / \ / Information Science Columbus, OH 43202 \/ \ / \ / \ / 2036 Neil Ave. stucki@cis.ohio-state.edu ~ \/ ~~ \/ ~~ \/ Columbus, OH 43210