Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!pacbell.com!lll-winken!ingrid!loren
From: loren@ingrid.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Discover and Rodney Brooks
Message-ID: <93183@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 14 Mar 91 22:42:39 GMT
References: <13MAR91.12593277@secs.ucsc.edu> <5511@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lines: 43
Nntp-Posting-Host: ingrid.llnl.gov

In article <5511@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>In article <13MAR91.12593277@secs.ucsc.edu> wipke@secs.ucsc.edu writes:
>>Is the Discover Magazine article about Brooks' work accurate?
>>Are there other views not properly characterized in this fine
>>article?

>The article is not very accurate.

	Why is that?

	I know that the article contains some quotes from Minsky
knocking Brooks's work as a step backwards toward insect intelligence.
If Marvin Minsky himself feels that his position has been
misrepresented, then he should explain why.

	His charge that a robot that can move around but cannot
recognize a Coke bottle (?) is no good may only indicate additional
work to be done -- such as to add an artificial-vision system. Many of
Brooks's robots appear to be blind.

	I think that the difficulty that Brooks's critics have with
his work is because it is not based on the sort of AI they would think
appropriate -- a system that builds a mental model of the robot and
the world around it and works out appropriate responses from that. In
my mind, that precisely parallels the difficulties that certain
critics have had with Neural Networks -- that NN's do not build a
mental model of what they are learning.

	Yet however desirable that mental-model, symbol-processing AI
may be, it still has a long way to go. How well can they "learn" from
experience?

	My interest in NN's is derived from that fact that they _can_
do what might be called "learning", even if it is not on a terribly
advanced level.


$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster: loren@sunlight.llnl.gov

Since this nodename is not widely known, you may have to try:

loren%sunlight.llnl.gov@star.stanford.edu