Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!mtunx!whuts!homxb!houdi!marty1
From: marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: this is philosophy ??!!?
Summary: AI can choose to imitate people or not to
Message-ID: <1502@houdi.UUCP>
Date: 4 May 88 14:28:25 GMT
References: <4134@super.upenn.edu> <3200014@uiucdcsm> <1484@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1588@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel
Lines: 30

In article <1588@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, acha@centro.soar.cs.cmu.edu (Anurag Acharya) writes:
> In article <1069@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes:
> ...
> > Your system should prevaricate, stall, duck the
> >issue, deny there's a problem, pray, write to an agony aunt, ask its
> >mum, wait a while, get its friends to ring it up and ask it out ...
> 
> Whatever does all that stuff have to do with intelligence per se ?
> ....

Pardon me for abstracting out of context.  Also for daring to comment
when I am not an AI researcher, only an engineer waiting for a useful
result.

But I see that as an illuminating bit of dialogue.  Cockton wants to
emulate the real human decision maker, and I cannot say with certainty
that he's wrong.  Acharya wants to avoid the pitfalls of human
fallibility, and I cannot say with certainty that he's wrong either.

I wish we could see these arguments as a conflict between researchers
who want to model the human mind, and researchers who want to make more
useful computer programs.  Then we could acknowledge that both schools
belong in AI, and stop arguing over which should drive out the other.

M. B. Brilliant					Marty
AT&T-BL HO 3D-520	(201)-949-1858
Holmdel, NJ 07733	ihnp4!houdi!marty1

Disclaimer: Opinions stated herein are mine unless and until my employer
            explicitly claims them; then I lose all rights to them.