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From: kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Thought and Utility
Summary: Ever argued with a thermostat?
Keywords: utility, decision theory
Message-ID: <5cK702mf795h01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Date: 29 Dec 89 21:31:57 GMT
References: <31821@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <0cTG02uf793w01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <7462@cs.utexas.edu>
Reply-To: kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 29

In article <7462@cs.utexas.edu> turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:
>In article <0cTG02uf793w01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>, kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) writes:
>> Evaluating a utility function and applying a decision procedure seems to
>> me to be the formal essence of cognition.  Any system that does this has,
>> I suggest, the beginnings of intelligence.  Several other qualities are
>> relevant (use of a public language, self-modification, susceptibility to
>> argument) to full "personhood", but you have to respect a machine that
>> knows what it wants and knows how to get it.
>
>You're in good company.  John McCarthy makes the same kind of
>argument.  According to him, a thermostat is capable of three
>different thoughts: "it's too hot", "it's too cold", and "the
>temperature here is just right". 
>
>Russell

This is a familiar can of worms.  A thermostat is certainly less
intelligent than your average worm.

I would go so far as to grant that the thermostat uses a public language -
the setting dial is calibrated in print.  But the fragment of language
recognized is so small that the worm gets the edge by virtue of a much
more complex utility function.

The big deficiency in the thermostat, the worm, and every attempt at AI
I know of, is that you can't get them to alter their decision procedure
by inputting arguments via the interface that recognizes the public
language.  Of course, some humans have trouble in this regard, but anyone
who's completely immune to reason is incompetent or insane.