Xref: utzoo comp.society.futures:470 comp.ai:1566
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!gatech!uflorida!novavax!maddoxt
From: maddoxt@novavax.UUCP (Thomas Maddox)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures,comp.ai
Subject: Re: The future of AI [was Re: Time Magazine -- Computers of the Future]
Message-ID: <445@novavax.UUCP>
Date: 26 Apr 88 18:05:43 GMT
References: <8803270154.AA08607@bu-cs.bu.edu> <962@daisy.UUCP> <5789@swan.ulowell.edu> <978@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Reply-To: maddoxt@novavax.UUCP (Thomas Maddox)
Organization: Nova University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Lines: 33

In article <978@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> gilbert@crete.UUCP (Gilbert\ Cockton) writes:
>
>Sociologists study the present, not the future. I presume the "Megatrends" books
>cited is Toffler style futurology, and this sort of railway journey light 
>reading has no connection with rigorous sociology/contemporary anthrolopology.
>
>The only convincing statements about the future which competent sociologists
>generally make are related to the likely effects of social policy.  Such 
>statements are firmly rooted in a defendible analysis of the present.
>
>This ignorance of the proper practices of historians, anthropologists,
>sociologists etc. reinforces my belief that as long as AI research is
>conducted in philistine technical vacuums, the whole research area
>will just chase one dead end after another.

	"Rigorous sociology/contemporary anthropology"?  Ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha, &c.  While much work in AI from its inception has
consisted of handwaving and wishful thinking, the field has produced
and continues to produce ideas that are useful.  And some of the most
interesting investigations of topics once dominated by the humanities,
such as theory of mind, are taking place in AI labs.  By comparison,
sociologists produce a great deal of nonsense, and indeed the social
"sciences" in toto are afflicted by conceptual confusion at every
level.  Ideologues, special interest groups, purveyors of outworn
dogma (Marxists, Freudians, et alia) continue to plague the social
sciences in a way that would be almost unimaginable in the sciences,
even in a field as slippery, ill-defined, and protean as AI.  
	So talk about "philistine technical vacuums" if you wish, but
remember that by and large people know which emperor has no clothes.
Also, if you want to say "one dead end after another," you might
adduce actual dead ends pursued by AI research and contrast them
with non-dead ends so that the innocent who stumbles across your
remark won't be utterly misled by your unsupported assertions.