Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pacbell!att!homxb!genesis!odyssey!gls
From: gls@odyssey.ATT.COM (g.l.sicherman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: computers and users
Message-ID: <849@odyssey.ATT.COM>
Date: 1 Apr 89 00:14:16 GMT
References: <848@odyssey.ATT.COM>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, West Long Branch, NJ
Lines: 34

In a footnote to my remark about the computer-user relationship, Herman
Rubin (l.cc.purdue.EDU!cik) has written to me:

> > It's important to remember that the user is part of the loop.  If a
> > computer has no users, is it a computer?
> 
> I disagree.  A computer is a device which "mechanically" performs certain
> types of symbol manipulation.  Possibly "mechanically" should be completely
> deleted.  If an electronic glitch caused a computer to perform certain
> operations, and then erase the results of those actions, it would still
> be computing, and would still be a computer.

This will remind many of the scholastics' paradox about the tree that
falls with nobody to hear.  500 years ago print media pushed us toward
an objective model of reality; now electronic media are pushing us
toward an interactive model.

The implications for A.I. are obvious if you use an interactive model.
What does a man do when there's nobody around to talk to him?  What
does a computer program do when there's nobody around to talk to it?

To *use* an artificial intelligence as an interlocutor requires you
to sustain the same kind of illusion as when you "listen" to Michael
Jackson on the stereo.

-:-
	  One day SIMON was walking to the conference hall when he
	met WEIZENBAUM, who said: "I have a problem for you to solve."
	SIMON replied, "Tell me more about your problem," and walked
	on.
						--A. I. Koans
-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
gls@odyssey.att.COM