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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!bantz
From: bantz@uiucuxc.CSO.UIUC.EDU
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: Technology Review article
Message-ID: <28900017@uiucuxc>
Date: Sun, 9-Feb-86 11:05:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucuxc.28900017
Posted: Sun Feb  9 11:05:00 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Feb-86 07:14:04 EST
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Nf-From: uiucuxc.CSO.UIUC.EDU!bantz    Feb  9 10:05:00 1986


Dreyfus's book "What Computers Can't Do" was a pretty sorry affair, insofar
as it purported to have a positive argument about intrinsic limits of 
computers.  However uncomfortable it makes the AI community feel, though,
the journalistic baiting with extensive quotations from the AI community
itself, ought to have demonstrated the virtues of a bit more humility than
is often shown.  [I'm refering to his gleeful quotation of predictions that,
by 1970 or so a computer would be world chess champion, that fully literate
translations of natural languages would be routine...]

The responses here, so far, seem to be guilty of what Dreyfus is accused of:
failing to engage the opponent seriously, and relying on personal expressions
of distaste or ridicule.  Specifically, Dreyfus does reject the typology of 
learning in AI, on the not implausible grounds that it is self-serving, and
not obviously correct (or uniquely correct).

[Please! I am *not* a fan of Dreyfus, and do not endorse most of his claims.]