Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!its63b!epistemi!jim
From: jim@epistemi.ed.ac.uk (Jim Scobbie)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Who else isn't a science?
Message-ID: <537@epistemi.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 16 Jun 88 09:19:59 GMT
References: <13100@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <3c84f2a9.224b@apollo.uucp> <10785@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <34227@linus.UUCP> <2618@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: jim@epistemi.ed.ac.uk (Jim Scobbie)
Organization: Cognitive Science(Epistemics)Edinburgh U.,Scotland
Lines: 61

In article <2618@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> bc@media-lab.media.mit.edu.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (bill coderre) writes:

 [[Do I quote out of context?? (ok paraphrase/quote) ]]

>Ladies and Gentlemen, might I remind you that this group is supposed
>to be about AI, and although there should be some discussion of its
>social impact, and maybe even an enlightened comment about its
>philosophical value, the most important thing is to discuss AI itself:

here it is, `AI itself'

>programming tricks, neat ideas, ...

woops a bit of reality there, check, remember critical audience, better
add in a wee bit of science to keep them happy

>                               ...and approaches to intelligence and learning


=========================================================but to be serious==

>May I also inform the above participants that a MAJORITY of AI
 research is centered around some of the following:

>Description matching and goal reduction
 Exploiting constraints
 Path analysis and finding alternatives
 Control metaphors
 Problem Solving paradigms
 Logic and Theorem Proving
 Laguage Understanding
 Image Understanding
 Learning from descriptions and samples
 Learning from experience
 Knowledge Acquisition
 Knowledge Representation

>(Well, my list isn't very good, since I just copied it out of the table
 of contents of one of the AI books.)
>refrain from telling me what I am doing
 with my research. As it happens, I am doing simulations of animal
 behavior using Society of Mind theories.
>And of course, I have to plug Society of Mind both since it is the
 source of many valuable new questions for AI to pursue, and since
 Marvin Minsky is my advisor. It is also simple enough for high school
 students to read.      
			(I've laughed out loud every time I've read this)

>I realize much of the banter is due to crossposting from
 talk.philosphy, so folks over there, could you please avoid future
 crossposts? Thank...

         (Sure, high schools produce easier questions to answer, yes?)



-- 
Jim Scobbie:    Centre for Cognitive Science and Department of Linguistics,
		Edinburgh University, 
                2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, EH8 9LW, SCOTLAND
UUCP:	 ...!ukc!cstvax!epistemi!jim     JANET:	 jim@uk.ac.ed.epistemi