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From: lishka@uwslh.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Goal of AI: where are we going?
Message-ID: <272@uwslh.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 3-Oct-87 19:47:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwslh.272
Posted: Sat Oct  3 19:47:07 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Oct-87 07:03:20 EDT
References: <178@usl> <46400008@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: lishka@uwslh.UUCP (Christopher Lishka)
Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison, State Hygiene Lab
Lines: 50

In article <46400008@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> morgan@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>Maybe you should approach it as a scientist, rather than an engineer.  Think
>of the physicists: they aren't out to fix the universe, or construct an
>imitation; they want to understand it.  

I think this is a good point.  I have always thought that Science was
a method used to predict natural events with some accuracy (as opposed
to guessing).  Whether this is understanding, well I guess that
depends on one's definition.  I like this view because it (to me at
least) parallels the attempts by nearly all (if not all) religions to
do the same thing, and possibly provide some form of meaning to this
strange world we live in.  It also opens the possibility of sharing
views between scientists and other people explaining the world they
see with their own methods.

>What AI really ought to be is a
>science that studies intelligence, with the goal of understanding it by
>rigorous theoretical work, and by empirical study of
>systems that appear to have intelligence, whatever that is.  The best work
>in AI, in my opinion, has this scientific flavor.  Then it's up to the
>engineers (or society at large) to decide what to do with the knowledge
>gained, in terms of constructing practical systems.

I like this view also, and feel that A.I. might go a little further in
studying other areas in conjunction with the human mind.  Maybe this
isn't pure A.I., but I'm not sure what pure A.I. is.  One interesting
note is that maybe the people who are implementing various Expert
Systems (which grew out of A.I. research) for real-world applications
are the "engineers" of which morgan@uxe speaks of.  And more power to
both the "scientists" and "engineers" then, and those in the gray area
in between.  It's good to be able to work together like this, and not
have the "scientists" only come up with research that cannot be
applied.

Disclaimer: I am sitting here typing this because my girfriends cat is
holding a gun at my head, and am in no way responsible for the content
;-)

[If anyone really wants to flame me, please mail me; if you really
think there is some benefit in posting the flame, go ahead.  I reply
to all flames, but if my reply doesn't get to you, it is because I am
not able to find a reliable mail path (which is too damned often!)]

					-Chris

-- 
Chris Lishka                    /lishka@uwslh.uucp
Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene <-lishka%uwslh.uucp@rsch.wisc.edu
                                \{seismo, harvard,topaz,...}!uwvax!uwslh!lishka