Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!yale!engelson-sean From: engelson-sean@CS.YALE.EDU (Sean Philip Engelson) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Limits of AI Keywords: That was the wrong question Message-ID: <41915@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> Date: 1 Nov 88 17:44:08 GMT References: <1651@ndsuvax.UUCP> <397@uwslh.UUCP> <612@quintus.UUCP> Sender: root@yale.UUCP Reply-To: engelson-sean@CS.YALE.EDU (Sean Philip Engelson) Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept, New Haven CT 06520-2158 Lines: 36 The question that was asked: "Can man build a machine more intelligent than himself?" is, both in the individual and in the collective sense, the wrong question (as in the individual case it is trivially true, e.g. birth; and in the collective sense, given evolution, is quite probably true). The proper question is: "Can man understand the workings of an intelligence more intelligent than himself?" This is an interesting question, which raises a number of issues about the nature of knowledge and understanding, but on a practical level is less interesting than the following (which is really the fundamental question of AI): "Can man understand HIS OWN intelligence?" The answer assumed by many (if not most) AI theorists is, of course, yes; the answer given by many philosopher-types (depending on their definitions of understanding) is no. There are arguments both ways, none of them conclusive, and all of them resting on unproven assumptions. -Sean- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sean Philip Engelson, Gradual Student Yale Department of Computer Science 51 Prospect St. New Haven, CT 06511 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The frame problem and the problem of formalizing our intuiutions about inductive relevance are, in every important respect, the same thing. It is just as well, perhaps, that people working on the frame problem in AI are unaware that this is so. One imagines the expression of horror that flickers across their CRT-illuminated faces as the awful facts sink in. What could they do but "down-tool" and become philosophers? One feels for them. Just think of the cut in pay! -- Jerry Fodor (Modules, Frames, Fridgeons, Sleeping Dogs, and the Music of the Spheres)