Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!think!ames!amdahl!pyramid!prls!philabs!linus!mbunix!marsh
From: marsh@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Ralph J. Marshall)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Who else isn't a science?
Message-ID: <34227@linus.UUCP>
Date: 13 Jun 88 13:07:50 GMT
References: <13100@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <3c84f2a9.224b@apollo.uucp> <10785@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Sender: news@linus.UUCP
Reply-To: marsh@mbunix (Ralph Marshall)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, Mass.
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In article <10785@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes:
>
>Indeed, many modern dictionaries now give an extra meaning to the word
>"intelligent", thanks, partly due to AI's decades of abuse of the term:
>it means "able to peform some of the functions of a computer".
>
>Ain't it wonderful?  AI succeeded by changing the meaning of the word.
>
>ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

I don't know what dictionary you are smoking, but _MY_ dictionary has the
following perfectly reasonable definition of intelligence:

	"The ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or
	 trying situations." (Webster's New 9th Collegiate Dictionary)

I'm not at all sure that this is really the focus of current AI work,
but I am reasonably convinced that it is a long-term goal that is worth
pursuing.