Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!labrea!jade!ucbvax!MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU!mob
From: mob@MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Mario O Bourgoin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Re: Gilding the Lemon
Message-ID: <8711022206.AA17452@media-lab.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 2-Nov-87 17:06:33 EST
Article-I.D.: media-la.8711022206.AA17452
Posted: Mon Nov  2 17:06:33 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Nov-87 23:01:42 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 45
Approved: ailist@kl.sri.com


In article <12346288066.15.LAWS@KL.SRI.Com> Ken Laws wonders why a
student should cover the same ground as that of another's thesis and
face the problems that stopped the original work.  His objection to
re-implementations is that they don't advance the field, they
consolidate it.  He is quick to add that he does not object to
consolidation but that he feels that AI must cover more of its
intellectual territory before it can be done effectively.
	I know of many good examples of significant progress achieved
in an area of AI through someone's efforts to re-implement and extend
the efforts of other researchers.  Tom Dietterich mentioned one when
he talked about David Chapman's work on conjunctive planning.  Work on
dependency-directed backtracking for search is another area.  AM and
its relatives are good examples in the field of automated discovery.
Research in Prolog certainly deserves mention.
	I believe that AI is more than just ready for consolidation: I
think it's been happening for a while just not a lot or obviously.  I
love exploration and understand its place in development but it isn't
the blind stab in the dark that one might gather from Ken's article.
I think he agrees as he says:

	A student studies the latest AI proceedings to get a
	nifty idea, tries to solve all the world's problems
	from his new viewpoint, and ultimately runs into
	limitations.

	The irresponsible researcher is little better than a random
generator who sometimes remembers what he has done.  The repetitive
bureaucrat is less than a cow who rechews another's cud.  The AI
researcher learns both by exploring to extend the limits of his
experience and consolidating to restructure what he already knows to
reflect what he has learned.
	In other fields, Masters students emphasize consolidation and
PHD students emphasize exploration (creativity.)  But at MIT, the AI
program is an interdisciplinary effort which offers only a doctorate
and I don't know of a AI Masters elsewhere.  This has left the job of
consolidation to accomplished researchers who are as interested in
exploration as their students.  Maybe there would be a use for a more
conservative approach.

- --Mario O. Bourgoin

To Ken: The best paraphrase isn't a quote since quoting communicates
that you are interested in what the other said but not what you
understand of it.