Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!oliveb!pyramid!prls!philabs!linus!mbunix!bwk From: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument Summary: The long road from AI to AW. Keywords: Sapience, Sentience, Intelligence, Science, Ethics, Wisdom Message-ID: <45499@linus.UUCP> Date: 28 Feb 89 06:57:58 GMT References: <4298@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <4296@cs.Buffalo.EDU> <1989Feb20.213329.10376@cs.rochester.edu> <855@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU> <17923@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <9739@ihlpb.ATT. Sender: news@linus.UUCP Reply-To: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry Kort) Organization: Garden Golems, Inc., Norbert, WI Lines: 50 In article <9739@ihlpb.ATT.COM> arm@ihlpb.UUCP (Alex Macalalad) swallows Searle's criticism of strong AI and peers over the horizon: > Where do we go from here? There are several options: > > 1. Ignore Searle's attack and continue building AI systems which come > closer and closer to behaving like a human. Unfortunately, unless > the system is very, very good, it won't convince anyone that it's > understanding, least of all Searle. I'm not sure this is the direction we want to go. Human behavior is not a good example of intelligence or understanding. Humans are emotional, irrational, and error-prone. I think we should go in the direction of systems who are able to learn by scientific methods. > 2. Acknowledge Searle's attack and build AI "tools" which have no > claims to understanding. I am all in favor of building useful tools. Such undertakings are an excellent apprenticeship for those who would become pioneering contributors to the frontiers of AI. > 3. Sidestep Searle's attack by "strengthening" the formal system. > This could be done by adding analog states, sensory input/output, etc. > However, if the ultimate criteria for understanding remains a > behavioral one, then skeptical attacks like Searle's cannot be > avoided. Artificial Sentient Beings by the end of the millenium! > 4. Come to a better understanding of the process of understanding, and > different criteria for judging a system than just a purely behavioral one. > I think that the most satisfactory answer to Searle would be "This and > that are what is involved in understanding, and the formal system in > the Chinese room demonstrates (or fails to demonstrate) this and that > here and there." I think that most good AI research is done under this > category, where the emphasis is on understanding how the mind works, > biologically, psychologically, and computationally. Indeed. A sapient system reposes knowledge. An intelligent system thinks and solves problems. A sentient system gathers information from the outside world. A learning system integrates new information into an evolving knowledge base. An ethical system uses that information to effect worthwhile changes to the world in which it is embedded. We have a long way to go. First, artificial intelligence, then artificial sentience, then artificial wisdom. --Barry Kort