Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!convex!killer!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!ATC.BOEING.COM!ray
From: ray@ATC.BOEING.COM (Ray Allis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Re: Computer science as a subset of artificial intelligence
Message-ID: <8811171849.AA25419@ATC.BOEING.COM>
Date: 17 Nov 88 18:49:42 GMT
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In <639@quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:

>In a previous article, Ray Allis writes:
>>I was disagreeing with that too-limited definition of AI.  *Computer
>>science* is about applications of computers, *AI* is about the creation
>>of intelligent artifacts.  I don't believe digital computers, or rather
>>physical symbol systems, can be intelligent.  It's more than difficult,
>>it's not possible.
>
>There being no other game in town, this implies that AI is impossible.
>Let's face it, connectionist nets are rule-governed systems; anything a
>connectionist net can do a collection of binary gates can do and vice
>versa.  (Real neurons &c may be another story, or may not.)

But there ARE other games.  I don't believe AI is impossible.  I'm convinced
on my interpretation of evidence that AI IS possible (i.e. artifacts that
think like people).  It's just that I don't think it can be done if methods
are arbitrarily limited to only formal logic.  If by "connectionist net" you
are referring to networks of symbols, such as semantic nets, implemented on
digital computers, then, in that tiny domain, they may well all be
rule-governed systems, interchangeable with "a collection of binary gates".
Those are not the same as "neural nets" which are modelled after real
organisms' central nervous systems.  Real neurons do indeed appear to be
another story.  In their domain, rules should not be thought of as governing,
but rather as *describing* operations which are physical analogs and not
symbols.  To be  repeatedly redundant, an organism's central nervous system
runs just fine without reference to explicit rules; rules DESCRIBE, to beings
who think with symbols (guess who) what happens anyway.  AI methodology must
deal with real objects and real events in addition to symbols and form.