Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ames!think!bloom-beacon!wsccs.UUCP!dharvey From: dharvey@wsccs.UUCP (David Harvey) Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: The Grand Challenge is Foolish Summary: What is progress? Message-ID: <735@wsccs.UUCP> Date: 13 Oct 88 11:48:58 GMT References: Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 30 Approved: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu In a previous article, John McCarthy writes: > [In reply to message sent Mon 26 Sep 1988 23:22-EDT.] > < part of article omitted > > If John Nagle thinks that "The lesson of the last five years seems to > be that throwing money at AI is not enormously productive.", he is > also confusing science with engineering. It's like saying that the > lesson of the last five years of astronomy has been unproductive. > Progress in science is measured in longer periods than that. Put more succinctly, the payoff of Science is (or should be) increased understanding. The payoff of Engineering on the other hand should be a better widget, a way to accomplish what previously couldn't be done, or a way to save money. Too many people in our society have adopted the narrow perspective that all human endeavors must produce a monetary (or material) result. Whatever happened to the Renaissance ideal of knowledge for knowledge's sake? I am personally fascinated about what we have recently learned about the other planets in our solar system. Does that mean we must reap some sort of material gain out of the endeavor? If we use this type of criteria as our final baseline we may be missing out on some very interesting discoveries. If I read John McCarthy correctly, we are just short-sighted enough not to know whether they will turn into "Engineering" ideas in the future. Kudos to him for pointing this out. dharvey@wsccs The only thing you can know for sure, is that you can't know anything for sure.