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From: merlyn@starfire.UUCP (Brian Westley)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: The Success of AI
Message-ID: <171@starfire.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Oct-87 14:26:01 EST
Article-I.D.: starfire.171
Posted: Mon Oct 26 14:26:01 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Oct-87 05:50:47 EST
References: <1922@gryphon.CTS.COM> <131@glenlivet.hci.hw.ac.uk>
Organization: Starfire Consultings Services, Mpls., MN
Lines: 33

In one article...
> But AI research could at least be disciplined to study the existing work
> on the phenomena they seek to study. Exploratory, anarchic,
> uninformed, self-indulgent research at public expense could be stopped.

and, in another article...
>..Thus, I am not avoiding hard work; I am avoiding
>*fruitless* work...
> -- 
>    Gilbert Cockton, Scottish HCI Centre, Ben Line Building, Edinburgh, EH1 1TN

Tell me, how do you know WHICH AI methods WILL BE fruitless?  You certainly
must know, for you to call it anarchic, uninformed, and self-indulgent (but why
'exploratory' is used as a put-down, I'll never know - I guess Gilbert already
knows how to build thinking machines, and just won't tell us).

Research is like advertising - most of the money spent is fruitless, but
you won't KNOW that until after you've TRIED it.  (Of course it isn't
entirely wasted; you now know what doesn't work).

Fortunately, you have not convince me nor many other people that your
view is to be held paramount, and all other avenues of work are doomed
to failure.

By the way, I am not interested in duplicating or otherwise developing
models of how humans think; I am interested in building machines that
think.  You may as well tell a submarine designer how difficult it is
to build artificial gills - it's irrelevant.

---
Merlyn LeRoy
"Anything a computer can do is immediately removed from those activities
that require thinking, such as calculations, chess, and medical diagnoses."