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From: ian@oravax.UUCP (Ian Sutherland)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Can Machines Think?
Message-ID: <1326@oravax.UUCP>
Date: 7 Feb 90 01:58:41 GMT
References: <1037@ra.stsci.edu> <6902@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> <1995@moscom.UUCP> <4050@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> <907@athen.sinix.UUCP>
Reply-To: ian@oravax.odyssey.UUCP (Ian Sutherland)
Organization: Odyssey Research Associates, Ithaca, New York
Lines: 42

In article <907@athen.sinix.UUCP> es@athen.UUCP (Dr. Sanio) writes:
>In article <4050@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> jwilkins@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Jeff Wilkinson) writes:
>>so why don't we make one that does "continiously aquire, test, and
>>generalize"?  why don't we make one with reasoning imperfect and chaotic
>>enough to simulate human behavior?  why not make a mammoth machine, a
>>dynamic system so complex that it boggles the immagination, a self
>>organizing system of such sclae that it no longer "computes", but instead
>>manipulates fuzzy, vague, HUMAN-type thoughts symbolicly?  would this not be
>>thought in a machine?

Maybe so, but why in the world would we want to build such a machine?
For people who don't have enough flesh-and-blood friends?  If I were
building a machine to help me with a task which needed to function
like a human (e.g. a robot to perform or supervise a sophisticated
task in a dangerous environment), I'd want it to have LESS of the
kinds of chaotic, fuzzy vagueness described above than a human.

>The problem is, IMHO, that we are still not sure what we are looking for.
>As far as I know, nobody has given, up to now, a valid answer on the 
>question "what is intelligence (thought)".

Indeed.  I don't see why such a definition is necessary, or even
helpful.  It seems to me that most of the useful work that gets done in
the area of AI happens when people stop trying to make a machine that
"thinks", whatever that means, and adopt a more concrete goal, like
trying to make a machine to do medical diagnoses.  I think the pursuit
of "intelligence" in the field of AI is very counterproductive.

>But I doubt 
>that we are much closer to that goal
[...]
>than the medieval alchemists when 
>they modeled a human body from clay and treated it by some substances, elec-
>tricity (some experimented with static electricity!) etc in order to give
>them the spirit of life.

The likening of AI to alchemy has got to be one of the most apt
metaphors I've ever heard ...
-- 
Ian Sutherland		ian%oravax.uucp@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu

Sans Peur