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From: alan@pdn.UUCP (Alan Lovejoy)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Goal of AI: where are we going?
Message-ID: <1476@pdn.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 4-Oct-87 14:23:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: pdn.1476
Posted: Sun Oct  4 14:23:43 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 8-Oct-87 04:39:47 EDT
References: <178@usl> <46400008@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: alan@pdn.UUCP (0000-Alan Lovejoy)
Organization: Paradyne Corporation, Largo, Florida
Lines: 48

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.  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.


The word "artificial" implies either an imitation or synthetic object, 
or the general/abstract laws governing an entire class of such objects.
The question is, does "artifical intelligence" mean "synthetic and/or
imitation intelligence" (most computer programs currently fall into this
category :-) ) or "real intelligence exhibited by artifical systems"?
Is AI mostly concerned with the *faking* of intelligence, with intelligence 
per se or with intelligence as exhibited by artificial systems?
Given the current state of the art, perhaps it should be called
"Real Stupidity".  (Only half :-) ).

The "scientific" study of intelligence would involve such subfields as
cognition, semantics, linguistics, semiotics, psychology, mathematics,
cybernetics and a host of other disciplines I can't think of right now,
some of which probably don't exist yet.  Creating an intelligent
"artifact" (artificial intelligence) is only a "scientific" endeavor to
the extent it serves as experimental proof (or refutation) of some
*scientific* theory, or else as the raw data from which a theory is induced.

If the purpose of AI is to build a computer just as smart as a human
being because that would be a useful tool, then it's engineering.  
If the purpose is to prove or induce theories about intelligence, then it's 
scientific.  It appears that both cases probably apply. 
 
It is disturbing how often "science" is confused with "technology"
and/or "engineering".  People also tend to forget that science involves
both the formulating of theories AND experiments.  Experiments often
require a great deal of mundane (and sometimes not so mundane)
engineering work.  AI came about because computers opened up a whole
new way to experimentally test theories about intelligence.

Physicists might very well try to construct an "artificial" universe,
if it would help to prove or induce a physical theory (the "Big Bang",
for instance).  They'd probably require a lot of help from the engineers, 
though (and probably a permit from the EPA :-) ).

--alan@pdn