Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!elroy!mahendo!jplgodo!wlbr!scgvaxd!trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!smoliar From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,misc.invest,comp.ai Subject: Re: Expert Systems Company Financing... Message-ID: <3831@venera.isi.edu> Date: Sun, 18-Oct-87 13:52:45 EDT Article-I.D.: venera.3831 Posted: Sun Oct 18 13:52:45 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 20-Oct-87 21:22:43 EDT References: <7260@dartvax.UUCP> <1111@omepd> <17194@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> <810@iscuva.ISCS.COM> <318@pyuxv.UUCP> Sender: daemon@venera.isi.edu Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar) Distribution: na Organization: Information Sciences Institute Lines: 88 Keywords: perpetual motion Summary: A "success story" from history. Xref: mnetor comp.sys.mac:8432 misc.invest:1056 comp.ai:932 In the early eighteenth century a man of intense religious fervour named Johann Ernst Elias Bessler claimed that God had revealed to him the secret of the perpetual motion machine. He would tour villages in the costume of a magician and offer demonstrations of his devices. Ultimately, he attracted the attention of Count Karl von Hessen-Cassel, who undertook to serve as a sponsor. At Hessen-Cassel's expense, Bessler built one of these machines based on a wheel which was twelve feet in diameter. Hessen-Cassel then invited many of the leading scientific minds of his time to evaluate the project. In the course of this evaluation, the machine apparently ran without stopping for 54 days. Ultimately, Bessler was exposed as a fraud; and several scientific reputations were destroyed as a consequence. While the historical record of this affair is fragmented, there are several rather interesting points which I would claim are at least remotely related to the current discussion about similar sponsorship of artificial intelligence. 1. The evaluating scientists were not allowed to inspect the inner workings of Bessler's machine. Bessler claimed they would be blinded by the divine revelation (or words to that effect). Hessen-Cassel apparently did see the inner workings and was not blinded. Nevertheless, the evaluating committee agreed to accept this constraint. 2. For all the time that Hessen-Cassel possessed this machine, he never tried to do anything practical with it. Bessler's previous demonstrations with smaller-scale machines always climaxed with the machine being used to lift some impressive weight. While Hessen-Cassel was in possession of a potentially significant labor-saving device, he seemed content to keep it locked in a room of his castle. 3. Bessler was never exposed on the grounds of any scientific argument. Willem Jakob Gravesande published a "proof" of why the machine worked, and the flaw in this proof was subsequently published by Jacque de Crousaz. However, Bessler was undone when a servant girl confessed that she was powering the machine from an adjoining room. This was later discovered to be a false testimony, but Bessler was distraught by the affair. Before anyone had a chance to inspect its interior, he destroyed the machine. I do not intend to imply that artificial intelligence is like perpetual motion, at least to the extent that it is a theoretical impossibility. However, I am struck by certain behavioral parallels between past and present. My personal opinion is that Bessler was probably an extremely skilled "hacker" (in mechanics) for his time, with his personal confidence reinforced by his religious convictions. He probably pulled off a pretty good piece of work even if his mind was entirely "in the bits" (so to speak) and largely ignorant of prevailing theory. What is pathetic, however, is that those who were asked to evaluate him were willing to play the game by his own rules. Indeed, there is some indication that their opinions may have been slanted by the promise of sharing in the monetary gain which Bessler's invention might yield. Also, there is this depressing observation that the evaluation never involved putting the machine to work; they were content to just let it run on in a locked chamber. Current "success stories" about artificial intelligence are not quite as contrived as that of Bessler's machine running in a locked room for 54 days; but they come closer than I would feel is comfortable. To a great extent, the "field testing" of "applied" expert systems often takes place in rather constrained circumstances. A less polite way of putting this might be to say that the definition of "success" is in danger of being modified POST HOC to accommodate the capabilities of the system being evaluated. Thus, I feel that all reports of such stories should be viewed with appropriate scientific scepticism. On the other hand, there is a positive side of this historical retrospective. Had Hessen-Cassel actually put Bessler's machine to work, it might have been of considerable benefit to him . . . even if it did not run forever. In other words, a machine capable of dissipating its energy slowly enough to run for a very long time, while not being a true perpetual motion machine, would still be a useful tool. By concentrating on a theoretical goal, rather than a practical one, Hessen-Cassel lost an opportunity to exploit a potentially valuable resource. Similarly, sponsorship of artificial intelligence should probably pay more heed to advancement along specific pragmatic fronts and less to whether or not machines which exhibit that behavior deserve to be called "intelligent." If we recognize what we have for what it is, we may get more out of it than we might think. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: I would like to thank Jim Engelhardt for the extensive research he has performed regarding the story of Bessler. He is in the process of incorporating his research into a play which he is calling THE PERPETUAL MOTION MAN. His research has been quite thorough, and his insights are noteworthy.