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From: news@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU (USENET News)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: toward a definition of AI
Message-ID: <13477@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Date: 10 Mar 91 21:24:52 GMT
Organization: Colorado State University, Ft. Collins  80523
Lines: 93

`AI' is a very difficult term to describe to the layman, perhaps even more so
than other scientific terms, because there is not even total agreement within
the field itself on its goals.  However, AI researchers might agree,
 
``The mind is a machine.''
 
* Notice I said `mind' and not `brain'.  Otherwise the statement would not be
  scientifically controversial (or, in other words, the claim would not be
  worth investigating in the same way that the statement ``atoms exist'' is
  not).
 
* Notice I said `machine'.  This should be taken in a completely general way.
  It should not evoke any visions of turning gears or intricate chips.
  Anything that can be physically isolated constitutes a machine.
 
* By `is', I mean that the mind can be `completely described' in terms of
  mechanics.  The test is whether we can use the entities (namely `minds'
  and `machines') interchangeably.
 
If the mind *is* a machine, we have every reason to believe we can duplicate
and harness its essential properties, and by doing so, perhaps even *improve*
on them.  Here the literal meaning of `AI' is very informative; to elaborate,
one might say,
 
``AI is the project of duplicating the human mind in a medium other than the
human brain.''
 
* I might have said `simulating', but that is a matter of semantics.  To the
  degree that a model not only exhibits but *comprises* the characteristics/
  properties/qualities of the modelled object, it has transcended mere
  simulation to become a *duplication* of those attributes.  Hence a suitably
  robust simulation of water becomes a duplication by actually possessing the
  physical property of `wetness'.  Presumably, once we understand AI better,
  we will be able to describe very succinctly (formally, mathematically, etc.)
  the precise difference between `simulation' and `duplication', or at least
  *define* it satisfactorily.
 
* See the word `human'.  Clearly, many other entities exist (namely animals,
  but perhaps even inanimate objects, if there is a true strict dichotomy)
  that seem to exhibit intelligent abilities that are not readily accessable,
  computationally speaking (`learning' and `predator avoidance', for example--
  I haven't met any computers that have learned to flee power spikes or bite
  abusive users!)  But most would agree that the human is the epitomy and
  pinnacle of those capacities (at least evolutionarily), so we can confine
  the study there `without loss of generality'.
 
(To some extent this is the driving force behind AI, to give computers whatever
ideal qualities that seem to exist they currently lack.  This is the imfamous
`moving goalpost' definition of the realm of AI: ``all solvable problems that
computers can't currently solve.'')
 
* Notice I said `mind'.  I don't know about anyone else, but until every aspect
  of human personality is accounted for in a materialistic way, I will not be
  satisfied.  Many might be satisfied with a small subset of the whole, such
  as vision processing, speech recognition, reasoning capacities, artistic
  aptitude, or whatever.  Clearly, though, these all have the common factor of
  being domains of the human mind.
 
All of the above is where `intelligence' comes in.
 
* Notice I said `medium'.  I am not committed to `neural networks' (in the
  formal sense), computers, or even `machines' (all in the sense of current
  connotations), nor, hopefully, is anyone else.  Of course, some approaches
  seem more promising than others, especially those that actually have been
  observed to exist in the system(s) we are modelling (hint, hint).  Anyway,
  there is unanimous agreement within the field that the computer is at least
  a superbly dynamic *tool* to explore the various avenues (if not already a
  medium, or potential one, itself).
 
* Notice I said *other* than the human brain.
 
These are where `artificial' comes in.
 
* I might have said it is the `attempt', but that casts suspicion on its
  feasibility.
 
That's where *faith* comes in!
 
In this way I have tried to generalize the aims of AI to encompass all of the
present approaches and motives along with future ones that may fit under the
umbrella.  (On the other hand, it's getting rather crowded there and many
approaches and their practitioners will surely be cast out into the rain.)
 
Like alchemy, AI is a somewhat undeveloped territory, full of many confusing
and even outrightly conflicting approaches, accounts, and personalities
(perhaps most vividly and popularly characterized as a `bandwagon').  The
analogy may carry even further: through further understanding, we may come to
realize that the fundamental goal of AI is unachievable in the same way that
creating gold out of lead is chemically impossible.  However, a new science
would undoubtedly emerge out of the ashes of discredited theory.
 

ld231782@longs.LANCE.ColoState.EDU