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From: kort@hounx.UUCP (B.KORT)
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: definition of AI
Message-ID: <466@hounx.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Jan-86 10:52:05 EST
Article-I.D.: hounx.466
Posted: Wed Jan  8 10:52:05 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Jan-86 02:49:34 EST
References: <33103@lanl.ARPA> <289@quest.UUCP> <2555@sunybcs.UUCP> <606@kitty.UUCP> <409@tekchips.UUCP> <2401@flRe: definition of AI
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
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Stanley Friesen comments on the connection between AI research
and our understanding of human cognitive processes.  I would
agree that visual field processing is highly parallel, unlike
most conventional computer architectures.  However, it seems
to me that much of the left hemispheric activity (language
processing and symbolic logic) is sequential, and there may
be more overlap with conventional computers in this area of
mental processing.

I am reminded of Marshal McLuhan's thesis in _The Medium is
the Message_ in which he points out that the electronic media
(especially TV) served not so much to communicate the *content*
of the programs ("vast wasteland") as to demonstrate the *process*
of communication.  TV journalists now refer to themselves as
"communicators".  Similarly, AI can be viewed as a polite medium
in which very bright people demonstrate to each other the very
best ways of organizing cognitive processes.  It is certainly
true that much of the software logic running in my left hemisphere
was uploaded from computers, having been placed int the machines by
my predecessors who discovered and implemented successful and
efficient methods for many information processing and problem
solving tasks.

It is my thesis that advances in AI are not only the result of
human minds formalizing natural intelligence.  Advances in AI
also serve to expand and disseminate the collection of ideas
comprising natural intelligence.

				-- Barry Kort
				...ihnp4!houxm!hounx!kort

	A door opens.  You are entering another dementia.
	The dementia of the mind.