Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!usc!rpi!jamesm From: jamesm@hornsby.cs.rpi.edu (Michael James) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: A REPLY TO GORDON'S REPLY Message-ID: Date: 27 Jun 91 16:09:56 GMT References: <9106270854.AA15777@lilac.berkeley.edu> Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY Lines: 37 Nntp-Posting-Host: hornsby.cs.rpi.edu In article <9106270854.AA15777@lilac.berkeley.edu> ISSSSM@NUSVM.BITNET (Stephen Smoliar) writes: >In article <7163@gara.une.oz.au> pnettlet@gara.une.oz.au (Philip Nettleton) >writes: >> Perhaps you are even suggesting that a definition of intelligence >>is not worthy of consideration by researchers in AI? > ... stuff omitted... >has been nothing which has appeared in the arguments on either comp.ai or >comp.ai.philosophy which has supported the case that a definition of >intelligence will contribute to our ability to build (artificial) intelligent >agents... ...other stuff omitted... >Stephen W. Smoliar It seems that the areas in which the AI research community has made the most progress over the past few decades are the ones in which we had EXPLICIT definitions of what was being modelled or simulated. Definitions can vary in their degree of vagueness. Surely if you take a vague definition of intelligence like the Turing Test and then say "Oh, gee, I think I'll go code 'intelligence' in C on my workstation now," you're going to fail. All of the definitions of intelligence I have seen share this same "Intelligence, (wink wink) you know what I mean" attitude. What we need are some very explicit definitions of what we're shooting for. I'm not at all certain that intelligence is explicitly definable, but if its not we should define what it is we want to create and then not really worry about whether anyone calls it intelligent or not. mj ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike James Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute jamesm@turing.cs.rpi.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------